Stealing Farmville's thunder one player at a time. 1 down, 80 million to go.
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David Barnes
Sticking to Skill Based Mechanics Leads to Growth for Bingo Blitz
Buffalo Studios may have found the secret to “stickiness” in Facebook Bingo games by adhering to the essential skill and mechanics of Bingo for Bingo Blitz. This stands out in the field among other Bingo games such as Bingo Adventures reviewed here, Bingo Derby reviewed here, Bingo Charms reviewed here, and Big City Bingo, which all deviate from the skill-based core Bingo play in one way or another.
ISG argues that Bingo games need to stick with the old "skill based" mechanic. I guess the skill is quickly finding the called numbers on a large grid, rather than leaving that grunt work to a computer.
Number of viable Facebook Game Dev businesses doubles in 14 months
To run a viable business in Facebook games you need about 100,000 MAU. If you've got that you can pull in about $10k per month: enough for a couple of guys to live on and still have something left to invest in the business. In May 2010 there were 427 developers at this level on Facebook. Today there are 911. If you look at the quality of offerings that have made it past 100k MAU you'll see how attainable the goal is. Most of these guys aren't running real freemium games and won't be making much money. This just shows that getting to 100k MAU is not a crazy challenge. With a well designed game that user base can be pretty profitable.
Forget 99c iTunes Games.
This week's top-grossing iPhone titles are:1. Tap Pet Hotel (Free)
2. Zynga Poker (Free)
3. Top Girl (Free)
4. Angry Birds ($0.99)
5. Tap Zoo (Free)
6. Texas Poker (Free)
7. Smurfs' Village (Free)
8. Tiny Tower (Free)
9. Fashion Story (Free)
10. Happy Park (Free)Microtransation-supported titles dominate the iPhone's top-grossing sales chart, with this week seeing Crowdstar's Top Girl joining Pocket Gems' Tap Pet Hotel and Zynga Poker in the platform's top three.
Of the top 10 grossing iTunes games out now, only 1 has a price of 99 cents. The rest are free to play games that make their money in app.
If you're still making 99c games, why?
Hidden Objects, Hardcore, and Casino games are under-served niches says director of Facebook games
Hidden Objects: There are dozens of hidden-object games on other game platforms, but on Facebook there are only two, serving 200 million people. “You can’t make them social? Bullshit! … My guess is we can support 50 to 100 of them.”
Hardcore games: Ryan said the “core” genre didn’t appear on Facebook until a couple of months ago, and today a company like Kabam has raised millions in capital and has 450 employees.
Casino: He said this category is creating “unbelievable monsters,” like Playtika, which was acquired by Caesars Entertainment Corporation for $80 million. Turns out that people are completely okay winning virtual currency that they can never cash out, he said.
A few more: Hunting, Fishing, Christian, Urban and Romance.
According to Facebook's direct of game partnerships Sean Ryan, these are the niches and genres upcoming casual developers should look at, especially in the social games space.
Aiming for more farms and cities? Ryan thinks you're wasting your time.
Zynga tries to squeeze some money out of a tight fisted @nicholaslovell
I haven’t played for months, and as I cleared withered crops and collected some ancient rents, this in-your-face sales screen popped up.
I noted:
- A big discount (30%) off
- That the amounts being asked for are big ($14, $35 or $70)
- That the imagery implies I’ve won some sort of lottery (reporter, TV camera, "you won…")
- That a countdown timer is ticking, giving me a sense of urgency
Zynga is a master of finding ways to squeeze money out of everyone. Offering large discounts to occasional players makes sense. A sort of "get back in the game" offer.
Then again, it sounds like Nick isn't the only player to see this at about the same time.
Why WOULDN'T you offer massive discounts to players that haven't bought currency yet? Selling at a 30% discount is much better than selling nothing at all. It's not like this currency COSTS Zynga anything.
Why Publishers are Inevitable & Will Be Here Forever
- The developer gets guaranteed income for their work, whether the idea behind it is good or not, but limited upside if it takes off This is the essence of publishing and in any hit driven market it ain't going to go away. It's happening now.
