CHARTS: This weeks top 10 casual games

1=Mortimer Beckett and the Time Paradox
2=Bejeweled Twist
3=My Tribe
4=Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses
5=Alabama Smith: Escape from Pompeii
6=Fitness Dash
7=Call of Atlantis
8=Fishdom
9=Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst ™
10=County Fair

MINI NEWS: No nonsense headlines

Wireless Mics come to Singstar 2009, cool!

Pop Cap release Peggle nights level pack

Hasbro drops lawsuit against scrabulous

50 MB broadband arrives in the UK with Virgin (more on this soon)

Aeria gifts virtual currency to community

92% of VC's predict investment slowdown (more on this soon)

Neo Pets gained 8.6 million users in 2008

Warner buys another 10 million Eidos shares

PROFILE: GAIA ONLINE

Gaia Online
280 Staff
(36 recently laid off)
Rivals IMVU & Habbo

Biz models

Advertising and Micro-transactions
Sells more than $1 million a month of virtual goods
Very selective if advertising & sponsorship partners

Monthly Traffic

Global 2.1M UVPM
USA 1.4M UVPM

Top 5 locations
United States - Canada -United Kingdom - Brazil - Mexico

Funding

Series B funding $12 M USD 2007
Series C Funding $11 M USD 2008
Series A Funding $8.93 M USD 2006

Total financing of around $32 M USD

Latest project
Casual MMO ZOMG

NEWS: Gaia lay off 36 staf members

According to a blog post from the company, the layoffs are the result of 'the huge downturn in the economy' requiring 'staff reductions and other operating cost cuts as [they] head into an uncertain 2009.'

'While we are still anticipating a healthy upcoming year, we're going to grow less than we originally expected,' the post continues, 'and we have to adjust costs to reflect the new realities.'

The post concludes that the company has 'raised a lot of money from investors a few years back'—indeed, as recently as this July—and as a result does 'not need to make as deep a headcount reduction as most other internet companies.'"

Its hardly surprising they have a big head count and have had massive investment, they have achieved great things but do need to have a plan to survive.

I don't think its anything to do with a down turn in the economy especially as they reported and increase in spending on virtual items. It will be purley the realiseation that the money they got is the last they will get and so they better use it wisley and start to make a profit. It shouldn't be too hard for them to do they have the players and a really great product.

Read the upcoming profile on Gaia in the first of a series.

VIRTUAL WORLDS : 25 million Weemees created

This is great news as it once again validates past research which will soon be published. On average sites are retaining around 5 to 10% of registered accounts as regular monthly players.


According to statistics from comScore, WeeWorld grew faster in the United States than its competitors in terms of unique visitors (60 percent), total minutes spent on the site (400 percent) and total visitors (200 percent).

WeeWorld users spend an average of 135 minutes per month in the virtual community and 90 percent of new users result from word-of-mouth.

"What drives so many users to WeeWorld is the universal appeal and iconic image of the WeeMee for all demographics, regardless of age, race or gender," said Lauren Bigelow, General Manager and SVP of Marketing for WeeWorld. "What keeps users coming back is the continuously evolving experience. There is always something new to explore, whether it is a new game to play, a new place to visit in World or a new item to accessorize their WeeMee or Room."

GAMES: iminlikewithyou launch new Jigsaw game

Following on from their ragging success of multiplayer Tetris which I'm completely addicted to Iminlikeiwthyou.com. have launched a new collaborative multiplayer jigsaw game.

If you want to learn anything about how to do casual games in a unique fun way this site is great. Well presented great games, simple and addictive, not too much choice all wrapped up with social elements.

This site attracts some 55,000 UPPM in the US and have similar figures for the rest of the world, but over 60% of traffic is from the USA.

It has great potential and the item based transactions should catch on as they help you win games, although this can be a bit frustrating when people obviously win because they have purchased numerous power ups.

The company received 1.5 million in funding this year from Spark Capital, baseline ventures, Betaworks Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen

VIRTUAL WORLDS : Papermint Launch Open Beta

This is one of the most exciting VW's I've seen for ages and if plays as good as it looks then game and virtual world lovers are in for a real treat.

The style and the way they present things is stunning true games marketing at its finest. Although I feel they have been influenced by LBP but there is nothing wrong with that.

SO check it our for your self and I'll be back to this once I've had a go but it ticks a lot of boxes for a potential success mainly FUN and it looks like fun.



Also check out the trailer advert its really good.

BUSINESS: Ludia sign with ads specialist WildTangent

WildTangent will become the exclusive in-game advertising partner for Lucia’s 2009 lineup.

The agreement includes titles such as American Idol, Price is Right and Press Your Luck, and spans platforms including Wii, DS, PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Check out LUDIA

Check out WILDTANGENT

MINI NEWS: 5 easy to swallow news bites

1. Yahoo Games Talks to Speilberg

In particular, he talks at length about his family's experiences with Boom Blox, which he helped design with EA. Spielberg also comments on his fondness for shooters like Call of Duty 4 and the Medal of Honor series, though he's not sold on storytelling in these titles.

Full Story

2.Exit Games announced Neutron upgrades

its online multiplayer gaming platform, now supports Google's Android mobile platform, enabling Android game developers to integrate online social gaming features with the Neutron SDK.

Some features include in-game text chat, leaderboards, matchmaking, buddy lists, lobbies, real-time multiplayer, and microtransactions.

3.Habbo teens want Xbox 360 for Christmas

Videogame consoles are the most desired Christmas presents this year for teenagers in the Habbo community, according to a new survey.Of over 4500 teenagers aged between 11 and 18, 39 per cent want a console on Christmas day.

4.New York University has announced it has founded the NYU Game Center

Its an academic initiative for the research, design, and development of digital games.

5.French version of Runescape Launched

GAMES : Real praise Wii Ware ahead of Tikki Towers

Ahead of the release of its brand new WiiWare title Tiki Towers, Real Networks has heaped praise on Nintendo’s new software delivery platform, and also admitted that a move to Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace and Sony’s PlayStation Network is still a possibility.

The WiiWare has great potential for casual developers due to the large installed based and broad demographic.

CHARTS: This weeks top 10

1=Bejeweled Twist
2=Call of Atlantis
3=Mortimer Beckett and the Time Paradox
4=Fitness Dash
5=Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses
6=Fishdom
7=Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst ™
8=My Tribe
9=Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear
10=PICTUREKA! MUSEUM MAYHEM"

NEWS: Casual games used to help Aids prevention

I think we will see more and more of this over time, using games to educate and tell stories is an important part of the gaming industry.

The US government has teamed up with Warner Bros to make a free multiplayer casual PC game designed to spread awareness of HIV prevention across Africa.

Variety reports that the game, called ‘Pamoja Mtaani’ (which translated means ‘Together in the Hood’) has been developed by Virtual Heroes. It follows the stories of five separate characters whose stories are designed to explore the issues of behaviour that leads to the spread of AIDS, and subsequently help in their prevention.

The game also features music by Kenyan hip hop artists. Pamoja Mtaani is set to be rolled out in youth centres in Nairobi, which will all be kitted out with suitable LAN networks.

NEWS: Time puts casual games in its TOP 10

Time has included several casual games in its top 10 for 08

Hunted forever is very cool check it out

Field Runners and many people say its a great game on the I-POD even if its a tower defense rip-off. see it hear

I would say that LBP, Rockband and Spore are also casual i.e Accessible and For everyone.

1. GTA IV
2. Braid
3. LittleBigPlanet
4. RockBand
5. Gears of War 2
6. Dead Space
7. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
8. Hunted Forever
9. Fieldrunners
10. Spore

EVENTS: Sdforum interview with Bernie Stolar

In case you don't know Bernie he is one of the industries veterans having been CEO at Mattel, President at SEGA and EVP at Sony Playstation for the launches of PS1 & PS2 and of course that other small company Atari, who did not play much of a roll in games....

