[casual_games] RE: Casual Game Portal Features

[Christopher Natsuume]

While we're on the topic...

Something I think would be great for both customers and developers is a "see
other games by this developer" option when they look at games. That way if
they see a game by a great company like Rusty Axe or Hipsoft, they can
quickly see a list of other games distributed by that portal developed by
the same developer - much like the Amazon ability to see other CD/books from
other artists/writers.

Another key feature that is deeply overdue for copying from Amazon is a
"mylists" which allows users to make and share lists of favorite games. As
the market grows, being able to share a list of your favorite 10-12 games
with other people with a little review will become increasingly valuable.

Also - I note Playfirst has on some games a short 3 question feedback form
at the end of a demo - really great idea. It would super cool to have that
kind of information given to the developers as part of their reporting -
especially if that reporting was in realtime.

These make more sense on a big portal than a small one - but think big in
your architecture, I guess. 

Cn

__________________________

Christopher Natsuume
Co-Founder, Boomzap
natsuume at boomzap.com



-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Juan Gril
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 8:59 AM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: SPAM-LOW: Re: [casual_games] Casual Game Portal Features

Here is a list I made in 5 minutes (okay, 10):

Studio:
- Make your submission system as similar as possible to the other major
portals. In fact, copy the submission guidelines of one of them so people
would be like "oh, this is exactly like *portal*".
- Use a DRM we are all using already, and don't make any customized changes
in your set up so the DRM integration is simple to do. Do the same as in
previous rule.
- Real-time reporting (downloads, sales, conversion rate)
- Good ad placement in games, and that you SHARE the ad revenue with us.
- Don't bug us to integrate with your community platform. We don't want to;
although we would probably do it if there is a substantial reason to do it
(read good MONEY upfront and lots of traffic to justify locking a community
game to just one portal). If not it's not worth it.
- Get the game up before someone else clones it, and PLEASE don't upload the
clone before our original game (unless we are also cloning).
- Be careful on how many clones you upload per week. It's great to generate
traffic uploading one game a day, but if you don't generate enough revenue
for the developers to pay the bills one day you would not have developers to
provide you those games, and believe me you are going to need a FREAKING
ARMY to create enough content if we are not around.
- Localize your web site and create a simple submission system so we can
deliver translated SKUs (no portal has done this yet).


Consumer:
- Amazon.com (especially good search and good recommendation engine)
- Personalized Newsletter
- My Games
- Review system like Netflix or Y! Games.
- Forums per Game like Gamespot.
- Real-time traffic reporting on game (what people are playing right now)
- Ranking by sales (top sellers)
- Disable an ad (not an ad space, a particular ad they don't want to see any
more). 

Cheers,

Juan




-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Phil Steinmeyer
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 7:57 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: SPAM-LOW: Re: [casual_games] Casual Game Portal Features

The only things that really matter to casual game studios are traffic, and 
percentage royalty.

As for consumers?  That's depends on what consumers you're trying to reach. 
My quick summary - look at Amazon.com.  Build the equivalent of it for 
games.  Nobody has done this yet, and the first one to do it well, and 
market it well, should prosper.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry Tate" <pixelparklarry at lycos.com>
To: <casual_games at igda.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 3:01 PM
Subject: [casual_games] Casual Game Portal Features


Hello,

If someone were to build a brand new casual game portal from scratch what 
web site features, for both consumers and causal game studios, would you 
like to see?

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