[casual_games] New Issue of Casual Games Quarterly is available

Mon Jan 9 18:59:57 EST 2006

I was very happy to see the data that iWin generously shared, but I'd be 
interested in seeing data for a more 'typical' casual game before I drew too 
many general conclusions.  Family Feud is a known franchise, with no other 
casual games closely replicating either it's franchise or it's gameplay 
mechanic, thus allowing it to charge a bit more, IMO.  (i.e. if it were just 
another match-3 or Zuma clone, I think consumer resistance on price would be 
higher, given that consumers have more alternatives.)

Second, F.F. as a game doesn't have much 'duration' - at least when I played 
it.  There's not much depth and I got bored more quickly than I do for 
typical casual games.  I quit after 20 minutes, and I suspect many users had 
their fill for sure by 60.  30 minutes may in fact be better than 60, but 
I'd like to see that proven out with a game with a continuing story and more 
gameplay variety than F.F. before I would be sure of that.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Szeder" <john at mofactor.com>
To: "'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'" <casual_games at igda.org>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 3:58 PM
Subject: RE: [casual_games] New Issue of Casual Games Quarterly is available

> The most important takeaway on that front for me was the issue of length 
> of
> game demos.
>
> There is some sensitivity in how much to show people for free that needs 
> to
> be fine tuned in order to provide enough interest to people to create a
> customer, and there is a little evidence in there to support that an hour 
> is
> just too much.
>
> The other thought is that you can create feature locks and privilege 
> levels
> for games. This way you can explore some scenarios, and have a DLL or lib
> you link against that is provided by the DRM partner to provide an API to
> expose the privilege level.
>
> Potential Levels:
>
> FREE - user has paid nothing, only gets levels one and two
> BRONZE - user paid 9.95 for the basic game, gets all levels but no 
> powerups
> of type X, no leaderboard
> GOLD - user paid 19.95, gets levels, some powerups, leaderboard
> PLATINUM - user paid 39.95, gets levels, powerups, secret levels, cheats, 
> in
> game personalization features, etc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of Lennard Feddersen
> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 1:44 PM
> To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [casual_games] New Issue of Casual Games Quarterly is 
> available
>
> Am I missing some way to use the site to get actual sales #'s?
>
> I thought the iWin article by CJ Wolf was useful in several ways and
> appreciated the simple breakdown of earnings per download.  His opinion
> that we shouldn't drift towards a price war and to find more ways to
> calculate the most profitable pricing were well done.
>
> Happy game makin'
>
> Lennard Feddersen
> CEO, Rusty Axe Games, Inc.
> www.RustyAxe.com
>
> Lennard at RustyAxe.com
> P. 250-635-7623 F. 1-309-422-2466
> 3521 Dogwood, Terrace, BC, Canada, V8G-4Y7
>
>
>
> James C. Smith wrote:
>
>>>>Interesting data from James Smith's Real Arcade article...
>>>>only there's a fundamental flaw in the presentation of that data...
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>You bring up some good points. Those are things I did consider but didn't
>>have any good solution to.
>>You can do you own analysis along those lines using all the data I made
>>public.  If you go to www.game-sales-charts.com you can run the queries
> your
>>self on the current data and tweak some of the options. Or you can click 
>>on
>>the IGDA Article link on the site and download the full data used for the
>>article in an excel file.
>>
>>On the issue of a games position in the top 10, if you go to the web site
>>and run the "Top Games" query it will have a column for 'number of weeks'
>>and also a column for 'score'. There is an option to rank the games by
>>either number of weeks or score.  The "score" is a simple formula that
> gives
>>more points to game that were ranked higher.  But the problem is there is
> no
>>clear answer for how those scores should be weights.  Is 2 weeks at #1
> worth
>>more then three weeks at #2? What should the point difference be between 
>>#1
>>and #2?  Or between #2 and #3?  My "score" system is just a very simple
>>linear scale with 10 point for each week spent at #1 and 1 point for each
>>week spend at #10.  But for the article I chose to rank the games by weeks
>>rather than score because it is a more transparent method.  It is less
>>subjective. Any "score" system I devised could be tweaked to favor one 
>>type
>>of game over another.  More importantly, it just didn't make much
>>difference.  Most games fallow a similar pattern of quickly climbing to 
>>the
>>top of the list and slowly falling down.  The longer a game was on the
> list,
>>the more likely they spent a long time near the top.  When I compared the
>>rankings based on weeks vs. the ranking based on 'score' I ended up with
>>very similar rankings.  I decided it wasn't worth having people 
>>questioning
>>the score system and instead just published the raw number of weeks since
> it
>>ended up with nearly the same results anyway.
>>
>>
>>Your second point about the competition at the time of the games release 
>>is
>>also very relevant but has no clear solution. How much weighting should be
>>applied? It is more useful to look at a games performance compared to the
>>other games available at the time of it's release. For example, for a game
>>released in 2005, only compare it to other games also released in 2005.
> You
>>can do things like that using the options on the web site or by 
>>downloading
>>the data and doing your own analysis. But I presented a simple summary in
>>the article to peek people's interests and let them dig deeper themselves.
>>
>>There are a dozen different ways to summarize this data. I presented a few
>>in the article and more several more available on-line.  It is not perfect
>>but it is a great start.  It is wonderful to have access to all this data.
>>I hope you would share any results you get from analyzing the data
> yourself.
>>
>>James C. Smith
>>Webmaster: www.game-sales-charts.com
>>Producer: Ricochet xxx, Big Kahuna xxx
>>
>>PS: I am sorry my game-sales-charts.com web site is not very reliable
>>lately. I will be moving it to a new host soon.
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
>>On Behalf Of SCOTT HANSEN
>>Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 12:49 PM
>>To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
>>Subject: RE: [casual_games] New Issue of Casual Games Quarterly is
> available
>>
>>
>>Interesting data from James Smith's Real Arcade article... only there's a
>>fundamental flaw in the presentation of that data...
>>
>>First, it doesn't take into account the ranking within the top ten over 
>>the
>>life of the game... Game A can spend 10 weeks at number 1 and Game B can
>>spend 10 weeks at number 10, yet both would receive the same overall
> 'rank'.
>>
>>
>>Second, it does not factor in the increasing number of games. Earlier 
>>games
>>lasted longer on the top ten because there were fewer games to push them
>>off.
>>
>>Wouldn't it be more relevant to have some sort of weighted average which
>>takes into account the proportional relevance of the rank within the top
> ten
>>over the life of the product? It can even be 'inflation adjusted' to take
>>into account the churn rate at the time it was active on the list...
>>
>>Scott P Hansen
>>Game Designer, MumboJumbo
>>shansen at udgames.com
>>
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
>>On Behalf Of Wade Tinney
>>Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 9:20 AM
>>To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
>>Subject: [casual_games] New Issue of Casual Games Quarterly is available
>>
>>
>>There is a new issue of the Casual Games Quarterly now available at
>>http://www.igda.org/casual/quarterly/1_2/
>>
>>Please don't hesitate to send feedback, ideas for the next issue (which
> will
>>focus on game design), or questions.
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>
> -- 
>
>
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