For years I have felt the presence of Bernie in my living room so I have to admit getting to meet him was a pleasure. He had tonnes of stories and in particular I loved the one about launching the PS2. He told me that they did not have game to drive sales, in the past they had a sonic and in Nintendo case they had Mario but PS2 had nothing.....until he found Crash Bandicoot. In short that game drove unit sales.

So here is a synopsis of the what people said at the event.


Less big publishers, similar to what happened in the music and film industry
Companies that run with lower costs and are quicker to market will be stronger
Episodic content will be the new way to distribute console games
The end of retail boxed games for $60 (unless of course you do it well like GTA)
Casual gaming will continue to grow and companies with original I.P will become stronger
MMO's will shift to online
Funding is becoming harder to get, so you better make it last as there may not be a second round
Make sure you make a good game "there is a lot of crap out there" Is it fun??
Microtransactions will become a standard in the US, but so far many companies have just shoehorned the model in and its not quite right yet.
Advertising in games will grow and be delivered in context for greatest impact
I-phone games catalog is easy to access and a good distribution channel
The likes of Kongregate will help find the next great talent
You really need to know your market and understand your consumers

MMO NEWS: Registration numbers

Zomg hits 500K players, while Franktown and Youwalk top 100k


I love the concept of youwalk and I think the way we surf the web will involve visualization techniques but this takes longer to find what you want....

It does not solve a problem it creates one.

The walking thing is pointless until you get in the room.

BUSINESS: EA buys J2Msoft

Digital game developer Electronic Arts (EA) announced its second move into Asia's online game market on Tuesday, by buying South Korean online game developer J2MSoft Inc.

"This is a significant step in EA's strategic plan for developing and publishing online games in Asia," said Jon Niermann, president of EA Asia, in a statement.

To see what J2M does Click ME

Earlier this week, EA announced a tie-up with Chinese game developer NetDragon Websoft to create three-dimensional MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) based on EA's Dungeon Keeper series of digital games.

EA has already launched some of its popular sports titles as online games in Asia, including EA Sports FIFA Online and NBA Street Online). The company is already creating online version of other titles for Asia, including Warhammer, Age of Reckoning, Need For Speed and Battlefield Heroes.

EVENTS: Casual games MMO & Virtual worlds funding

Just a reminder if your in the UK and involved in investments then go to The Funding & Investment Summit for Casual Online Games, MMOs & Virtual Worlds

PICK ME PICK ME

MMO CASE STUDY: Are F2P MMO's profitable

An interview with Josh from K2 Network on the sadly now closed Gigom Show.

Key points from K2

16m accounts
10% monthly active accounts
99% are free players for 3 to 6 months
200 staff
Asian MMO revs are 2.5 billion USD
Suggests checking out War Rock




Remember this data is NOT for Casual MMO's so the conversion rates will differ, but its a good guide.

MMO NEWS: Runescape in top 5 searches

Some already know know how popular RUNESCAPE is well its has been named as the fifth most searched term on global search engine giant Yahoo, beating some top-draw competition in the process.

1) Britney
2) WWE
3) Barack Obama
4) Miley Cyrus / Hannah Montana
5) RUNESCAPE

Searches behind RUNESCAPEincluded the very hot Jessica Alba, manga sensation Naruto, the rehabilitated Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and American Idol.

CHARTS: 4 Of 5 top US games for 2008 are on the WII

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) – 3.5 million, estimated
2. Mario Kart (Wii) – 3.4 million
3. Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) – 3.2 million, estimated
4. Wii Play (Wii) – 3.0 million
5. Wii Fit (Wii) – 2.8 million

TECHNOLOGY : DSI Video review

TECHNOLOGY : Augmented reality to be part of casual games

Video demo of something very cool

Are we seeing the early signs of the next hot mobile casual game, It will only be a matter of time before someone gives it a go.

Humm! who's going to be first?

If you look around in youtube under augmented reality you will find some interesting things

SOCIAL GAMING: Akoha provide a unique gaming experince

Akohafinalists at tech crunch 50 and supported by Montreal Startup They have a very unique approach to gaming and one I'm a fan off and in particular the potential this type of project has on making a positive impact on the world. For an insight to truly socially aware company watch the video below. Also listen for the funny mutterings caught on audio.

WATCH IT HERE


Good luck guys.

SOCIAL GAMING: World without Oil

As social media goes this is a stunning example of something that worked really well. And in some ways the new start up akoha certainly has a similar feel and hopefully could gain some ground.

World Without Oil was an online game that simulated the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis. Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the intent was to enable the public to imagine how their lives would change without access to oil, and to inspire solutions.

The game launched on April 30, 2007, and concluded on June 1, 2007. During that time, more than 60,000 participants from across the globe participated, and 1,500 blog posts, online videos, voicemails and other personal chronicles were created. While the participation exceeded goals, the most interesting component is the discussion that is still occurring on the blog.

Why World Without Oil's approach was successful:

* Inspired conversation about a critical topic
* Allowed global participation
* Created an emotional appeal and fostered collaborative solutions
* Integrated offline and online social tools

fullstory by Eric Korofsky

BUSINESS: Game development LEVEL UP

To round up a short series of posts about game development I wanted to share this story.

What are the top nine steps to building a great-paced video game? Former EA and THQ design director Mike Lopez details them and his game 'Intensity & Pacing Plan' for Gamasutra in this in-depth design feature.


Gameplay fundamentals Part 1
Gameplay fundamentals Part 2
Summary story

BUSINESS: Change how games are developed and released

Maybe its because it I have a strong business background or my years of music production that allows me think about different approaches to console game development. However the good thing is its not just me. I have written 2 or 3 reports discussing potential changes so I wanted to share the thoughts of ATARI's Phil Harrison and Rares Mark BatteridgeMark Batteridge.

In essence its about engaging the audience as early as possible using rapid prototyping and trying to get industry to release little and often and I actually have interesting biz models that could be applied to this, and there could be some lessons learned from the Casual Gaming developers.

Phil also makes the important point about not moving past stages before you complete them which would make sense but has been ignored for years according to him. You would not start the second level of a house without having all the walls up?? No

Connected Story Montreal Games Summit

Connected story Only 4% games make a profit

NEW GAMES : Foldit extreamly addicitve

I'm a big fan of fold it, one its fun and casual, two the idea is ingenious and could change the world also its probably a land mark for the future of gaming.

WHY.....because without knowing anything about science or biology you can actually help solve complicated protein folding puzzles.

Seriously its easy and imagine millions of us playing this game and accidentally discovering a new folding solution that helps the human race.

Well that's exactly whats going to happen.....collective brain power working together...

TECHNOLOGY : Search Engine for Casual Games

Well for Flash games and you better spell it correct, no Google to fix your spelling erorrs.

Game Curry is a great idea because its focused, however like any search tool its success will be based on the search results it turns up. I tried several variations on the word Jewells Jewles and all came back with nothing, try the same in Google and add game to it and hay presto results....So guys get a spell checker in that code of yours.
try it out

TECHNOLOGY : Take part in an AI experiment

This is a First in Gaming Humans Team with AI Software Play Give and help improve AI.
Players will team up with one of four AI software systems. Players have from now until January to play the game and provide feedback on how well the systems give instructions for solving the treasure hunt puzzle.

The feedback from gamers will be analyzed by the game developers to compare how well each of the four AI systems did in the GIVE challenge, with the goal of making computers better partners in a variety of both virtual and real world tasks.

