Tue, 21 Aug 2012 06:03:47 -0800

Elements of Social Games from MetalAlpSolid

Konami asked me to do a broad powerpoint in 2 days. These are my own personal viewpoints.
All comment welcome. Need to make a few word tweaks and design fixes.

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Fri, 03 Aug 2012 19:06:57 -0800

Social Gaming Ghost Town ~ How engaged are your players?

When building a social game you need to make sure your DAU/MAU metrics measure up if you want a successful or sustainable game. You get it wrong and you will have to put a screen of death up, saying that your game has been removed. DAU/MAU needs to be correct before... heavily investing into marketing.

DAU = Daily Active Users MAU = Monthly Active Users DAU/MAU = Engagement

DAU/MAU measures the people that come to your application everyday. If your DAU/MAU is .2 (or 20%) then 20% of your total users are coming to your application everyday.
DAU/MAU is a great measure of game design quality. It shows how engaging your game is or how addicting. The more often a player return to your game the more likely they are to spend.
Try to achieve 20%+ is a good rule of thumb for a sustainable free social game. 20%+ shows strong user retention and monetization. Getting 20%+ is easier said then done though. The top games get 15% to 30%.
Your game being fun is not good enough. The application market is saturated. There are 100+ fun games. If I played your game yesterday. There should be specific reasons that I feel obligated to play your game today and tomorrow.
Create your social game so players want to visit your game everyday. The quality or virality needs to made into the game design start from 1 day. Game design should be high quality. You should ask yourself "why will people come back to this game everyday?" in the very early stages of application development.

Engage the player 1st, then monetize. Engagement is the heart of your game

Why should I care about engagement ?

The more often a player visits your game, the higher chance of them spending
Engagement supports all parts of your game (retention, reach, monetization, virality, etc)
Engagement keeps traffic flowing into your game and keeps it alive.

Social games are free, you haven't collected the $50 upfront fee like the console guys. You are not in console gaming, they don't depend on players bringing their friends. Social gaming business model depends on virality, engagement, and retention. Engagement is a key metric.

Can we use "Viral Marketing" to save your game from dieing? No... Successful viral games don’t have viral marketing fixed on once the product has been developed or launched. It’s not a marketing strategy. Instead, virality should be designed into the product from the very beginning as part of the fundamental architecture of the experience. Viral Marketing is not a strategy.

No single product feature determines the viral success of a product (application)

On Making Changes and Being Data-Driven

Game design is similar to policy making:you should only use intuition (ideology) when you don't have data to drive decisions

A few ways to drive your DAU/MAU up, and get people back to your game

Can you raise your high score? (Bejeweled Blitz)

Can I become more rich or raise my high score? or make it to the next level, stage, etc. This is the main reason people visit games like SongPop, Tetris Attack, and it works because the game in theory only last a few minutes. (But will play several times) Produce your games so players have long term incentive to play.
Collect your daily treasure or money. Some games have daily or sub-daily salary to be collected each day, if they show up to your application to collect. Give players daily incentives to collect daily. Frequent visits = better performance ingrained in the players psychology.
Avoid lose of progression or punishment. If you add an element that the player lose a bit of his overall progress if he doesn't play regularly, it'll force players to come back and become dedicated. Examples: Rotting crops. (Farmville). Dying fish (Happy Aquarium).
Limited Energy. You have ration your energy. Once you run out you have to wait till you can play again. To perform optimally you have to use energy as soon as it available, before its maxed out. Ration how much players can players can play keep them hungry (check game pacing if you interested in this more).
See whats happening when you have been gone. Design games where "things happen" while the player is away. So they chronically check back to see what is going on, in a way similar to people check obsessively check their email.

Obviously your game being slightly fun is also important. DAU/MAU and the other tactics talked about here are only a few pieces of a big puzzle. Don't think you'll succeed if you only bother with DAU/MAU. (unless you go back to 2007 or 2008)

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Thu, 02 Aug 2012 17:42:52 -0800

Facebook app developer Kixeye has created one of the most creative and funniest recruitment videos (at least in the social gaming) ... called "The Interview"

4 games companies are compared and Kixeye tries to show why they are the best.
There is alot of Easter eggs so you might need to watch this video a few times.

