[casual_games] Digital Shelf Space

Fri Sep 2 14:03:03 EDT 2005

I just want to adress the comment that James and Wade made about
implementing technological features for better placement of games. It's not
that the people in portals wouldn't do these things. The biggest problem is
that all major portals today are still asking themselves the same question
they were asking themselves years ago: "Am I a distributor or a publisher?".
So while they try to answer this question, they go into different business
models which let them have more control over the content (clubs... passes...
you get the idea).

Ironically enough, the biggest growth in market share in 2004 and 2005 are
attributed to the small web sites who have a very clear idea of what they
are first and foremost, and yes, definitely those who will implement the
technological features that you talk about will let then grow the volume
that they need to go into the next step.

The big question is? Will it be just one? Or two, or less than five? It
seems that though Amazon is big, a lot of people use search engines to look
for the best price of a product. And then you can think: so search engines
become the front-end right? 

Cheers,

Juan

  _____  

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of James Gwertzman
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 9:56 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Digital Shelf Space

First, I'd like to clarify one of the terms you're using below -- when you
say "publisher" I think you mean "retailer", the company that runs the web
site where people go to purchase games. 

I do think that some of the trends you describe below are on the horizon;
that's one of the reasons why my partners and I at Sprout Games decided to
sell our company to PopCap. We believe that in coming years, having a strong
brand like PopCap and ample development resources will be very important
components for success.

The reason that the churn rate is increasing is not because developers are
making more games, it's that there are more developers making games. The
high profit margins that existed in the casual game space for several years
have attracted a large number of quite capable developers, which are in turn
creating a higher number of quality titles. Retailers are in the business of
selling games; more games on the shelves inevitably mean that titles won't
last in the top 10 as long as they used to -- unless they're exceptionally
good games.

I do think, however, that we can all be using the tools of the Internet --
personalization, direct marketing, collaborative filtering, intelligent
promotions, etc -- to do a better job promoting games and selling to
customers. Amazon, for example, uses a huge array of tools to connect
customers with appropriate content. Few of the big game portals right now do
much more than have a long list of games, separated into categories, with a
top-10 list and occasional email newsletters. What about:

- intelligent cross-promotions? (people who like game X also like game Y...
buy them both and save 10%!)
- personalized recommendations? (based on games you've bought in the past,
we think you'll love this game!)
- more top-10 lists? (top 10 best-selling games of all times... top 10
critically rated games... etc)

I don't think, however, that "sales, rebates, coupons, clearance, specials"
are the answer. Some might say these tools of traditional retail are
inevitable, but I certainly hope we can do better.

-------------------------------------------------
James Gwertzman
Director of Business Development
PopCap Games
206-256-4210 (w)

On Sep 2, 2005, at 5:55 AM, Eric Lamendola wrote:

Good Morning All,

If production budgets keep climbing and the churn rate is becoming
increasingly faster, does the Casual Games space look like it will suffer
the same fate as the console market (or movies for that matter) where price
points go up and the quality goes down?  It also appears that based on this
trend, there is less and less room for a "sleeper hit".  Word of mouth is
what has kept a part of this industry alive for a long time and some
publishers seem to be moving towards more and more models that cycle a game
out in a week or two not allowing a title to pick up enough steam to get a
W-O-M campaign behind it.

In this online world, the "Digi-Browsing" retail concept is clearly not the
same as brick and mortar.  Sure, you can list 200 games on a site or provide
links and graphics to the top 10 games, but browsing through 200 titles
online is incredibly daunting and not nearly as effective as walking down an
aisle in a store where you can look at box covers and browse 40 titles at a
time.  Online, it appears on a given screen that you can either give no
information about 40 games, just enough information about 6 games, or too
much information about 1 game.

So, what is truly the cause of this issue and what is the most effective
solution?  Especially since some publishers put up hundreds of titles in a
year, is the onus on the publisher to be more selective of content and be
more conscious of driving sales to ALL of their products and not just
"What's New"?  Is the onus on developers to start making fewer titles in a
year to allow their previous titles a chance to excel on their own?  Is
there a new way to display product information that allows people to see new
product without completely shifting the focus away from other popular and
potentially more successful products?  In looking at several retail models,
there seems to be a lack of "retail-related" standards in the sales of
online games.  Only recently have a few companies introduced the concept of
sales, rebates, coupons, clearance, specials, etc. which seems to be the
next logical choice for driving sales to different "departments". 

The Mobile space has even less "shelf space" and there are several hundred
titles in the queues at the wireless companies clamoring to be on the deck.
There you get 10 lines of text in which a product will appear with 9 others
with: no option to sample the product, see screen shots, or get any
information about a game before purchasing it.  This is going to be even a
MORE difficult nut to crack.

Just wondering.

--------- www.slingo.com - "First in Fun" -----------

Eric Lamendola

Director of Operations, Slingo Inc.

Business Development / Game Design

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