VIRTUAL WORLDS : Home passes 4 million users

Sony has announced PlayStation Network has over 20 million reg accounts.

Its taken over two years to reach this level, alothough HOME was only released end of 2008.

Other stats were also announced saying that over 600 games with online features have now been released for PS3, and PSN itself now hosts over 14,500 pieces of downloadable digital content. To date over 380m pieces of content have been downloaded, with sales reaching $180m.

REPORT: 7 stories about recession and gaming

Many in the gaming industry are claiming that gaming is recession proof. I tend to agree with them however it all depends on what area of gaming you are in. The fact is there will be growth in gaming but we will experience a slowdown in that growth, and there like any industry there will be casualties, but hay that's progress. The key thing is to support solid start ups try to find good partnerships and make sure your running a lean mean machine.

I want to bring your attention to several stories that track this.

Forbes on the virtual world economy

Casual Gaming Industry to Exceed $1 Billion by 2013

News Scientist post on tracking virtual economy in Second life to real economy

Zynga's Brett Terrill on starting a games company in recession

Silicon valleys Mercury News on people buying virtual items

NPD's prediction of gaming not being recession proof (but read between the neg lines and remember most industry is experiencing decline not growth)

Investments in recession proof companies

REPORT: Account Registrations

Quick overview of registered accounts against start up date. Remember these are not active players and you have to take into account double or triple accounts. However it does demonstrate what is possible short term and long term.

NEW pixels

Franktown 6 months 100K

Wizard 101 5 months 1 million

Fusion Fall 2 months 2.5 million

Action All-Stars 2 weeks 100,000

Football Superstars 4 months 250,000

Old pixels

IMVU 4 years 20 million

Meez 2 years 8 Million

Club Penguin 4 years 20 million

Habbo 8 years 100 million

INVESTMENT : money in the bag

Mind Candy Acquires TUTPup

Tutpup allows youngster across the globe to compete in multiplayer maths and spelling challenges, and currently boasts 350,000 active players worldwide. Tutpup was developed by Cominded, a London-based firm owned by Bebo co-founder Paul Birch.

Seems like a good move however based on research I'm not sure that there are 350K active players on this site it seems that 10k would be a more realistic figure, and I would imagine that the acquisition is low value.

Disney Acquires Kerpoof For Kid-Generated Content

Kerpoof, is a Web-based suite of tools that lets kids create scenes, art, avatars and more.

UGC is becoming more and more popular and Disney are certainly doing all they can to position themselves in the top spot for online media. May be we will see this tech find its way to Club Penguin.

OfferPal gets $15 million series B

Today Offerpal Media announced that it had closed a $15 million round of Series B venture capital financing. The new round is lead by D.E. Shaw Ventures, with existing Offerpal investors InterWest Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners also participating. Offerpal states the money will be used primarily to improve the infrastructure of the platform and help it expand into new mobile and international markets.

A lot of people are unsure how to monetize Social Networks and dubious of what is possible....but let me be clear there are some experts like SR and OfferPal who know exactly how and some apps are making above 1 mio per month in rev. This investment does not surprise me, furthermore I would not be surprised to see a similar investment in Super Rewards.


Virtual Fairground Announces $4M Funding

Virtual Fairground announced today that it had raised $4 million in funding from one undisclosed angel investor. The announcement came alongside the news that Virtual Fairground had licensed the Alphanim cartoon Galactik Football to create a Flash-based virtual world. The funding is actually older: Co-Founder Maarten Brands had previously told WIM that the company had raised its round in Summer 2008, but wanted to remain under the radar until recently.

Wamba Aquired for 4 million Euros

Wamba is a Spanish social network with a focus on Latin American users. The company plans to launch an IPTV called Wamba.TV and a radio music service called Wamba.FM.

NEW GAMES : Flower......new boundaries

Ever wanted to feel like the wind....well now you can. This is one of the future trends....for the mass market. I keep talking about controllers helping to open up gaming for the masses, well Flower shows us what is possible. I felt like the wind and if you let yourself go and kind dance with it all sorts of things happen. |Fact is think about the future potential with new controllers or new ways of using them tied to the power of consoles and we are going to have some fantastic experiences.

Flower may be a short lived experience but well done to the people who broke the gaming rules on this and pushed things forward....what a great experience well worth $9.99......