The Companies that are being made fun in Kixeye's video

Zynga is portrayed as a immature kid, while making fun of its company mascot.
EA is shown as a old man who talks about "the good old days." and being lifeless.
Kabam is shown as being data-driven, boring, and choosing random games to make.

After all 3 interview ends. Kixeye CEO Will Harbin makes a pitch of why they are the best gaming company.

The "The Interview" video seems to have a positive ROI, in PR and bringing talent over to Kixeye. So far Kixeye's CEO Will Harbin has been adament about staying only on the desktop Facebook platform and away from foreign markets. Soon they might move to cell phone though. Several more Kixeye games are in the works.

Kixeye has only done Facebook Applications and has stayed away from mobile

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Mon, 23 Jul 2012 07:29:41 -0800

Mark Pincus explains why being a Product Manager is one of the best routes.

What is a Great Product Manager ?
You have to be good at....

Road mapping
Prioritizing feature list (and Prioritizing decisions)
Use of Engineering mandates wisely, since you have very few shots
Calibrate your predictive skills and metric abilities
Talk in different languages when talking to engineers, business people
A good sense in understanding of the customer
Understanding all of the features
Understanding revenues & Profit & Loss(P&L key metric in PM performance)
Understanding ALL the pieces

If you can be a product manager, you can acquire the experience of acting as a CEO. The skills gained in product roadmapping, prioritizing tasks, interoffice communications, customer understanding, and product marketing are absolute necessities for being an effective enterprise lead.

Being a product manager is a demanding and high profile job. Individuals should make sure they're up to the challenge.

Marrisa Mayer is Engineer turned Product Manager turned CEO

Good Product Managers

Good product managers are extremely detail focused throughout the full product development lifecycle. You should be able to identify and resolve inconsistencies in features/applications you are defining and participate in the entire development process. Leading a quality product to release may require hundreds and hundreds of minor adjustments, clarification and decisions to get to that highly polished state of a truly great user experience.

Good product managers command strong leadership of the build & release & feedback & iterate process. Putting a qualitative and quantitative feedback system in place that actively monitors all systems and uses signals to inform future decision, and is adaptable and willing to quickly change thinking & approach when data indicates the reality is contrary to a hypothesis.

Visuals cut through clutter: When talking about Design. This is important when communicating with your art team. Product Managers should only wire frame though (this is arguable though). Good product managers should make visuals when communicating with the art/UI team.

Extensive Documentation is a waste of time.
Writing about Design is like dancing about architecture.

Good product managers have enough technical knowledge of the product they are creating to know why some things are difficult to implement and why some things are easy to implement. You need to be able to speak "engineer" and communicate the system they will be working on, but good product managers are fast at internalizing the basics and can have reasonably accurate guess on time and and effort for changes. These educated guesses will need to be validated with your engineering team but should be directionally correct as your team is depending on you to make the calls as to whether a particular feature or change is worth the time required to implement it. Good Product Managers can also think about their product from an engineering perspective and understand how the thing they're specifying fits into existing patterns, game system,database structures, etc that already exists in the product.

Engineering Team At Work

Good product managers have excellent relationships with their engineering teams. PM's typically have very direct reports but have to work with most of the team to get something successfully released. PM's must cultivate a strong feeling of collaboration and teamwork, so that when you ask someone to put extra energy to get the next release out, or get them to work 60+ hours a week, they're willing to do it.
Good product managers are pragmatic and clear/concise communicators. The specs you write should be as simple as possible and no simpler. Knowing this line and staying on the right side of it is part of the art of product management. Your team needs to understand the intention of what should be created but need to facilitate this understanding in the most efficient way possible. The degree of communication required varies widely based on experience of your team, and if you work together onsite or remotely, the backgrounds of individual team members, etc, but as product managers you should have a instinctive account of what information your team needs now. (comes with experience)

Facebook Cafeteria

Good product managers have good taste. (I love eating) A good product manager will strive to get the product out the door as fast as possible, but know when something just isn't ready for the platform and will be the one to say so confidently. Good product managers are keepers of a great user experience.

Engineering = #1 Resource of Product Manager

Good product managers think of engineering capacity as the single most valuable resource in the universe. They should seek to refine the product development process so that the engineering team has everything they need to build the product as efficiently as humanly possible. Which means required documentation is done BEFORE needed, concepts are tried and test with prototypes or other minor tests prior to investing in a build, the assets and real data needed are prepared prior to investing time in full builds, the data and assets needed are ready before the developer team needs them. You can never be 100% ready though for anything in life, especially if working in an agile process, but you should aim for very high standards.