VIRTUAL WORLDS : Whyviille from Subs to Microtransactions

Whywille the free-to-play virtual world is primarily sponsorship- and advertising-supported, but it also offered a subscription for premium options. Now the subscription has been substituted for a virtual currency called Pearls. Parents can set a virtual allowance for their children, choosing to give them various amounts in Pearls one time or on an ongoing monthly basis, which users can then spend on exclusive items or to access new activities."

I Love the concept of Whyville and the ideas behind the features are great but Personally I'm not a fan of Whyville overall, Mainly because I don't like the art and direction and the one recycle game I played was clunky and sucked. I think the site looks amateurish but they claim to have a population of 4,132,096. My guess is they are getting around 50 - 70,000 UVPM who probably spend around 30 mins on the site which is good compared to others.

However I just think that if only they gave the site and brand an overhaul it could be awesome, they could get many more customers by investing, otherwise over time the core players will grow up and they can not be sure to attract new ones as the competition grows.

RESEARCH: UK Mobile internet on the rise

Analyst firm Nielsen Online has found Mobile internet use is growing while the number of people going online via a PC is slowing.

In the UK Around 7.3m people accessed the net via mobile phones, during the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2008.

An increase of 25% in comparison PC based net audience grew just 3% to a growth of just 3% for the PC-based net audience - now more than 35m. However for me this is no surprise its part of the curve as networks and handsets have improved service add to that the i-phone launch flat rates and naturally mobile internet use will grow faster.

It also found that the mobile net audience was younger and searched for different things, Searching news, like BBC weather, Sky Sports and Google is not the most popular site the BBC news is the most visited, nearly 1/4 of mobile internet consumers using it.

This could be down to how the handsets and networks present content and the applications that are used. For instance many people now update their status on facebook using Mobile phone.

The long tail of this will be in an upsurge in cross platform gaming, especially in MMO's and may be elements of virtual worlds. Mobile gaming is already big business and the next wave will be community gaming, and I have numerous ideas running through my head involving GPS and Bluetooth....

A quarter of the mobile net audience is aged 15-24, compared to 16% for the PC.

While 23% of the desk-top based internet population is 55 or over, only 12% of mobile internet audience is.

TECHNOLOGY : Meez Launches Hulu

I'm a fan of Meez as they have a clear direction and they are now making great decisions to expand on that direction.

Hulu-Powered allows 2M monthly users (which Sean points out are unique and he should) can get together with friends to watch the best television clips, episodes and full length movies, all while chatting away with each other and comparing avatars.

Key Points:

16 initial theaters,
popular lobby and concession areas
top shows such as The Simpsons, Fringe, Saturday Night Smackdown, and many more
Classic movies such as Bring it On, and Dude, Where's My Car?

So Meez now has more content than just games....what a great move!

The whole thing is free and supported by the fact the best places are VIP subscription. Sean also offers micro-transaction model allowing users to buy coins and pick up the best gear for their avatars. So he is offering the choice......you know the things that us humans like....take note choice works....

I intend to catch up with Sean next week and ask him as him about the things that are working and the things to avoid. Watch this space.

Funding: Playspan nets another $16.8 million

Great news for the industry as investors continue to see the potential in virtual goods, this will help Playspan expand to Europe and Aisa

PlaySpan provides publishers and developers with a platform for managing secure micro-transactions, virtual goods sales, global alternative payments, and peer-to-peer trading. Its platform is currently live in games such as K2's Global Mu Online and Gala-Net's Upshift Strike Racer.

Playspan has a subsidiary PayByCash, which offers over 70 payment solutions in more than 180 countries currently supporting over 200 games from publishers such as Gala-Net, Ntreev, Outspark, and CCP.

PlaySpan's total funding now now around $24 million. This round was led by Easton Capital Group, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, STIC, and other undisclosed investors.

Virtual Worlds : Music Mogul Beta Open

Wow it must be a day of getting right.....This is the second world I've seen that is doing it right. I've been very excited about this project and here is the video.

This is gonna be a hit for sure, Its a virtual world with a purpose a meaning, a story.....A game....The game is win a record deal or just have fun trying to.

These guys have got it right. Expect this VW to get millions of subscribers. After all everyone thinks they have Star quality....and Well Rodney Jerkins and co are giving you a chance to play along.

The only thing I'm not sure of yet is the technology and the accessibility of the game. But They have the theme right. The world has focus you know exactly what your getting, and with the past success of American Idol, x-factor and other shows this could be just as big.

Virtual worlds: Video Footage of Sony VW

I'm always dubious about new virtual worlds. My big question is what is it that they are going to offer that's different from the many other out there.

Well in the first few mins of the video I can see that SONY have done their homework and are approaching VW in the right way, its accessible to PS3 users, they provide Relevant content, games, simple interactions, and its beautifully presented.

So as long as Sony give players plenty of content to interact with and keep it small to start with then HOME could be a hit for them and it has great scope for developers. Imagine in the future a virtual stadium where you could play 11 a side PRO EVO with friends. But to qualify for the Virtual team you must play your way up the leagues using the purchased copy.

Offical trailer

Business : SPIL signs with Triplepoint PR

Not long after they employed Ex Google Sydney Mock SPIL Games has appointed international PR firm TriplePointto head up its branding efforts in North America and Europe.

Its campaign will focus on SPIL’s success as a high-traffic advertising platform and its engagement with what it describes as a lucrative audience. It will also look to increase the awareness of SPIL’s range of targeted gaming portals."

Clearly Spil are paving the way for growth and expansion. And now Sydney is on board I imagine we will start to see Spil using their power and position to try out other opportunities, remember google was just a search engine to start with. Sydney has been involved with several major product releases from google including maps, Igoogle and YOUTUBE. I wonder where your head is Sydney??

Business: Massive price drop for Casual Games

Gamehouse join Big Fish, and Shockwave in the great casual games discount.

It was only a matter of time before the the big players started to overhaul their download business models. I reported on this last month.

Read previous story

See Gamehouse will offer a free game a day and you can buy all games by joining the club for $5.99. The promotion is part of the redesign of the site.

FUNDING: worldsandgames get $10 million

Mark Friedler and Karim Sanjabi form worlds and games With a focus on Entertainment, games, social media and virtual worlds they bring a wealth of experience and will help companies with Marketing, Strategy, product development and form expert teams from across the industry to help improve results and reduce costs.

In one project they claim that they saved a major music producer over $2 million (may be it was music mogul I'd be interested to know)and in another project they raised $10 million series B in 40 days.

Good luck guys with your new venture.

Business : King teams up with Moochi Media

King.comhave agreed a deal with Mochi MediaMochi Media that will allow publishers on the MochiAds network to access and distribute King’s titles.

Members of the ad network will be able to search King’s catalogue and select free ad-supported titles which can be hosted on their sites – and subsequently claim a slice of the generated ad revenues.

Kings primary biz model has been skill games they held the NO1 spot in Skill gaming, providing players with community features and King were early adopters of Microtransactions.

New Games: POGO planning multiplayer Dinner Dash

Great news for casual fans and the industry, POGO runs one of the strongest community based casual gaming sites and already has some multiplayer games like Lottso Delux.

However Dinner Dash is a classic that I think would convert well to multiplayer and it really fits with co-operatition mode, this is where players have to help each other score points.

See Pogo

Another community based site that's doing well and also has multiplayer games is iaminwithlikeyou

Business: Only 4% of Video Games make a profit

According to(EEDAR)roughly 4% of video games that make it to market are actually profitable.

This does not cover the casual Genera, but highlights why so many big developers have jumped on board with Casual games, and in particular why the likes of USISOFT have been so successful in this area.

You can take more risks in casual games and the cost of development is much lower. If only the video game industry could change the way they release games? May be releasing limited levels to test the market. Almost like the try & buy model in Casual, but you pay $10 or $15 and if its successful then the developers can continue with the second phase.

