A lot of customer development language revolves around ensuring that you are solving a real problem, and the right problem. But what if you aren’t solving a problem? Lean startup principles still apply to games and entertainment apps. You have the same things to validate: user experience and an understanding of your value, who your customers are (and when certain …
Are Game Dynamics Jumping the Shark?
AdAge today asks “What’s saving the current crop of virtual games from becoming the next Second Life?”, with their answer being game dynamics. I am a huge believer in the power of creatively designed incentives and game-like compulsion loops, but I suspect enthusiasm for badges, levels and points have hit “fad” and “over-reliance” territory. Foursquare, for example, used gaming very …
PC Game Digital Distribution Growth Strong
While the sales of new games in retail have struggled recently, Gamasutra recently reported that the digital download services continue to see strong growth: Valve’s Steam service revealed a 97% increase in download sales, year-over-year IGN’s own direct download service, Direct2Drive, has also surged year on year, according to the company, posting gains of 56% compared to twelve months previously. …
Casual games companies and the transition to Facebook
My last post commented on GamesBeat’s articles from Casual Connect, which touched on the challenges old casual game leaders are having with the new world of social games / social networks. Inside Social Games just posted about PopCap bringing Zuma to Facebook (as well as letting players use Facebook Connect on their own site). A quick look and you can …
Social Gaming Expands as Casual Gaming Gets Nervous
Casual Connect just took place in Seattle and Dean Takahashi over at GamesBeat has done a great job capturing some of the trends in this part of the games world: Part 1 and Part 2. Some of the most interesting quotes: Social games might hit a half billion in revenues this year. In 2007, before a price war began, casual …
U.S. Online Gaming Grows 22%
Conventional wisdom is that in down economies, entertainment is counter-cyclical. In the console space, the sales of new games has come under pressure in the poor economy, but the sales of used games is way up as well as subscriptions to mail-based video game rental programs (see Nielsen report). Now Comscore has tallied up US visitors to online gaming sites …