[casual_games] Top Download List

[Austin Haas]

You don't even need a subscription to Variety to see movie sales, just go to 
http://www.boxofficemojo.com. :)

-austin

Austin Haas
Pet Tomato, Inc.
http://www.pettomato.com

Hal Barwood wrote:
> 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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> 
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