New Games: Mystic Mine looks great

Having only seen the video I'm excited about the release of the game. You get the concept in seconds and the controls are simple....I think the idea is great and this could be a basis for a new genera. Will it be a hit well lets wait until we get to play.


Mystic Mine Multiplayer from Koen Witters on Vimeo.

Charts: Bejewlled twists to NO1

As predicted Bejeweled Twist is topping the charts its currently the NO1 casual game. The match 3 genera is still as popular as ever with Jewell Quest coming in 3rd

1=Bejeweled Twist
2=Alice Greenfingers 2
3=Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear
4=Top Chef
5=Cooking Dash
6=Diner Dash® Family Style
7=Fishdom
8=Hidden Mysteries: Buckingham Palace
9=Detective Stories: Hollywood
10=Mortimer Beckett and the Time Paradox

Business : MTV Extends Big Point Deal

MTV Networks International has announced that it is to extend its current working agreement with Hamburg-based casual games developer Bigpoint in a move that will see the studio's games playable on MTV's web portal in 11 countries.

JOBS : Outspark Get EX Habbo GM

Nice move from the FTP MMO provider

Outspark has hired Paul Thind, former General Manager, North America, Sulake, as its Chief Business Officer. No formal announcement has been made yet, but Thind's LinkedIn profile lists his work for Habbo Hotel in the past

TO outspark

Technology SALES . DSI dominates and PS3 outsells xbox again in Japan

Japan

So great news for casual gaming in Japan as the user base of DS/DSI grows even more.

And great for Nintendo as they rule in both Console and handelds....The Wii has over 6 Million units installed.

However the developers and publishers are yet to have great success with Wiiware.... I think it will only be a mater of time though with an installed base as large as they have the right casual could reach phenomenal sales.

Europe

XBOX 360 passes 7 million sold in Europe.

TECHNOLOGY NEWS. Global Broadband subscribers

Take note of the figures for your revenue models.

Global Broadband Subscribers at 400M

The number of broadband subscribers around the world has reached 400 million, according to a new report prepared for the Broadband Forum by industry analysts, Point Topic. In 1998 there were only 57,200 broadband subscribers, so it's taken some massive growth to get to this point: a 600,000% increase in the number of subscribers, in fact, with 300 percent just in the last 5 years.

That growth isn't necessarily essential to the spread of virtual worlds--especially for the Flash-based and 2D or 2.5D simpler world that are particularly popular right now.

Investments : Casual Collective gets $1MM in funding

Casual Collective, a new F2P social gaming site, gets $1 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

They are team behind desktop defense hence the funding, the site is well presented and the design is clean. They are banking on the games acting as adverts and thus driving traffic its a good approach and one I'm a fan off, however the trick will be to make sure you give the player an experience once they hit the home site, so that will depend on if players see value in being loyal to their for the scoial and upgrade reasons. Good luck guys

Virtual Worlds News

1. Google Lively to close

Its no surprise really there are way too many virtual reality companies trying to do the same thing.

And Google failed to notice the golden rule in getting into this market?

Accessibility......and......FUN......Dont get me wrong I used lively and yes its fun however its only short lived, its similar fun to when you first poked people on facebook, so I could see what Google where trying to do but I think they have realized that right now they can not attract the mass market. There is no reason to stick around in lively which is a shame as the UI has great potential and if only there was a game to it then may be things could have developed. Lively will shut down end of the year.

ALSO COKE STUDIO AND FAKETOWN are gone...

Faketown was a blatant rip off and well when you have Habbo why buy a fake....

Coke should never and I say this to any brand NEVER NEVER make your own virtual world the idea sucks. You should partner with existing worlds and MMO's.....of course there are exceptions but only if it makes sense like BARBIE, Disney or Buildabear otherwise stay away...


2. WOW moves 2.8 million copies in 24 hours

I think this backs up the idea about how console games could be marketed.

3. Are Habbo building a new 3-D virtual world?

There are rumors due to job adverts, however lets see. If I was Habbo I would look to enhance the 2.5D world with areas that become 3-D. This way you don't lose any customer and transition is smooth.

4. HOW FUNNY ? Divorce over SecondLife affair
A woman is to divorce her husband after discovering he was having a virtual affair within the online game Second Life.

The couple married in July 2005, while their "Second Life" avatars Dave Barmy and Laura Skye -- younger, slimmer versions of their real-life selves -- also held an online ceremony for their virtual friends.

After a rare break from the computer, however, Taylor returned to find her 40-year-old husband in an intimate, albeit virtual, position with an online prostitute within "Second Life", which she said was the "ultimate betrayal".

Montreal Games Summit

I just got back from the Montreal games summit and in amongst the big studios and the usual crowd I saw some great new talent.....so watch this space.

Anyway I'm picking up on a Key note speech by David Braben called planning for the future.

The reason is I have discussed this topic with many people and I agree with David On the following points and have a few of my own.

1. We are NOT looking at the last generation on gaming machines
2. The whole of the future for the gaming industry is ONLINE (until bandwidth and speed is not an issue we will have retail)
3. A need to rebuild a relationship with retailers.
4. Look to change the pre-owned market or the long tail of games make dwindle, the same way piracy and sharing is killing music
5. Developers need to collaborate and be creative with production techniques.
6. Where possible developers should consider releasing games in episodes....may be that way the games that don't work can be dropped at an earlier stage saving money and the ones that do work well that's easy release the next episode and the fans will come. Imagine playing a game and getting to a certain level only to realize that episode 2 is required to carry on. However the trade off is the game cost a lot less to buy in the first place. Mix this idea with downloadable content and may be this is the future of development for some games.

Food for thought. But I think there is enough space for everyone I'm in online casual games but I for one don't think that's the only market of the future....how boring remember variety is the spice of life.

Event : SD forum 5th December

Gaming: The New Frontier-Business of New Media III

The event takes place on the 5th December at Microsoft mountain view. There are some great speakers and topics including a focus on casual games so if you are in California or on business at the time try to get yourself to the event.

http://www.sdforum.org/

Ex Spil Group Strategist to repeat success again

Recently I posted a story detailing that Spil had now reached 100 million UVPM. Well Reinout T Brake(ex spil) has been hard at work putting the wheels in motion to repeat that story with a similar model that focuses on F2P MMO's.

MMOLIFE Headed up by CEO Simon Usiskin is a company that will provide separate websites that are positioned for the Tween, Teen and adult market. Thats great as in some cases what appeals to Tweens in terms of look and feel and content will not be suitable for Adults and vice versa.

There first website is targeted at the Teens and is called www.MMOHUB.org and get this its already getting some 100,000 visits per months according to web statistics companies.

Lets hope that Reinout and the team at MMOLIFE can repeat the success and we will be publisinh a story that reads MMOLIFE hits 100 million UVPM !!! watch this space.

strategist

IMVU Launches 'Social Music Service' IMVU Music

This is exactly the kind of deals that virtual worlds need to be doing. Its a great move by the record companies, much better than them trying to do there own thing.

MVU Music offers members access to music from the major music labels EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Universal, as well as a selection of independen music distributors such as IODA, Redeye, GetUPlayed, Tunecore, Iris, Song and artists from CDBaby. In total, IMVU Music has launched with over one million songs in its catalog.

IMVU members can also purchase DRM-free downloads of songs from the catalog, so they can listen to the songs on a wide range of devices, including iPod and MP3 players."

And they now add another revenue stream to their business model.

IMVU HERE

SPIL hits 100 million

SPIL Games has announced that it has cemented its position as the world’s second most popular casual games network, with official stats from Google Analytics showing that its monthly unique user count now reaches 100 million.

The network boasts over 50 targeted sites worldwide in a number of territories including the UK, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Russia, Turkey, North America and Brazil. Its portals are targeted towards specific segments of the casual market, and include the likes of Games.co.uk, Mygames.co.uk and Girlsgogames.co.uk."

spillgames

3 Rings launch whirled

Its flash, its accessible, its great looking and its fun.

