[casual_games] If Vista is going to be such a problem...

[Christopher Natsuume]

"as I mentioned in my earlier post they also have a batch rating program
that we use to get bunches of games from mixed developers rated"

 

-         Out of curiosity, can developers then supply builds of the same
game to other distributors claiming the same ESRB rating? As mentioned
before, that would create a very strong incentive for developers to bring
their games to WT (or other portals with the same service) in addition to
self -distribution or smaller-portal releases.

 

Cn

 

 

  _____  

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Alex St. John
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 12:48 AM
To: casual_games at igda.org
Subject: [casual_games] If Vista is going to be such a problem...

 

Wow James, I'm utterly floored.  I've never seen anybody get it so backwards
in one go.  WildTangent and Real BECAUSE we have downloadable clients
benefit tremendously from all the problems with Vista.   While web pages
have roughly a 1% conversion probability, clients have 2%-4%.  With Vista's
additional "Security measures" for downloadable content,  traditional
downloadable game portals are in for a very rough time.  Because Real and
WildTangent can apply a single install signature to all packaged games and
have a pre-installed download manager we bypass half the Vista warning
dialogs that impair downloadble content.  Combined with the fact that we are
prinstalled on all Dell, HP, Toshiba and Gateway computers shipping with
Vista and populate the new game explorer with over 30 casual games including
yours, we'll do exceedingly well under the circumstances.  We've had a full
year of engineering and development to devote to overcoming the hurdles many
other small developers are just beginning to face.  

 

We can ship popcap games preinstalled on 25 million Vista machines next year
BECAUSE popcap is big enough to be able to afford to get ESRB ratings for
its games.  We'd like to be able to populate the Windows Game Explorer with
more casual games, but because of the problems we have to ask small
developers to get their games rated.   (*By the way I'm gratified to hear
that the ESRB may have a $400 option, as I mentioned in my earlier post they
also have a batch rating program that we use to get bunches of games from
mixed developers rated)  

 

Finally the MS game explorer is no competitive threat to Real or WT because
it's also not a game download manager which is the principle feature/value
proposition of these products.  It's just frustrating that we can't support
Vista parental controls because Microsoft made them so onerous to work with.
We implimented a very consumer friendly version of parental controls in our
new Vista client (also ESRB based), but they don't interoperate with the
Vista ones which, if enabled, can just break the games that our client is
already managing.

 

So I'm sorry you think that my input to the forum is self serving, but Vista
problems are great for us because we're already effective at dealing with
them.  I had sincerly intended to inform folks who haven't gotten there yet
about the problems we encountered on the way.  I know Microsoft sells a lot
of popcap games for you, so I understand your desire to defend them, but
enabling Microsoft to stay in denial about the problems they've created
isn't doing them any favors.  We need them to listen and take feedback, not
remain in denial that they're making mistakes that impact our business. 

 

This was before your time at Popcap, but do you see this dip in popcap
traffic on Aug. 2004?  That dips name is Windows XP/SP2.  It screwed up all
ActiveX enabled games, java games, and download managers across the Internet
and cast a pall on downloadable game sales that the Internet may never have
recovered from.  The huge surge in apparent traffic on your site was all
your downloading customers, giving up and playing the free flash games on
your site because XP/SP2 scared them away from downloading.  (Take a look at
the Alexa graph for that exact date for other game portals as well, the
impact is clear)  Microsoft's careless little changes have a real financial
impact on all of us and they need to be aware of it.

 

 
<http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?u=popcap.com&u=&u=&u=&u=&r=3y&y=r&z=1&h=300&
w=500> 

 

Jame said>

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Most of the posts on this subject so far have been negative about the 
new Game Explorer, which surprises me since I expected more independent 
developers to be excited about Game Explorer. Frankly it's the 
entrenched portals with their own third-party solutions (like 
RealNetworks and WildTangent) that I expected to be the most negative. 

That's why I'm not at all surprised that Alex St. John is opposed to the 
Game Explorer -- it threatens his own game channel solution. But for the 
indie developer I think it's overall a net improvement. 

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