Archive for the ‘Distribution’ Category

Dinosaurs and Embryos at the Social Games Summit

December 7, 2011

Where are social games going in the next few years? The panelists and speakers at the Social Games Summit were keen to speculate and debate. Here are some short, simple ideas.

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Posted in: Distribution

Tagged with: facebook, html5, latin america, platforms, pvita, social games summit

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Four ethical principles we used when making Forever Drive

November 15, 2011

“Free-to-play” games have caused intense reactions in the gaming community, with strong views on whether it is an ethically sound way to design games or whether it is slot machines in disguise. When we designed Forever Drive, we saw the opportunity to experiment with this business model for the first time. More importantly, we took it upon ourselves as a challenge to create a game that was free of any unethical mechanisms.

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Posted in: Distribution, Featured, Guest Post

Tagged with: ethics, forever drive, free, free-to-play, game design, guest post, supermono, tak fung

5 Comments
If you’re going to vary the price of Your game, Shout about it. Loudly.

October 26, 2011

In a fascinating interview on stage at the WTIA TechNW, Gabe Newell gave detailed insight into pricing experiments that Valve has run via its Steam digital distribution service.

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Posted in: Distribution, Sales

Tagged with: discounts, free-to-play, gabe newell, pricing, sales, steam, valve

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Piracy can be beaten by offering a Great Service, says Valve’s Gabe newell

October 24, 2011

Gabe Newell of Valve has created one of the most powerful distribution machines in games. His comments on piracy ought to be illuminating. And they are.

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Posted in: Distribution

Tagged with: digital distribution, gabe newell, piracy, russia, steam

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The Blue Toad Murder Files Price Experiment

October 11, 2011

Way back in 2008, Relentless was known just for Buzz! Our mega-successful, BAFTA-winning quiz franchise. We were riding high but we could feel the winds of change in the console market. PS3 had not given us our traditional Buzz audience so we looked to create a way out of Sony exclsuivity and dependance on a single platform and a single franchise. In December that year, we greenlit the episodic murder mystery game Blue Toad Murder Files. Split into 6 episodes aping a TV detective series it also allowed us to do a pricing experiment. This blog is about how we ending up with making FREE our entry price.

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Posted in: Distribution, Guest Post, Marketing, Sales

Tagged with: andrew eades, blue toad murder files, free games, free-to-play, iOS, iphone, iterated marketing, relentless software, revenue, statistics

2 Comments
XBLA in Decline, says 2DBoy’s Ron Carmel: a case study for Open over closed

October 4, 2011

Ron Carmel, of World of Goo fame, has written an excellent post on the challenges facing XBLA. He believes that the platform peaked in 2010 from the point of view of developers choosing the platform, that Microsoft hasn’t really noticed. He offers a ten stage plan for Microsoft to recover its standing, split into two lists of five (basically one consists of little tweaks and the other consists of “becoming more like the AppStore”.

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Posted in: Analysis, Distribution, Featured

Tagged with: 2dboy, curation, filtering, microsoft, ron carmel, world of goo, xbla

6 Comments
In-App Purchases “Bring in the Dough”

September 30, 2011

Social Cast’s mobile affairs infographic confirms that the best way to make money from mobile games is through IAP. Since September 2009, revenue from IAP has soared, while revenue from advertising has remained almost static. With an average IAP spend per user of $14, compared to an average app price of $2.43, it’s clear that a model [...]

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Posted in: Distribution, Sales

Tagged with: free games, IAP, mobile affairs, revenue, social cast, statistics

2 Comments