Three rings have launched a portal that offers a host of games. The format is not dissimilar from other community game portals like Boonty & Kongregate but its well presented and has a great feel about it. I see these kinds of portals as a next generation on the addicting games type of website, it has virtual world elements and flavors of MMO's. The community aspect is also very apparent, so the social element is mixed in with the game play.

And you even get to help digitize old books when you register as they use the recapture system.

play now

Varbeck leaves EA in restructure

No surprises that EA would be restructuring especially after laying off the number of staff they did. Varbeck leaves EA as the company restructures

The Sims label to be a new Sims and Casual label.

Varbeck who also headed up the POGO.com portal is perusing opportunities outside of the publisher. Good luck Cathy.

Its a real shame as the casual industry really needs more women so lets hope she stays in Casual.

Telegraph launches casual games channel

The Daily Telegraph has launched a casual games channel. 2 years ago I predicted that large media companies and TV studios would end up offering a casual channel like SKY, FOX, virgin, NBC etc...I also think that telecoms companies and airlines will probably follow. Casual gaming channels will become a standard channel embedded in media offerings....However I think the telegraphs offering is well done.

The good thing about this site is its doing its own thing its not a copy but actually offers lovers of crosswords an online destination to play the favorites that they may find in the paper. They have added to that some good gaming community features. I imagine they will leverage their readers and it could grow from there.

Telegraph games

The gaming press are reporting this as a casual games channel and on reading the headline you sort of expect to find bejeweled or other casual favorites at the destination....but it does show you how broad the genera is....and based on how things are moving the question comes up is there such a thing as casual or core gamer....may be there are just gamers....

Games to outsell Music and Video

UK sales of video games and hardware will surpass spending on music and video for the first time, a report suggests. The BBC News has the story.

It predicts spending on games will rise by 42% to £4.64bn in 2008, with sales on music and video at £4.46bn.

Full Story here

19% of mobile consumers in U.S. now using smartphones, according to study

According to the “Mobile Market View” study released today by The Kelsey Group, 18.9% of mobile consumers in the United States are now toting smartphones, with 49.2% planning to pick one up within the next two years.

Senario launch Huri Mumi toy and virtual world

Huru Humi is a toy virtual world combo that does not require players to buy the toy. Its a great looking brand but enters a very busy space.

“Huru High is a fun, secure online world where kids can come together to play and a perfect complement to the Huru Humi toy," said Mike Nakamura, CEO of Senario. “Our first priority was to provide kids with a keep everyone safe and protect them from harmful or negative content

Huri Humi was developed by Sarbakan games studio in Quebec.

Amazon Snaps up Reflexive games

http://www.reflexive.com/index.php?PAGE=Blog&BID=169

Good luck with acquisition and congratulations.

Social Gaming News

Movie Quiz for Face book
Sonic boom to release name that movie...(i love a good quiz)
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Mytopia now on windows mobile. I love the fact that they are cross platform and allow you to access across social networks, now it will be down to the content being good enough http://www.mytopia.com/about.php
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Forbes are tracking flash and social gaming revolutions. (a very good read)
http://www.forbes.com/infoimaging/2008/10/29/virtual-world-vivaty-tech-intel-cx_mji_1029virtual.html
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Rockyou gets another 17million in funding??? The company has so far raised a total of $67 million. The company may need to rethink its biz model (adverts only is dangerous)
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$6,000,000 funded hangout.net launches

Casual Games news Summary

Wild Tangent to close development studio
no surprise 20 people only produced 3 games in 2 years
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Flash market is almost double the size of the console business

Comscore stats 359m people played online casual games in the last month - versus the total estimated console base of 206.2m (covering the current and previous generations of hardware, stat taken from VGChartz). It will only get bigger
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Pepsi Launch 3D casual marketing game... www.pepsi.se
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Ubisoft says casual development allowed them to take risks (they have been outselling Nintendo in this genera)
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Stardoll partners with Pink Ribbon for cancer and Makatoob to enter the Arab Market, wild tangent

The BBC to launch CBBC casual portal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/tagteam/ See it here

The BBC has launches new casual games portal on its website that is designed to hitch a ride on the casual games bandwagon and drive popularity of many of its key franchises.

The BBC will be promoting its new portal across a number of big-hitting websites including AOL, Jetix, Miniclip and Yahoo – and of course it will feature prominently on the broadcast CBBC channel and website.

Kelly Turner, head of marketing for BBC Children stated: “The whole purpose is to get kids to love, value and use more CBBC assets. We want them to have a deeper relationship with us.”

I always think that these are missed opportunities. May be a partnership with some popular kid focused worlds who would allow the BBC to embed their content could have been a great deal for all parties involved.

Gatheryn to combine casual gaming and social networking

A Victorian feel, a world where everything is powered by steam. The game promises to combine virtual world gameplay with social networking elements.

“There’s a very large and active casual gaming community out there dissatisfied with the lack of social features on many of the bigger casual gaming portals,” MindFuse chairman Matthew Le Merle stated.

“While we want to maintain uniqueness and individuality in Gatheryn, we also want to make sure there are plenty of opportunities for friends, family and fellow gamers to gather and enjoy the experience in a fully immersive 3D world.”

MindFuse CEO and lead designer of Gatheryn Joseph Walters added: “With Gatheryn we’re creating a very accessible world appropriate for gamers looking for a mature and enjoyable pastime. We’re very interested in the detailed aesthetics of the steam-powered genre, and our aim is to draw players into a romantic, vibrant world where story, community and puzzle-solving are the focus.

'Gatheryn promises an alternative to violence based games

Lets wait and see how accessible the fully immersive 3D world is and weather or not it is actually casual

Virtual Worlds News: Linden Lab Hires Big Spaceship to Improve "First Hour Experiences"

I'm Surprised its taken so long. The key to any product online is accessibility and well if you have to get through walls to get in then you lose potential customers at each stage.

Fact is Linden may struggle to get any kind of large increased uptake in their world for several reasons but for now its good to see they are trying to make it more accessible.

Virtual Worlds News: Linden Lab Hires Big Spaceship to Improve "First Hour Experiences": "Linden Lab Hires Big Spaceship to Improve 'First Hour Experiences'

Linden Lab announced today that it had hired the interactive design agency Big Spaceship 'to dramatically simplify the sign-up stage, ease users’ introduction into Second Life, and quickly connect people to relevant content and experiences in Second Life.' The challenge of bringing new users into Second Life has been observed for some time,"

Real's Casual Games Business Generates $34 Million in Q3, Gets New President - Video Game News, Video Game Coverage, Video Game Updates, PC Game News, PC Game Coverage - GameDaily

Good sign for Casual games, and no surprise that other areas of the company are struggling, they are involved in music via rhapsody and media via various arms including the famous real player. Fact is Apple and others are doing a better job. A smart move to turn things around would be to leverage their position in games and offer some slick cross platform tie ins to the games. People who buy games buy music make things easy for them.....

Come on your in a great position USE IT!

RealNetworks today announced its third-quarter fiscal results for the period ended September 30. Overall revenue grew five percent to $152 million, but the company did experience a net loss of $4.5 million. From a game industry perspective, Real's sales boost was largely attributable to its games division, which grew 19 percent to post revenue of $34.2 million.

Regarding its casual games, the company noted that 'growth was primarily driven by revenue from our acquisition of Trymedia in the second quarter of this year, and continued strength in subscription revenue.' Real added that it continues to believe that 'the casual games category is a strong and vibrant business with great growth potential, and we remain very optimistic about the future of our games business.'"

The metaverse Tour

Ok I'm going to use this as an introduction to various reports over the coming weeks on Virtual worlds and MMO's. I think its a nice video that proves a point.