Keep pushing forward !!! I am off to pollinate... :)

STARTUP WATCH: virtual land ownership

Its worth tracking this new startup. Whatsyourplace.com is following in the footsteps of virtual worlds MMO's and micro economies by selling virtual goods. This has a nice twist as its basically mirrors the real world and its not goods its land.

So will people be compelled to virtually own land and will it become more valuable over time?

To start with people will want to own land for bragging rights and well if you can't own something for real virtually is the next best thing right? Once you get on the site and look at the Google maps it becomes very appealing that suddenly I could buy the shopping center in downtown San Diego (first place I landed) After the initial buzz long term there needs to be this physiologically driven reason that there has to be an impact on others for me to buy this Shopping center.

What we must keep an eye on is how this could evolve, with the right strategy to market this could do really well and become a great contextual advertising machine. For this to work they must provide visibility of ownership. John needs to see that sally owns a ranch in Texas without having to first go to the site it needs to be propagated in everyday life. John needs it to pop up on facebook, via an e-card or some other form that's viral. If a community can develop around this it could become a game, and one that could be a lot of fun....lets see if they get it right.

CONSOLE GAMES : "Wanted" want it now

The movie was entertaining and the game trailer they put before the movie just made you say "cool I want to own this game". It looks incredible and for me one the most anticipated title releases for a while.

WHY? outside of looks and effects its down to how you control the characters and this game seems to be one of the first in this genera to break new boundaries in movement and interaction. The all important "do I feel in control" you need to get that feeling of being connected to the on screen character. This is something that the Matrix titles did so well and something that makes casual games so accessible and have broad audience appeal. People feel in control of the sparkling gems exploding, blocks dropping, FLOW serving food or PACMAN eating dots......its all about control and if those games took more than a mouse click then who knows if the market would even exist.

Over time many of the casual crowd will become hardcore players as well, this is down to evolution of your gaming experience, evolving control methods of games and new peripherals that allow everyone to play. Add to this the social elements of gaming chat on PC which tend to start with that common interest GAMING "console players" will no doubt influence the "casual" players to try out new experiences, and Word of mouth works its magic again.

Check out the video and see for yourself, If it plays as good as it looks this will be a big hit.

BUSINESS: Ourworld lands Miniclip deal

Great news for the people at Ourworld they have landed a deal with Miniclip. I can imagine that its a very aggressive rev share deal with possible equity since Miniclip were partly responsible for the massive growth in club Penguin and did not reap the rewards of the sale to Disney.

Its no secret that Rob was not over the moon when they sold it for $700 million. Any partnership must be right for both sides and if Ourworld suddenly has 0ver 1 million UPPM and 50% increase in revenue then who cares if you gave a very small equity stake and rev share for the life of a player? right?

Good luck to Derrick and the team at Flowplay.

Currently Ourworld has around 200k UPPM and it will be interesting to see what the growth is and if the quality of traffic is good and converts to paying customers.

CHARTS: HOT SOCNET APPS

In my aim to bring all the key industry stats and info I am adding a regular Social networks application Chart starting now. Key thing there are several games in the list.

Its based on the Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Hi5

NEWS: LEGO MMO delayed till 2010? 11 12 who knows?

There has been a story released which you can read here

But the short version goes Lego universe is delayed and wont be released 09, to add to that it may not release 2010 and they wont confirm a release date. They are claiming its strategic which may be the case but not releasing in 2010? thats a bit more than strategic.

For me part of the problem with LEGO UNIVERSE is that they are trying to build a UNIVERSE.......its a mistake many people make. One bit of advice start small grow strong, listen to your community and add features and content that they want.

For Lego they have the advantage of being a mega brand, and may be they can make this delay into a positive may be timing is not right for them, or may be just may be they have realized that building a UNIVERSE is an ongoing for ever evolving mammoth task....just look at ours.

CHARTS: This weeks world top 10

1=Mystery P.I. - The NY Fortune
2=Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure
3=Fishdom
4=Liong: The Lost Amulets
5=Westward 3
6=Undiscovered World - The Incan Sun
7=Chess For Dummies®
8=TextTwist 2
9=Build-a-lot 2: Town of the Year
10=Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

NEWS: 5 easy to swallow headlines

1.

I-phone game hits 600K in a single month, loan developer quits job after making $36,000 on the day it rose to number 1. The game ishoot sells for $3.99 and has a free demo version.

