[casual_games] RE: Business models

Thu Sep 1 16:12:30 EDT 2005

Large Animal also uses ActiveMark, and it's generally a breeze to work with.
Even misguided associate producers can figure it out ;)

Cheers,

Coray Seifert
Associate Producer
Large Animal Games
www.largeanimal.com <http://www.largeanimal.com/>

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]On
Behalf Of John Welch
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 4:05 PM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: RE: [casual_games] RE: Business models

The DRM is specified by the portal, not the developer. (Of course,
developers often have their own site to sell games, and then they would need
to have a DRM). The most common one across the big portals is Trymedia's
ActiveMark. I believe it is used by Yahoo, Pogo, and AOL. Also Big Fish
Games. Many more sites as well.

The other big sites each have a proprietary system. PlayFirst.com also uses
a proprietary system. One popular strategy behind the proprietary systems is
to build atop Digital River's Armadillo encryption stuff. You can see what
we did with it by downloading a game from www.playfirst.com
<http://www.playfirst.com> .

I don't see why you would look further than Trymedia for turnkey solution or
Armadillo (now called Software Passport or something) if you want to build a
custom solution.

-John
________________________

John Welch, President & CEO
PLAY:  www.PlayFirst.com <http://www.playfirst.com/>
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  _____

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Jeff Siegel
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 12:47 PM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: RE: [casual_games] RE: Business models
This is a fantastic discussion. If I can put one other question to the
group, perhaps a little off the track: what DRM solutions are developers
using? Has anyone had better or worse experiences with anything in
particular?

Thanks,

Jeff
---------------------------
Jeff Siegel
JeffMedia Solutions, L.L.C.
917 842-3791
jeff.siegel at jeffmedia.com
-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]On
Behalf Of George Donovan
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 3:09 PM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [casual_games] RE: Business models
One thing that I have done with the www.Toy-games.com
<http://www.Toy-games.com>  team is to minimize the development risk by
pre-selling or selling during development certain rights. Wireless, and
Retail are the obvious starting points that usually get me well above our
development budget so that online sales become a profit rather than a
recovery.

Having channels worldwide also helps. We were in 5 channels last year and
this year we are in 15 channels and I suspect that companies like Popcap and
Gamehouse  have 40-60. Every channel is a multiple and bonus revenue and
gives a your development team or a large high burnrate team a less riskier
forcast to project out.

We have also curt down development timelines to 6 weeks (some card games are
4 and original concepts are 8). Now we also have 22 retail titles under our
belt so Q&A and some GUI was already very well established and a great asset
in this business.

George Donovan
VP Business Development
Infiknoweldge ULC
(A www.Traffixinc.com <http://www.traffixinc.com/>  Company)
office: 506.855.2991 x111
cell: 506.866.4585
fax: 506.852.9510
Check out www.Gamefiesta.com <http://www.gamefiesta.com/>  the New Game
destination for all your interactive desires.

  _____

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Margaret Wallace
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 3:58 PM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [casual_games] RE: Business models
One pervasive trend I see in the Casual Games market is that production
budgets are continuously going up and so are production cycles  --  but the
"churn rate" for the majority of casual games on portals is higher than
ever: a week or two at best.

All of this leads me to question: At what point do you see minimizing
returns for these hefty production budgets and development cycles?

Of course, part of the answer lies in continuously churning out hit games,
however, I worry these conditions may impede growth and innovation.

Thoughts?

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Allen Varney
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 9:14 AM
To: casual_games at igda.org
Subject: [casual_games] RE: Business models

Brent Lowrie wrote:

   (((This is the unknown that most new developers fear and having access to
this sort of information would help more new developers break out of indie
development and into commercial deals.)))

   "Break out of indie development"? This makes indie gaming sound like a
second-string, minor-league affair. I argue indie game developers are in a
far better situation, both economically and culturally, than the
increasingly beleaguered developer of retail computer games.
   For a discussion of the benighted state of retail game development, see
Greg Costikyan's article in the current issue of The Escapist magazine:

   http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3

   And to see why I think casual-game designers are far better off in the
long run, see my article "Casual Fortunes" in the same issue:

  http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/14

-- Allen Varney
www.allenvarney.com <http://www.allenvarney.com/>
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