The reports will cover predicted success and failures and why, the numbers to date and the need to for the industry to work more closely together before history repeat's itself and a whole bunch of money is just flushed down the drain.........

Also its an attempt to to bring a start to a group that is focused on open source API's for browser based games, virtual worlds and MMO's allowing brands, games developers, organizations, charities, record companies, film and TV studios etc.... to pick 1 or multiple virtual worlds and work with a developer and plug into that virtual world.

I'll be getting together with some people and setting up a Linked-in group as a starter.

Great News OPEN ID

"Your Gmail Account is Now An OpenID
from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld

You may not know it, but you probably have an OpenID. If you have a Yahoo account, you have an OpenID. If you have a Windows Live account, you will soon have an OpenID. And today, if you have a Google e-mail account, you can also start using your Gmail address as an OpenID.

By joining the OpenID movement, Google completes the trifecta and adds all of its Gmail users to the hundreds of millions of Yahoo and Windows Live accounts that can also be used as a single login for any Website that accepts OpenID. While Google is more than happy to become an issuer of OpenIDs, what is not so clear is whether it will accept other OpenIDs for people who want to up for Google services."

Cooking Dash tops the charts

Cooking dash is topping the charts across the major casual portals.
with the Jewell quest franchise making the top 10 in across the major portals.

So no surprises in the casual genera! Time management and Match 3

Watch this space that new twist game that will soon be there.

Question is what is the next big genera for Casual games?

Blended, freeform casual, creative casual....or have we got stuck

Bejeweled Twist play it now!

Well last nights launch started very flat with a slide show of facts and figures I nearly switched of the broadcast. Not the greatest introduction but then finally the show started and watching with me was a marketing expert with 10 years experience. I loved the effort they had gone to with the launch and the potential for a really well executed marketing stunt, however the show tried to be funny but dragged it heels. Saying that though I have to realize that I was watching a web broadcast and not a professional camera team. So of course it actually could have been a lot better in real life.

The best bit and worth the wait was the video and game demo. On the plus side full marks for effort with the production its a great way to a lunch a new game. But clearly they are great game designers and not great marketeers or TV show producers. But then casual games have never really needed good marketing to date. But you have to start somewhere and so the bar is raised.

The new game looked amazing and I was wondering how it was going to feel will it actually be that different.

Having just played the game it really is genius as its so simple what they have done. The crucial thing is you can always make a move and you start to plan a head I loved the experience, the power ups are fun and I can see the fans really going for it and new players being attracted. I love POPCAP for not trying to do too much with the game engine they have given the fans what they wanted. If you love match 3 then its the next level.

And It made me smile as I actually designed a match 3 game 2 years ago using a very similar twist mechanic.

Well done POP CAP team no need for the Kaching machine this time its success is inevitable.

The Joy of JOYity: Bringing “Massive Multiplayer Trans-Reality” Games To Android Phones

The Joy of JOYity: Bringing “Massive Multiplayer Trans-Reality” Games To Android Phones: "What makes a great Android app? One that melds the virtual world with the real world in a fun or informative way. One app that does that in an impressive fashion is called JOYity and it comes from Zelfi, a German mobile gaming startup. JOYity uses the GPS in the Android phone to let you play games and go on adventures based on your location in the real world.

JOYity is a gaming platform in its own right. When you download the app you can play one of three games (YouCatch, Roads of San Francisco, City Race Munich) or design your own. In Roads of San Francisco, for instance, you have to go around the city picking up clues. When you get to a destination, a text or picture message tells you where to go next. It is a Scavenger Hunt with a story line. You can also design your own Scavenger Hunt games and play them with large groups of people."

Mear morsels - make sure you swallow!

If you want to read any of the full stories Google the text u lazy B's

Disney Pixie Hollow released

Jagex maker of Runescape launches casual website Fun Orb

Zomg gets over 120,000 applications for the Closed Beta

Fuel industries to launch virtual world from their all girl arcade portal

Game Station warns retail is very crowded (OMG really) just go into any store that sells games.

EA shouting about the significance of online. Of course online represents a large opportunity as it allows MASS market access to games (casual games has the greatest potential)

Best Of I-phone FingerGaming is Equilibrio, Villagers, and Topple

Activision confirms DJ hero (it was only a matter of time) soon it will be producer hero, Dead painting Star and "impressionist fever" the game where you can take off the president, your fav sports star and comedian.

Tonight its launched Bejewelled Twist

One of the most anticipated games is released tonight. Watch the live stream @ 7pm PES

Good luck guys. I Hope its a hit for you.

Reebok "in game deal" for Football Superstars

Don't you just love this industry.

In a time when there is doom and gloom and the cost of everything is rising just go shopping VIRTUALLY.

Reebok and IGA WW and Sports MMO Football Superstars have teamed up in the latest game sponsorship deal.

The free-to-download online game will be used by Reebok as a platform to launch its Ambassador Programme. Successful entrants to the programme will win a supply of Reebok boots and kit with in game currency, apparel for avatars, as well as an interview Thierry Henry.

THIS is a perfect example of contextual advertising well done guys

LittleBigPlanet scores 9.5 average on Metacritic | Casual games |

Its no surprise and well deserved. Expect a very large community to develop with constant uploads of user generated content.

Sony’s great casual hope for this year, LittleBigPlanet, is storming Metacritic, averaging ajavascript:void(0)n astounding 9.5/10 from the Western world’s major press.

Game Link - This weeks casual games news

Week Round up.

1) New Event to Be hosted called "The future is online"

2) Lead Economist talks about Eve and the virtual economy

3) Microtransactions make it to mobile with Supper Boom Boom

4) Game loft pledge 10 titles for Android (google)

5) Atari sale is completed

6) Sega launches free to play casual games site

7) Sony to launch digital distribution for PSP (big opportunity for casual games)

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The Future is Online, says GameHorizon | Game Development | News by Develop: "GameHorizon is to hold a MMO-focused event in Newcastle next week.

Called 'The Future is Online', the evening will take a look at what it takes to be successful in the online space, and how studios can make the transition to online."

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Dr. Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, the Lead Economist at CCP, developer of EVE Online, talks about the impact of what's essentially a real-world economy in a virtual world.

by Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, PH.D. on Tuesday, October 14, 2008
My Turn: The Birth of the First Virtual Nation

It has been over 30 years since online virtual worlds have started to emerge in the form of MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons). Over this time period several variants of virtual worlds have emerged, with each form having different opportunities and challenges for the developers.

Stating that the economy in EVE is realistic is wrong. The economy in EVE is actually just as real as our real life economies, by all measures and definition of economic value based on economic theory. This fact has great implications in terms of how to interpret information from economies in virtual worlds, and shows that economics must be used as a fundamental feature in the design and operation of these worlds.

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A sequel to last year's Super Boom Boom, the one-button action game features five stages with bosses, three unlockable extra stages, casino mini-games, a driving mode, and a nationwide leaderboard.

Gamevil claims that Super Boom Boom 2's microtransaction system will cover 98% of available handhsets, enabling players to purchase G-Points (in-game currency), which can be exchanged for new stages, items, and mini-games. The G-Points can be earned for free while playing the game, but users can bypass that step by purchasing them.

The company's previous forays into microtransaction-enabled mobile games include Baseball Superstars 2008, which reportedly saw 1.3 million downloads withing 10 months.

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Gameloft plans 10 titles for Android, Google's open source mobile platform.

Bubble Bash, which is currently available for the iPhone and other mobile devices, will be the first Gameloft title to launch through the Android Market content distribution system in the first quarter of 2009.

