[casual_games] Clones in casual (was RE: Gameplay patents)

[Tom Hubina]

OK - damaging the industry wasn't quite right. It's damaging to developers
in the industry.

It is marginalizing developers and turning games into a commodity that has
no value other than drawing in advertising - and where unlimited shelf space
means that 10 mediocre games are just as good as one quality title. The
"industry" will still make lots of money, but that money is going to be
increasingly thinned out amongst more developers who will barely be able to
make enough of a return on their investment to cover costs.

If you dump a few billion tons of gold on the market, gold prices drop
everywhere and no one makes any money on gold (except the traders who take a
piece of every transaction regardless) and people who have invested money in
gold expecting to sell it at a certain price are suddenly losing money. You
can either continue putting more gold into the system to try to get some
cash out of the rapidly diminishing rates and make things worse or you can
cut back on gold mining and get things to stabilize at a practical price
before the whole thing collapses.

Right now in casual/web there's a seemingly limitless supply of games (gold)
and everyone is producing as much as they can. The portals (traders) don't
care if they put up 10 games or 100 .. They still sell X number of ads and Y
downloads and make their money on the volume of transactions. While the
market is growing with new users each year, that growth isn't keeping pace
with the increase in the amount of content. The net result is that
developers get a smaller portion of the pie. The factors are compounded by
other things as well, but those other factors (more people in the value
chain) are caused by overhead in the quantity of games.

I'm basing this on a few trends I've observed through (admittedly) anecdotal
evidence over the past several years. You can judge for yourself if they
match your understanding.

1. Conversion rates for the average new game have gone down over the past
several years, from 3% to 1%.
2. Percentage of revenue for developers has reduced as a combination of more
people in the value chain, and rates are reduced at major portals.
3. Cost to create a title has increased.
4. Number of new titles released each year has exploded (from a handful per
month to as many as 1 a day)
5. Number of portals has increased, each with their own trials (allowing
users to play the same game for 10+ hours without paying for it)
6. Bundling/subscription deals reduce the unit cost of items and spread
revenues out over multiple developers.

The key point here is that developers make less money when more games are
being created and ... assuming ad prices hold ... portals make more money by
releasing more games. The net result is that they're happy as pie to take
everything we throw at them since it's better for them. They don't care that
it's worse for us.

This says nothing of the increased difficulty in getting your title
recognized. It used to be that a title would be in the "What's new" category
with high visibility for a month. Now it's more like a week. As the quantity
of content increases, that number could go down to a day.

There's a lot more to all of this and our ability to do anything about it is
extremely limited, but that's why discussing it over a drink at GDC is more
fun.

Tom


> -----Original Message-----

> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org 

> [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Alex Amsel

> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 12:04 PM

> To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List

> Subject: Re: [casual_games] Gameplay patents

> 

> You see, I don't think it is. This is all in the minds of 

> developers IMHO. The audience buys what they want. It'll buy 

> a good clone but not a bad one.

> 

> Where retail has the nightmare of licenses/clones controlling 

> everything, we have try before you buy. And it's wonderful.

> 

> You could argue that portals need to be more willing to 

> promote original games, but they ones that interest their 

> audiences still float to the top.

> 

> Tom Hubina wrote:

> > Heh - fair enough.

> >

> > I'm casting about to try to find ways of getting rid of the "bad 

> > clones" and the deluge of un-original content in casual because I 

> > believe that it's causing (has caused) irreparable damage to an 

> > industry that had a great deal of potential.

> >

> > Tom

> 

> -- 

> 

> Alex Amsel

> Tuna Technologies Ltd (Sheffield, UK)

> Cross Platform Game Development

> Tel: +44 (0)114 266 2211  Mob: +44(0)7771 524 632

> 

> 

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