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

[Daniel James]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Tom Hubina wrote:


> 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.


I don't think that this is true. Portals make more money by delivering a 
satisfying experience to their users -- one that gets them to play 
games, view ads, transact and *come back for more*. 

Now, given how some of the major players have been 'tithed' their 
traffic by virtue of corporate parent portals, and the somewhat 
remarkable lack of investment made in differentiation and innovation, 
you might be forgiven for thinking that portal managers are the kind of 
fools who will just throw up any old crap. They're not. The portals all 
manage their flow of new games carefully and I believe that some of them 
are quite good at optimising (to which of the above metrics is an 
interesting question).

If the portals are pushing a particular PuzzLoop derivation it's because 
that derivation is better at giving them what they're looking for from 
their audience. They won't arbitrarily throw up lots of crappy clones 
for giggles -- of course lots of crappy clones may be what the audience 
wants... and the way to change that is by making something better and 
perhaps less amenable to simple cloning.

Now, getting 'something better' distributed is another question, and 
seems to require a different kind of fool...

- Daniel, grinding his axe, just a little. More;

http://thefloggingwillcontinue.com/?p=4