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Atari is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames. The acquisition will enable Atari to expand its distribution capabilities and online initiatives.

by James Brightman on Monday, October 13, 2008
Infogrames Completes Atari Acquisition

Infogrames' plan to buy the outstanding stock in Atari, first revealed back in March, is finally complete. The French publisher now owns all of Atari, as compared with 51.4 percent before the acquisition.

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Sega has taken the wraps off of a new casual games site with free-to-play games. PlaySega features a wide variety of titles in addition to Sonic-based gaming.

by James Brightman on Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sega Launches Casual Portal PlaySega.com

It's been somewhat under the radar, but Sega has launched a new casual gaming portal with free-to-play games at PlaySega.com. The portal (currently in beta) features an assortment of arcade games, puzzle games, card games, quiz games, word games, sports games, and Sonic games, the first being Sonic at The Olympic Games. There are apparently more than 30 new titles in development for the site.

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SCEE: Digital distribution to "ignite" PSP development

The PlayStation Portable's new distribution methods will spur on creative development for the handheld, according to Zeno Colaço vice president of publisher and developer relations for SCEE.

Colaço described how the combination of digital distribution with the increased functions of the PSP 3000, announced at the Leipzig Games Convention, would make the handheld a more compelling platform for developers to work on.

Q3 see $148.m invested in virual worlds in Q3

$148.5m invested in virtual worlds in Q3 // News: "$148.5m invested in virtual worlds in Q3

Virtual Worlds Management has revealed that venture capital and media firms have invested more than USD 148.5 million dollars in 12 virtual worlds companies during the third quarter of 2008.

The study shows that the total investment in the virtual worlds space this year is over USD 493 million, with all but USD 22.4 million going towards the entertainment sector to build youth-orientated MMOs.

'Many smaller investments were made across a spectrum of youth-oriented virtual worlds,' explained Joey Seiler, editor of VirtualWorldsNews.com. 'USD 35.64 million was invested in seven virtual worlds aimed at kids through teens. That's up significantly from Q1's USD 16.03 million in eight youth virtual worlds and Q2, which saw no investment targeted at youth worlds.'"

The download business model needs an overhaul

For a long time now I have believed that the download model needed to be looked at and it seems that the industry is starting to try out new models.

One area I think they need to look at is the length of time that they allow free play on downloads. Game players get things quickly and 30 mins is more than enough.

In addition to that some have tested selling games above $19.99 and have had some success achieving the same conversion rate even when they priced the game at $29.99 and only allowed 30 min trial. However the overall yield was up 5 cents per download on other options.

Fact is developers are delivering much richer experiences and the download games stand out from the free content. It could be interesting to see if the pay by play model could work. So you top up your account and you are allowed to play any game on the site for a time limit based on how much credit you have. Pay as you go gaming.

This could open up a more penetration and better conversion rates.

You can read the whole story at the IGDA.

Real Arcades chart round up

The chart shows which games stayed in the TOP 10 for the longest period. The chart is only for sales on Real Arcade.

5 tit bits to digest

New Bejeweled coming soon

Entitled Bejeweled Twist, the new game has been in development for more than three years and the firm claims it ‘will bring a completely new perspective to the “Match-3” genre of puzzle games that the original Bejeweled pioneered eight years ago’."

Oberon gets 20 million
Credit crunch? What credit crunch? Wall Street worries aren't stemming the flow of cash into the games industry - I-Play onwer Oberon Media has just scored a $20m boost from a Chinese investor.

Warren Spector goes CASUAL
Deus Ex creator Warren Spector has unveiled the first details of his new project – and risked shocking his hardcore fanbase by revealing that it’s a family-friendly title.

Spector, creative director of Junction Point Studios for Disney, said that hardcore gamers “would be up in arms” when they heard news of project – but added that the hardcore market is “completely safe”.

Spore was designed for Casual gamers (oh shock really)
Will Wright has admitted that he designed Spore with purely casual gamers in mind – and that ‘hardcore’ players didn’t even get a look-in during testing.

Speaking to Forbes (via MCV), Wright said that he deliberately avoided targeting core gamers with the title, which has sold over a million copies since release last month.

Playfish hit big on Facebook
Just a year after its founding, London-based studio Playfish has stormed the Facebook charts to produce four of the top 12 games on the site ­– and says its success proves studios can make money developing games for social networks.

Playfish is responsible for five games on Facebook – Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Bowling Buddies, Geo Challenge, Pet Society and and Word Challenge – and has over 20m registered users, 1.5m of which play in any given day

Twist could make top 5.

Everyone will want to play new bejeweled and if it has a good twist it should see top 5. I actually did a prototype for a game called twist n turn which was a match 3 with a twist so It will be interesting to see what their twist is. My guess is that they have added another dimension to the game mechanic. I can think of several they could adopt so its quite exciting.

Gaming EVENTS Gamng CONFRENCEs Gaming SUMMITS

Latest EVENTS

Virtual Goods Summit October 10th California USA

Casual Games Forum October 30th London U.K

Game Connection November Lyon France

Montreal game summit 18th-19th November Montreal

Go mingle, do business, have fun, play games, talk about games and entertainment, listen to gaming gurus, see cool stuff, meet people.....its a hard life but somebodies gotta do it.

I would not recommend it its awful stay away don't go.

YouTube to expand to video game sales

YouTube is set to start selling videogames and experiment with new advertising formats to grow revenue, according to Reuters.





Move is an effort to monitze site
Google paid USD 1.65 billion for in 2006.
Estimate earnings about USD 200 million in revenue in 2009
until now the site relied on ad sales as its main source of income.

The Google-owned video streaming website already allows viewers to buy songs from music videos they watch with links to either Amazon's MP3 store or the Apple iTunes store. However, now YouTube users will also be able to buy videogames, such as EA's Spore through the Amazon link.

Google also announced the launch of AdSense for Games, a program that integrates video advertisements into web-based games. The search-engine specialist claimed to be working with game developers and publishers including Konami, Playfish, Zynga, Demand Media, games network Mochi Media, as well as beta advertisers such as Esurance, Sprint, and Sony Pictures.

Avanquest toasts September DS casual sales success | Casual games | News by Casualgaming.biz

Accessibility proven again
UK software publisher Avanquest has today been cheering the sales success of its DS casual games - one of which even outsold core favorite Star Wars: The Force Unleashed in September.

Avanquest's Mah Jong Quest Expeditions and Jewel Quest Expeditions both made it into UK sales monitor ChartTrack's DS top 50 for September.

Simon Reynolds, European games director at Avanquest Software Publishing commented, “We have great belief in the products. They’re addictive, colourful and fun games suitable for any audience.

'The support from retail has also been fantastic and contributed to the success of the titles. We look forward to ongoing success with the ‘Click & Play’ casual gaming brand.”

Worth Watching

While watching a presentation by David Perry (which was very good by the way he presented this film)



This totaly ties in with some of the recent stories I have mentioned.

Games Don't Need To Emphasize War, Negativity

Parappa 's Matsuura: Games Don't Need To Emphasize War, Negativity Talking as part of an in-depth new Gamasutra opinion piece, Parappa The Rapper co-creator Masaya Matsuura has suggested that, if the game biz continues to focus on games that 'employ physical attacks' and war-like scenarios, then the future isn't that bright.

NanaOn-Sha's Matsuura, who tends to work with bright, cartoon-like visuals and is generally credited as the 'inventor' of the music game with 1996's Parappa The Rapper, is currently working on Major Minor's Majestic March for the Wii alongside Parappa artist Rodney Alan Greenblat.

As part of his impassioned editorial, Matsuura explains:

'Naturally, it is not an easy matter to simply divide human emotions into positive and negative. In our adult world, there are a vast number of things that obstruct our ability to gain positive emergence with each other.

We often are faced with negative emergence when placed in circumstances that expose our inferiority or inequality, and this brings about stress. War is an extreme example of where these negative thoughts can lead."

