[casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

Wed Sep 28 11:12:44 EDT 2005

MOG is a great idea and very well executed. Congratulations on getting
it off the ground. I've got the little "Mog it!" button on my tool bar
and have been using it. 

I'm curious about the demographics of MOG users. I realize you are not
explicitly gathering this information, but I'm wondering if you have any
sense of it, nonetheless. My intuition leads me to guess that the people
featured on the WildGames page I referenced (
http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/contests.aspx?dp=wildgames
<http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/contests.aspx?dp=wildgames&bw=high>
&bw=high) are probably *not* likely MOG users, and that your users are
probably significantly younger; more like a Miniclip audience. Correct
me if I'm wrong (either Colin, or anyone else reading this), but I don't
think this younger audience is purchasing downloadable casual games.
They may be playing them, but I don't get the sense that they are paying
for them (at least not in significant numbers). That audience seems like
a perfect one to monetize via advertising, but not to sell the "classic"
downloadable, single-player game to. 

Taking this assumption further, it seems that while a site like MOG is a
tremendous resource for gauging the success of one's web-based (read: ad
rev generating) game offerings, and to see what is working in that
market, it may not be such relevant data for try-and-buy downloadable
games, because its just not the same audience. In other words, I can't
assume that the games that are popular with MOGgers (online, download,
or otherwise) are going to be popular with those people who are actually
buying games. Also, if my site doesn't have a way of monetizing traffic
outside of game sales (i.e. no advertising), then it doesn't help me to
attract lots of traffic to my site (via MOG, Newgrounds, or whatever),
since I'm only going to spend more money serving up games to people who
will likely not buy them. 

To tell the truth, I hope that I'm wrong about all this; I just wanted
to throw it out there and see what people think. Hopefully someone has
some data/insight which will disprove this theory. 

Thanks!

Wade

Wade Tinney
partner, game designer
Large Animal Games
 <http://www.largeanimal.com/> http://www.largeanimal.com
wade at largeanimal.com

 -----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Colin Cardwell
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 9:54 PM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

As some of you know, we've launched MOG (www.millionsofgames.com) in the
last couple of weeks. The very purpose of the site is to provide a
community for casual game fans. Although at the moment Moggers (our
members) can store their favourite games and rate them, they will soon
be able to add comments/reviews of games. We also track game plays and
who has Mogged a game. The data is time based so once we have sufficient
volume of usage, we'll be releasing daily, weekly, monthly charts
overall and in each game category, hoping to give everyone who is
interested in casual games a very valuable source of useful data.

The growth of the site I think is interesting. It has been picked up by
quite a lot of news sites, the home page of Slashdot helped a lot.
What's key for us though is that almost 900 games have been added in
only 3 weeks by our Moggers and if that rate continues, we'll pretty
soon have the largest list of online and casual games around, which is
our goal. Add to that reviews and the other data we're collecting and
you can begin to see the potential of the site. 

I'm not just trying to tell you how wonderful our site is by the way,
I'm just trying to explain some of its potential, it certainly still has
a long way to go. We very much want this to be a community site so we
would be very interested in views/ideas/feedback/requests from this
group in particular. If this site builds to the level we anticipate, it
will be a great place to promote any new games you have (and old ones
for that matter), get ideas for games, see who likes what, find out what
doesn't work, etc etc. 

I hope this was useful.. 

Colin

Colin Cardwell - Director - 3RD sense Australia Pty Ltd
T. +61 (0) 2 9959 1008     M. +61 (0) 401 888 322   
E.  <mailto:colin at 3rdsense.com> colin at 3rdsense.com    W.
<http://www.3rdsense.com/> www.3rdsense.com

 <http://www.playaholics.com/> www.playaholics.com - play games and win
stuff
 <http://www.chickstop.com/> www.chickstop.com - for girls who like to
play
 <http://www.millionsofgames.com/> www.millionsofgames.com - source,
save and share your favourite online games

  _____  

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Wade Tinney
Sent: Wednesday, 28 September 2005 12:30 AM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

Just to clarify, James. You are asking about groups/sites where casual
games are discussed and/or reviewed by players, right (and NOT links to
sites that simply distribute said games)?

It's a very good question. I've had a tough time finding such sites in
the past. I'd love to hear what you uncover. 

There is a lot of player-to-player interaction on Pogo, of course, but
it happens in real-time during play. 

Also, if you've never checked out the contest winners pages on
WildGames, those are pretty interesting/entertaining as well. At the
bottom of this page, you'll find a whole set of "view winners" links: 
http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/contests.aspx?dp=wildgames
<http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/contests.aspx?dp=wildgames&bw=high>
&bw=high

I realize it's not exactly what you're talking about, but if you're
looking to better understand the casual audience, I think its pretty
useful. 

-Wade

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Jack Pearson
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 4:16 PM
To: Andy Makely; IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

www.tournamentgames.com  online pay to play tournaments. All DirectX
casual games online since since 1997.
236 million games played to date.  350,000 played each week

Jack Pearson, CEO
Tournament Games Inc,
www.TGPool.com
www.TournamentGames.com 
jack at tournamentgames.com

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]On Behalf Of Andy Makely
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 1:39 PM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

www.jayisgames.com is a great games blog that covers primarily web
games, but also touches on downloadables sometimes.

-- 
andy

On 9/26/05, James Baker - WDDG/Inferno <james at wddg.com> wrote: 

I'm trying to put together a database of user-groups and/or websites on
the user/player side that are dedicated to casual games.  Anything from
forums dedicated to word games to yahoo groups to newsgroups to websites

would help me out.

Thanks!

James Baker
Principal
WDDG/Inferno/Funtank
212-219-9222
james at wddg.com
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