2.

I-phone app store becomes Gameloft's single biggest sales channel for Mobile games

3.

GMG Entertainment Leads prepaid industry. They generate roughly $75 million dollars in sales per year. GMG Entertainment estimates that it controls roughly 50% of that market.

4.

Virtual Worlds Winning Ad Dollars From Traditional TV Sites

50 to 75 percent of ad dollars for kids' Web properties are going to sites and communities that don't come with integrated TV packages, sources told AdWeek. Brands, according to the report, are shifting away from traditional advertising into digital, which is helping major sites like Disney's and Nick's, but also into completely new properties like virtual worlds and youth-focused advertising networks.

5.

Wizard 101 has reported over one million unique users have registered for their free-to-play, tween-orientated MMORPG. They have achieved this within five months of its launch in September 2008.

The company awarded the millionth registered player with a free one year subscription to the game along with an "interactive commemorative plaque" featuring their name in-world.

REPORT: Casual Connect Hamburg Part 1

This year saw a new venue and a new country so whats the verdict?

Although I don't love it as much as Amsterdam, Hamburg is a great city and the new venue although lacking in character was definitely better for business. Some of the usual suspects were absent including Mumbo Jumbo, EA, Majesco & ValueSoft. However they were swiftly replaced by many new comers and rising stars.

These included Super Rewards, KaiserGames & MMOlife, and a host of support companies who focus on payment and back end systems including TwoFish represented by the infamous Sean Ryan.

There was a big focus on community gaming, Mobile and monetization in general. And for very good reason....download is being hit hard very hard....$19.99 has slipped to $6.99 and even $5.99 on Real Arcade, which hints that they are not clear on strategy or direction is a $1 cheaper a Real strategy?. Real have recently ditched the console division and in the past they have purchased a range of companies including Trymedia and GameTrust, Real are a big player but dont seem to have a clear vision. Big Fish will continue to grab audience from Real and others, Ply First will probably release yet another Dash mashup...but for me have failed to capitalize on their position and may have peaked although they have actively worked on their community and this could be the area they focus on for growth.

BigPoint, Gameforge, Wild Tangent and Spil are all positioned well for further growth and there is room for in Eastern Europe and Asia also especially as the payment systems have become more sophisticated. Many of the eastern European developers attended the event, these included Alwar, Playrix and Astrum Online.


The clear message from many developers seemed to be you can not focus on the "PC Download market" as a single business model, those days are gone and you are lucky if your last in the top 10 for a couple of weeks the market is flooded with content and you need to develop a strategy. At the moment Browser has become king and community gaming is the next wave for casual, I think that these communities will end up becoming a great distribution channel for the PC Download market possibly with a pay to earn the game model linked to community points.

Thanks to all the team at Casual Connect for a great event keep up the good work.

Part 2 coming soon.

IN HAMBURG BACK SOON

Sorry for the lack of posts Im in Hamburg, Lots to report back soon.

PRESENTATATION: 33 Ways to make money

Dave Perry had a story on Business Week that I would like to share with you. It details the many different ways to make money from games.

Its a great presentation and he turned up some that I had not even heard off.

Hear are the top 10

Selling Boxed Games
Episodic Content
Feed Me or Die
Download Try b4 you buy
Around Game Adverts
Micro-transaction
Subscription
Sponsored items
In Game Adverts
Licensing

CHARTS: This weeks top 10 casual games

1=Mystery P.I. - The NY Fortune
2=Liong: The Lost Amulets
3=Totem Tribe
4=Crosswords For Dummies
5=Fishdom
6=Delicious - Emily's Tea Garden
7=Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
8=Build-a-lot 3: Passport to Europe
9=TextTwist 2
10=Bejeweled 2 Deluxe"

VIRTUAL WORLDS : Headlines of Cross media tie-ins

Habbo to Promote IGOR DVD with Virtual Goods (film/game tie in)

Today Habbo and Exodus Film Group announced a partnership to promote the DVD release of the animated film IGOR. Each copy of the IGOR DVD will ship with a promotional code that unlocks four exclusive virtual items in Habbo's online virtual world. The movie-themed items are a brain, a laser, an "evil switch," and a "hump massager." The move is part of the attempt to turn a profit on the movie since the box office receipts only brought in 29 million and the film costs 30 million.