Ankama celebrates ten million Dofus players | Game Development | News by Develop

Free web MMO played in '150 countries'

French independent developer Ankama has revealed that its free-to-play MMO DOFUS has passed the ten million member mark.

Initially released in France in September 2004, DOFUS is currently available in seven languages, with a further three set for release soon."

Google announces plan to wean US off coal and oil - energy-fuels - 02 October 2008 - New Scientist Environment

Just to follow on form the story I just posted I came across this news. I know its not game related but it backs up my first point.

Google announces plan to wean US off coal and oil - energy-fuels - 02 October 2008 - New Scientist Environment: "nternet search giant Google – sometimes criticised for the amount of energy its servers use – now aims to do for the power grid what it did for the web.

Having conquered the market for web search by first simplifying how it is done and then linking advertising to users' search terms, Google Inc is now funding green technology and using its brand power to lobby for policy change.

Google launched a plan on Wednesday to wean the US off burning coal and oil for power by 2030, and cut oil use for cars by 40%. That will cost the nation trillions of dollars, but Google believes it should ultimately save money."

Global Perspective shift

Casual games and social networks are helping shit perspectives on a global scale.

Global perspectives are certainly shifting in a positive way. So many companies are becoming socially aware and millions of people are involved in positive groups or organizations that are for the benefit of other people across the world or in local neighborhoods.

More and more games or networks are appearing that teach us a multitude of things, some of these are very subtle but have a great impact on society.

So in the doom and gloom of the credit crunch, take a look around you and realize its not that bad. Keep making those games.

MySpace launches Music site

MySpace Music launch
Social network is direct rival to i-Tunes
25 September 2008 - MySpace has today unveiled MySpace Music, artists can now make money, through Amazon, directly from downloads from their MySpace site.

Along with its joint venture partners which include SonyBMG, Universal, Warners, SonyATV/Music Publishing and The Orchard for independent digital music and EMI, who signed late yesterday, MySpace Music aims to give their massive community of musicians and artists a chance to make money.

Indies not happy as they have been left out, may be not the best way to handel this considering that the myspace has most definitely been helped by the presence of indie bands on network. I think they will do a deal but they should have sorted one prior to launching.

I also hear that they will offer variable prcing on MP3's somthing that I-tunes has refused to do. Its all an effort to get people to buy more music in stead of stealing it which can only be a good thing.

I think it also paves the way for the record industry to look to partner with more gaming destinations to leverage sales, in the likes of Habbo Hotel and other virtual worlds. Motor Head have just launched themselves into a virtual world. However I think it will be most successful when its in context with the game. A little bit like in game adverts, if you present music within context of the game and then offer the up sell to buy that music people are more likely to convert.

What more does it offer?

The MyMusic toolset allows users in the US to download, stream, and personalize their music content. Music fans can create both personal and public playlists and profile display, allowing friends to stream all playlisted content on-demand and purchase MP3s of their favourite songs. Users can virally add a friend's playlist to their own profile or take songs from a friend's profile to their own.

Beginning today, US users can purchase DRM-free MP3 music downloads through the system powered by Amazon MP3. MySpace Music will now feature buy buttons that will allow users to download and purchase MP3s playable on all digital music players.

The new venture also means artists can stream any number of tracks on their site, including back catalogue, whereas before the number of tracks were limited. This means artists who were previously cautious about allowing tracks for download, or to be streamed on the site, can now do so worry-free.

MySpace Music UK is rumoured to be launching before Christmas.

Sucess or Failure? Accessibility is the KEY

So many games come online these days with out taking into account how accessible they are....Causal games are among the most accessible online. But many of the virtual worlds and MMO's and browser based games are way off.

Over the coming weeks I'm going to pull together some examples of games that are not accessible and one that are and hopefully explain why. Some may argue with the points I make and say that they have a focus on a niche market and that's why they design that way. Fine but I'm interested in mass market and games that can reach millions of players. So if that's your goal you may find the data helpful.

Consoles could make a come back in the future

Occasionally I'm going to try an pear into the future and give my 2 cents.

Many have predicted that the future of the console is doomed.

Hold it there.....the PS3 may never recover the costs but the developments made in the technology and the programming will allow for the next generation of consoles to capture a market that has never been accessible in the past at a much lower cost.

This will be the age of mass market, consoles will dominate again but in a way we have never seen.

Everyone will play from your toddler to your grandparents they will all be players.

WHY....accessibility will be the key. AND IT WILL BE CONTROLLER DRIVEN. Controllers have always restricted the potential number of players.

Players of the future will use new controllers that make game play so simple that it literally becomes child's play. Opening up the potential for anyone to play out their wildest fantasy. Almost Star Trek holo deck style.

Probably made part from Wii type tech mixed with brain sensing equipment mixed with some form of goggles that provide the visuals and sound, SO you turn your head and the visual follow that movement. A kind of hybrid VR

Then think about the possibilities of entertainment and where you could go. Now think about how the movie studios are getting involved in gaming.

Casual gaming is paving the way for players who would never have been gamers...these gamers will progress if future technologies allow them to.

I will say that it could be possible that PC's will fill this gap.....But I just think that the PS3 is in such an early stage and future titles will literally blow us away. Right now the programmers are going through that learning curve. You have to remember that the results that they got after 5-6 years of PS1 arriving.

Big day Google release mobile OS ANDRIOD

Apparently Android isn’t nearly as “open” as Google and T-Mobile’s hype machine would have you believe. In fact, the most you could say about G1 is that it’s “almost open.”

What does this mean for Casual games, yet another platform to expand to...that promises great flexibility. Lets wait and see if developers can come up with games that best utilize online offerings mixed with Android capabilities.

Choices CHOICES choiceS

Having spent many years analyzing the market and coming up with business models and approaches to market its nice to see that there is common ground out there and some of the experts are thinking similar. I have published the summaries but you can read the full article on Gamesutra. Its also worth noting that Min Kim of Nexon has also picked up on the big Media companies involvement which I have touched on in the past, although I think his point is countered very well by Petursson.

"Right now, the MMO industry is in flux, with much discussion over whether the subscription or free-to-play model is the correct one for ongoing projects. When you figure in the world market, things get even more complicated.

Gamasutra was at a panel at last week's Austin Game Developers Conference which featured Robert Ferrari (VP Business Development, Turbine), Hilmar Veigar Petursson (CEO, CCP), Nicolay Nickelsen (VP, Business Development, Funcom), Min Kim (VP of Marketing, Nexon America Inc.), and was moderated by Jessica Mulligan (COO, ImaginVenture SA). It delved into the complexities of the two models -- how are they performing, and what do users want this year?

Asked about the five year evolution of the MMO genre and its business models, the participants had this to say.

Petursson: "I think most companies will evolve ... I think a dual currency system is the most efficient way."

Ferrari: "Games will evolve to all platforms -- PC and consoles -- and you will see multiple payment methods, it's not one-size-fits-all."

Nickelsen: "I think also you need to look at the local aspect and you need to have local services."

Kim: "I think three to five years out, and we're starting to see it now, that the PC's going to make a hardcore comeback... I think that online will become mass market entertainment.... the kids who are playing Club Penguin five years out are going to become our players."

Petursson's parting shot: "I think we will see more companies like Nexon. It's not a small company, but it's a company that grew up in the industry... I don't see a lot of offline companies evolving."

In response to Petursson's complimentary words for Nexon, Kim replied, "The scary thing is the diversified media companies... you see Viacom starting it now, and Disney with Club Penguin... I'm not worried about the EAs, but the big media companies."

But Petursson said, "I am actually not worried about the diversified media companies... when I talk to them they are so unable to understand our business, which involves a direct relationship with consumers." He thinks they are too used to producing content and sending it out via linear channels to fully engage.