[casual_games] "Don't Roll Over" Casuality Slides

[Margaret Wallace]

I hold out optimism that this is something we can work through with our
partners -- and make it a win-win situation for everyone involved. Look how
far we've come in just a couple of short days in terms of raising awareness
around this issue. I'm at Casuality now and it's clear that we are all in
this together -- publishers, retailers, developers, distributors. We are a
close-knit group and while we all have to ultimately act in our
own self-interest (we are entrepreneurs after all) it's not an us vs. them
thing -- more like a symbiotic relationship. My background is in working on
the publisher and portal side of things and, believe me, they are trying to
make things work as much as anyone else. Our business interests may not
always be in direct alignment, but that's the nature of business, and we
have more in common than not. We all need each other to succeed at this
point in time.

We just need to commit to work together to re-examine those "old"
business models for monetizing casual game content which arose after the
dotcom bust around 2000-2001 -- a time when online advertising was in a huge
slump. Market forces have shifted so that advertising now makes up a
significant chunk of many online retailer's focus and business -- and we all
need to be responsive to these changes in the industry in order to
ensure continued growth. The robustness of advertising right now is a
cyclical thing, though, that we need to keep in mind -- it's tied directly
to the economy so we need to be careful around viewing advertising as the
only "holy grail" out there to pursue -- though it is obviously a crucial
area for us to dialogue around.

The "mass hordes of starving studios" are maybe starving because they are
not aware of or willing to take a stance on issues that have a direct impact
on their fincancial bottom line. If one runs the numbers, they will see this
is an issue worth coalescing around. The truth is if developers are making
great (not just good) content, they will be in greater demand and in a
better position to not have to "roll over". No one wants to see great
developers go out of business. Great content serves as the foundation of
this business.



-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Adam Johnston
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 8:47 AM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [casual_games] "Don't Roll Over" Casuality Slides



These are all brave words, but as long as there are so many companies happy

to get anything published at all, there will be very little room for us to

negotiate.



We the mass hords of starving studios looking for a break will continue to

be happy with whatever we can get.  We'll roll over, dance for them and turn

tricks. Then we'll still hear that they want something more like Luxor or

Diner Dash.



Adam



_______________________________________________

Casual_Games mailing list

Casual_Games at igda.org

http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/casual_games
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/casual_games/attachments/20060629/8f5284e8/attachment.html