EA Launching Free Need for Speed MMO (film game/ tie in)

Electronic Arts has announced three new titles in 2009. One is the free-to-play MMO, Need for Speed World Online. A joint project between regular NFS developer Blackbox and EA Singapore.

Heroes and Habbo: Interactive Storytelling in a Virtual World (TV/Game tie in)

Yesterday Habbo and NBC.com announced a partnership to create a new "Heroes"-based character that will crossover from the virtual world to NBC's own site. According to Teemu Huuhtanen, President, North America, Sulake, the partnership is a little deeper than previous marketing efforts in Habbo.

"In many ways it's a groundbreaking partnership with us. We're creating a character for a major TV show, but also our users when they find the powers get to know more about themselves," said Huuhtanen.

Outso Developing New Music-Themed World, Mixm8 (music & games tie in)

UK-based console and Web game designer, pushed out a microsite to promote its upcoming virtual world, Mixm8. Mixm8, due in the second half of 2009, promises to "deliver value to the mp3 experience which has been diminished through piracy and illegal downloads." Users will be able to socialize, attend concerts, and customize their own apartments to show off their tastes. Online shops and holders of back catalogs like Xpressbeats, Ninja Tune and War Child as well as independent, alternative artists such as Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip have already shown commitment to the current prototype.

CHARTS: World Wide Console games

Casual titles still ruling in the console charts. Six out 10 are casual. A lot of this is down to the installed user base. So if you want true figures you need to look at the figures relatively.

And its this installed user base that is driving developers to release a flurry of games. However personally I think developers should be focusing on the Play Station Network. Its an ideal time to gain some ground and start leading the way. Its not cluttered, and I believe that this machine has a longer life span than its competition. This is how it will play out! Eventually Sony will allow players to do almost anything you can do on the Wii, the titles and content that are on Wii will eventually be available in some form or another. The experience that you can have on The PSN will be very broad and more importantly wont be matched on the Wii. Peripherals will extend the life of the PS3 way beyond the Xbox or Wii due the machines superior power and capability. Eventually people who own Wii's will want a broader experience and more choice they will get tired of the same old same old.

So unless the Wii grows with its audience and supporters it will eventually lose out to PSN & Microsoft

One thing Microsoft and PSN could do to speed up this race is make decision to allow cross platform communications between PC, mobile, ITV & Console networks. Then we have a truly awesome setting for the world playing together. Like they said in Berlin bring down the WALL !!!

REPORT: Online gaming

In the latest of statistics to be release ComScore say the time spent playing online games in the US has grown 42 per cent in the last year.

Furthermore, now gaming online makes up 4.9 per cent of all of America’s internet use, compared to 3.7 per cent in December 2007.

So what does this all mean for you and your project?

Estimated internet users in the US for June 2008 248,000,0000
Number of people playing online games (35% of the US internet population) 86,000,000

Some sites with high volumes of traffic

UVPM (unique visitors per month per site, does not account for people visiting more than one site)

Habbo.com around 500k
IMVU.com around 2.5 million
Real Arcade 1.6 million
Big Fish Games 2.6 million
Miniclip 5 million
Pogo 8.5 million
Yahoo Games 4.5 million
Stardoll 1.3 million

Pogo are attracting a whopping 10% of online gaming traffic.

Do you know why?

For a long time they have been growing an nurturing a community, they have been listening and responding to the needs of their community. They have managed to encourage cooperative gaming and get their community talking while still having a competitive feel. Just as important they manage to develop loyalty. That can only happen if you give players a reason to be loyal. So many sites miss these important fact.

Also you need to be aware of who you are targeting, know your customer, and your market size in relation to competition and age demographics. The published figures can be deceiving and make many developers over estimate the figures they will get to their site.

A good way to go is to decide what you actually want in market share. So if the kids 6-11 sector represents 8 million players and your game is targeted at boys only then cut that by 50%. Then you aim to get 5% market share then you will have 200,000 UVPM. Then of course you have to work out how you will monetize everything so you can stay in business. For that you will need to know conversion ratios, churn rates and what your revenue lines are at the very least.

You may think this is basic stuff but so many times I speak to people or read about money invested in projects that don't have the proper planning or the full understanding of the market.

We shall come back to this topic shortly and put together some examples that may be helpful.