When I first discovered Turntable.fm last month, I didn’t get a damn bit of work done for 3 hours. After that evening I banned myself from DJing. I’ve since gone back in to the Dubstep room as a fun, serendipitous “radio”, but concluded that 8tracks is a simpler solution for that use case. That said, quite a few people are …
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 …
Why do people buy virtual goods? (on motivations and compulsions)
Virtual goods have finally been legitimized as a revenue model, rather than a niche (even weird) activity ignored in favor of advertising. Now the concept is spreading beyond its game / virtual world roots, and we’re seeing large numbers of companies trying to figure out a “virtual goods” strategy. While I believe very strongly in virtual goods as an effective …
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 …
Virtual world and social game ARPUs
Justin Smith had an interesting slide deck at the Social Games Summit where he shared his estimates for monthly ARPUs (average revenue per user): “good Facebook” – $0.30 – $0.40 “good MySpace” – $0.60 – $0.70 Some games can do much better. The Facebook game Battlestations shared some data in late 2008 where they appeared to have around a $1.00 …