[casual_games] Top Download List

[Hal Barwood]

We're in a sad business, because the echo of retail haunts us -- NPD 
carefully conceals *everything* unless you sign up for very expensive 
reports.  Contrast this with the movie biz, where all you need is a 
subscription to Variety to get weekly numbers for movies and television. 
  We don't need per-portal info, but any info is better than none, 
right?  I can't imagine pop-ups on casual-gamers' machines will ever be 
very popular, or even worse, eventual discovery of even more stealthy 
tricks we might use, so let's hope that some form of non-invasive 
guerilla action actually works.

Hal


James Gwertzman wrote:
> I've talked to some of the major portals about this initiative. There is
> some willingness to support this, however it would need to be
> administered by an independent company/group which will guarantee to
> keep the actual numbers from any one portal a secret. Just like NPD does
> for retail sales today.
> 
> I appreciate the offer of code, but technology in this case is not the
> issue. The reporting could even be done by hand - it's not very complex.
> A weekly spreadsheet report from 4-5 major portals would be enough. The
> challenge instead is establishing the independent group with enough
> trust from the portals to go along.
> 
> --------------------
> James Gwertzman 
> Director of Business Development
> PopCap Games
> +1-206-256-4210
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
> [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Colin Cardwell
> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 8:53 PM
> To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
> Subject: RE: [casual_games] Top Download List
> 
> Hi folks
> 
> I think this is what the industry needs and I'm happy to volunteer our
> services to build this if required. The code base we have for MOG
> (www.millionsofgames.com) goes a long way towards doing this and it may
> even
> be appropriate for us to adapt MOG so that it becomes the chart. We are
> already planning weekly charts for MOG anyway so it is not very
> difficult
> for us to include some additional data about downloads and sales of
> games.
> 
> We would also need to allow sites to register and get access to an API
> which
> we would provide, and they could then post both downloads and sales in
> real
> time. 
> 
> I'd even be happy to provide access to the data and the code to either
> the
> Casual Games Association or the IGDA SIG so that the results can be
> audited
> and remain 'independent'. 
> 
> I guess the tough part would be to get the big portals on board.  This
> really would be a good initiative as it would really help the industry
> to be
> taken even more seriously.
> 
> I'm also happy to explore the development of 'play' monitoring tools too
> so
> that we could also track how often a game was played and for how long.
> This
> would need developers to buy in to that too, but I think it would be
> pretty
> valuable for the industry.
> 
> I'd welcome any thoughts on this too.
> 
> 
> 
> Colin
> 
> Colin Cardwell - Director - 3RD sense Australia Pty Ltd
> T. +61 (0) 2 9959 1008     M. +61 (0) 401 888 322   
> E. colin at 3rdsense.com    W. www.3rdsense.com
> 
> 
> www.playaholics.com - play games and win stuff
> www.chickstop.com - for girls who like to play
> www.millionsofgames.com - source, save and share your favourite online
> games
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
> [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of James Gwertzman
> Sent: Monday, 16 January 2006 1:05 PM
> To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
> Subject: RE: [casual_games] Top Download List
> 
> The IGDA Casual Game SIG is working on this, although it's a lower
> priority behind some of our other initiatives. This was specifically
> listed in a recent interview with the IGDA casual game SIG quarterly:
> 
> Industry-wide top 100 billboard.
> 
> Nearly every other entertainment industry (movies, books, traditional
> games, etc) has some sort of industry-wide "billboard". I think it's
> high time we had one in the casual game space. Not only would this help
> smaller developers "get noticed" more quickly, but it would also help
> our industry as a whole get more PR attention from mainstream media.
> Think about how often you see articles like "Star Wars captured the #1
> slot for the 10th week in a row" in the mainstream press - that's only
> possible because there is an official list to work from.
> 
> Here is a link to the quarterly:
> http://www.igda.org/casual/quarterly/1_2/
> 
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