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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Sandbox   >   Gamesbrief’s Weekly Tweets for 2009-10-30

Gamesbrief’s Weekly Tweets for 2009-10-30

By on October 30, 2009
  • RT @patlike: Sony's PS division has now lost almost $5 billion since launching PS3 – http://bit.ly/396PEa #
  • Just posted: GamerDNA halves its workforce as games advertising enters terminal decline http://tinyurl.com/yjlxodm #
  • Apple getting caught up in policing "he copied me, Dad, I did it first, kick him off please" #cgf09 #
  • Just posted: Feeding the funnel – turning users into profits http://tinyurl.com/yggdhx5 #
  • QuizQuizQuiz is a very successful quiz game with no brand in sight (WWTBAM eat your heart out) #cgf09 #
  • Pocket God is now generating 27% of revenue from in-app sales #cgf09 #
  • EA had 5 games in the top 20 iPhone chart yesterday (based on revenues, not downloads) #cgf09 <- they're turning the supertanker #
  • Currently over 6,000 AppStore puzzle games alone. #cgf09 #
  • iPhone games loyalty: 72% are playing after 30 days; 23% after 60 days; 16% after 90 days <- limited loyalty #cgf09 #
  • Only 35% of iPod touch users are on OS 3.0 or above (prob because they have to pay to upgrade) #cgf09 #
  • All this iphone data is coming courtesy of @beamadelica BTW #cgf09 #
  • iPhone users download approximately 10 new apps every month; iPod touch users download 18 #cgf09 #
  • 65% of those 80 apps were free, though #cgf09 #
  • Average iPhone user has spent $80 on 65 applications #cgf09 #
  • Just finished my talk on Feeding The Funnel at #cgf09. Slides up at http://www.slideshare.net/nicholaslovell #
  • Development is the heart of Playfish, but statistical analysis is the brain #cgf09 #
  • Pet Society and Restaurant City teams are 3x the size they were 12 months ago #cgf09 #
  • Playfish: everything we do is about giving our consumers love, and getting love back #cgf09 #
  • 100,000 users voted for what drinks they wanted added to Restaurant City = community empowerment #cgf09 #
  • Playfish has 35 moderators in 11 languages for their forums #cgf09 #
  • Playfish collects 1 billion datapoints every day <- It was 300-400 million in July 09. #cgf09 #
  • The new casual audience (acc Playfish) is Gen Y, 16-34, 50:50 M/F split #cgf09 #
  • Playfish audience: 30% Americas, 30% Europe, 30% Asia, 10% RoW #cgf09 #
  • Success in casual games is a function of distribution, engagement, monetization says Playfish #cgf09 #
  • Just to be clear, not every item bought in Restaurant City is for real cash – you can earn money in-game #cgf09 #
  • 180,000 black pianos for Restaurant City (approx $1.20 each) sold yesterday (not all for straight cash, tho) #cgf09 #
  • In Restaurant City, Playfish sells 40,000,000 items every day #cgf09 #
  • Xavier Louis of Playfish up now to talk about building community #cgf09 #
  • Segerstrale: The thing that takes time in building a social game is learning to understand the consumer in a social environment #cgf09 #
  • Sony's PSN interpretation (according to non-Sony man Sandy Duncan) is that a casual game is a game under 100 Mb #cgf09 #
  • Being able to put your product in front of consumers without them paying for it upfront is crucially important now – Spall #cgf09 #
  • Today a publisher is a bank & route to retail; tomorrow, publisher's core skill will be building a community that loves it #cgf09 #
  • Playfish has 2 games that are bigger than Warcraft by monthly uniques: Pet Society 20 million, Restaurant City 17 million #cgf09 #
  • Just posted: MechScape cancellation costs Jagex tens of millions http://tinyurl.com/yhxljrf #
  • Chasey: stats show most devs have released only 1 title on the AppStore, implying it wasn't a great success for them #cgf09 #
  • Consider setting your company up as an EIS firm at the beginning – can pay off big time if you have a successful companpy #cgf09 #
  • Chasey source of finance for startups are Friends, Family and Fools #cgf09 #
  • Chasey: IOMO non-exec earned more for 2 days than I earned for whole month as MD. Expensive, but best decision I ever made #cgf09 #
  • Chasey: work with advisors, but never family friends. Use specialists, otherwise you're paying for them to learn #cgf09 #
  • John Chasey of Finblade talking on the issues of finance for startups #cgf09 #
  • EA's casual games take 1-2 years (shortest dev cycle is 9 months) #cgf09 #
  • EA is releasing a game on DSiWare as a test for a future packaged good franchise; a bit like Playfish releasing after 20% of dev #cgf09 #
  • Professor Layton gives you 3 reminders of the story so far every time you log in – a great way of keeping narrative going #cgf09 #
  • EA's Harvey Elliott says many casual games don't worry about units sold & are lazy/repetitive <- that's a core issue not a casual one #cgf09 #
  • Wow. In a recession, kids ask for games at Christmas and birthday, but they know money is tight (!) so don't ask inbetween #cgf09 #
  • Pogo users spend an average of 2 hours a day online, Harvey Elliott #cgf09 #
  • 70% of people in the US play games; the UK figure is 50%, but most of them don't call themselves gamers #cgf09 #
  • Harvey Elliott: Namechecked Tetris, Scrabble and Solitaire as original casual games #cgf09 #
  • References to barrels and crates being pointless in games. <- true, but will they ever go away? #cgf09 #
  • Getting core gamers to explain games to non-gamers is like a classical fan explaining music to someone destined to be a rap fan #cgf09 #
  • Not yet following where Harvey Elliott is going – I think he's saying that we need core gamers to evangelise casual games #cgf09 #
  • Harvey Elliott: The OED know has a definition of "gamer". This is progress #cgf09 #
  • Developers and publishers tend to make games that we like – not so good for people outside our industry #cgf09 #
  • Harvey Elliott of Electronic Arts on the stage at #cgf09 #
  • At the Casual Games Forum with Martin De Ronde. Is there a hashtag? How about #CGF09? #
  • Just put a new ad network up and I've got Dominos Pizza advertising. Are pizza and gaming really that closely correlated? #
  • Drafting pres on "Feeding the Funnel: turning users into profits" for Casual Games Forum tomorrow. Will I see you there?http://bit.ly/2Hbc52 #
  • OMG Audience participation at #cabinetforum. Run away. Run away. #
  • David Rowan I worry that those industries with access to ministers are the big blocks (eg: music) – SMEs not good lobbyists #cabinetforum #
  • @AlexGuest Banks and creative industries aren't easy bedfellows; operational and financial leverage don't go together well #cabinetforum in reply to AlexGuest #
  • Anyone following me going to be at the #cabinetforum at the Grove tomorrow or Wednesday? Let me know. #
  • Relationship with co-founders is key to any startup: "It's like we're married, but we're not fucking" http://bit.ly/3kucQn #
  • Fascinating piece on piracy and the AppStore from Smells Like Donkey http://bit.ly/39UlZr (via @GIBiz) #
  • Has the gloss gone from "cheap-plastic-addon" music games? http://bit.ly/jujVl #
  • Brave (and actually quite heartwarming) piece on the dangers of gaming addiction http://bit.ly/32kIsc #
  • Just posted: Sid Meier to bring Civilization to Facebook http://tinyurl.com/ygd88fr #

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com