Alp's Product Manager Meter. Red/Health ~ Orange/Experience

Good product managers have experience and good health. Product management is a skill you learn and improve through practice. If you keep getting sick and sick you will be out of the picture. Good health is required to be successful in any business.

Important Point = Good product managers are prepared to do whatever is needed to release a quality product. This might mean doings things at time that don't fall in your responsibility or job description. This may mean wire framing, quick hacking, paper prototyping, QA testing (even if you have QA people in place), etc. Product managers should get their hands dirty to ensure the product keeps moving forward.

Learning about product management: Only way to learn is actually do the job.
Spend at least twice as much time DOING then reading or other activities.

~~~ Thanks for reading, This is just a rough draft, I will make several revision. Alp

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Sun, 22 Jul 2012 02:27:35 -0800

I AM PLAYR is a creative facebook soccer application by We R Interactive. The game was released back in November 2010 and has 1,300,000 MAU and 140,000 DAU.

Why I AM PLAYR is very unique & original

full-motion video story sequences, story clips are seen from a 1st person POV (from the eyes of the person there), throughout the game. At the end of some clips you are given a alternative decision to make that affects the story. This is clearly the best part of the game.
Quality of video production is impressive & entertaining and acting is believable.

I AM PLAYR Is one of the 1st games I've seen since 2008 years in social gaming that is quite different from all the other games. The game unravels through a combination of full-motion video story sequences, first-person training minigames and text-based matches including occasional first-person attempts on goal. The setting and story of the game is fictional English soccer team in River Park F.C.

Shooting for a goal

Why I AM PLAYR has strong game production

Stands out in the saturated facebook app market. If your too similar to others apps or have weak design you die fast.
Hard to copy or clone

full motion video sequences takes time
full motion video hasn't been done at really any social gaming studios
money and considerable manpower to produce

3. Strong user retention - unlike most other soccer games produced that are produced and quickly die once hitting the market I AM PLAYR has done a very good job at user retention.
4. We R Interactive has only a 1 application company so far, so they don't have the luxury of "cross-marketing" like big social gaming companies

How engaging is I AM PLAYR?
Currently has 11.8% DAU / MAU. The more engaged a user is in your game, the more likely they are to spend. A user who comes in and plays your game everyday is much more likely to get to that point where they open their wallet. If you have very good game design, players will keep coming back. Also, note there is no metric to measure how fun a game is other then qualitatively.

How does it work?

Using Credits " Gold Coins" to bypass training drills (buy match fitness)
Buy Virtual Gear all Nike & Swift (We R Interactive should have a deal with Nike & Swift)
Buying Energy all "Redbull," Energy slowly regenerates or you can buy. (brand partnership redbull)

Applifier is used for cross-promotion with other companies games - in the header

Notes

Localization - on on languages with high with soccer popularity (Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese)

Video Story Unfolding

Upcoming
We R Interactive is coming with 2 more application. I'd be curious to see if they have the same production route with motion video storytelling.

I am Star
Lyroke "beat the music video"

DAU/MAU is the main measure of game design quality or engagement.

DAU = Daily Active Users

Competitors
1. Top Eleven be a Football Manager
2. EA SPORTS FIFA Superstar,
3. 11x11 - Online Football Manager
4. Galacticos Football 2012
5. Premier Football,
6. Freestyle Soccer
7. Footy!
8. Footbo City

-Bola (RIP)

Stats
(1.5 million DAU, Nordeus)
(250k DAU, EA)
(50K DAU, Nekki)
(40K DAU, Fantasy Moguls)
(30K DAU, PageFad)
(30k DAU, Telaxo)
(20k DAU, Babuki)
(10k DAU, Pixofun)

(Playdom, was at 240k in early 2011 DAU went down like a trainwreck)

DAU/ MAU
32%
12.5%
10.64%
14.71%
9.38%
7.32%
6.45%
10%

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Tue, 17 Jul 2012 05:41:09 -0800

I will be blogging here weekly now. 1st post coming soon. This post is a attempt to make the hardest part happen, which is starting. I will be bringing quality not quantity about my viewpoints.

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