[casual_games] Price as Signal

[Juan Gril]

Todd said:
"Advertising can easily be made to generate 20 cents per download so I think
the curveball is what happens when ad-supported casual games start becoming
more popular."
 
That's interesting. I'm very curious: how do you came up with that number?
That's like $200 CPM, right?
 
Cheers,
 
Juan
 


  _____  

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Todd Sawicki
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 11:22 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Price as Signal



The thread on pricing is interesting because when you look at revenue per
download assuming $20 price point and a 1% conversion rate - the amount of
money everyone is making per download is pennies - in this case $.20 per
download.  Advertising can easily be made to generate 20 cents per download
so I think the curveball is what happens when ad-supported casual games
start becoming more popular.

 

Personally, I believe games will be priced at the revenue maximizing level.
For certain games with crazy high conversion rates like Zuma - the $20 full
version/ free trail model will work best.  For less popular titles, free
full versions supported by ads _might_ make the most revenue as the free
price will overcome barriers to playing (perceived value then is a full free
version vs. a standard crippled trail).  Once upon a time, I worked in the
digital music space and know Sean Ryan from those days, and I think he will
agree that free music sharing encourage a lot of music sampling that
wouldn't have otherwise occurred.  The difference here is that it is
relatively easy to build advertising into games or around the games whereas
revenue was harder to track against free illegal downloads.

 

And to add more fodder to the debate - you have the RealArcade subscription
program as well as the new GameTap subscription service adding more choices
on pricing for casual games to consumers.  

 

Todd Sawicki

Sr. Director of Marketing

Zango 

 

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