Playdom folks name the 10 most important Facebook games of 2011

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) may be a time for connecting and brainstorming, but it can also be a time for back patting. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Jokes aside, It's important to recognize past achievements to inform future decisions. Playdom VP Steve Meretzky and creative director Dave Rohrl named the 10 most Facebook games of 2011 during a talk at the event in San Francisco.

According to Gamasutra, Meretzky and Rohrl named the following games because they represent popular, emerging or overlooked trends in social gaming. (And the lot of them are spot-on.) Playtika's Slotomania was mentioned as "one of a whole wave of casino-themed games," Meretzky said, according to Gamasutra. The two also noted the likelihood of online gambling being legalized in the U.S.

Zombie Lane by Digital Chocolate was name-dropped for its zombies that "percolate through the game in interesting ways" in what otherwise is a farming game, Meretzky said. The VP went on to give King.com's Bubble Witch Saga a nod for adding a social progress map that isn't present in other bubble-bursting games on Facebook. Of course Playdom's very own Gardens of Time was mentioned for popularizing the hidden-object genre on the network.

Oddly enough, Meretzky made an example of Playfish's Monopoly Millionaires as a branded Facebook game gone wrong. Gamasutra reports that the Playdom VP called the game "too simple and shallow" and that it was "repetitive and grindy, lacking any strategic depth." Ouch. That said, the duo turned around and congratulated Playfish on an unparalleled use of branding for The Sims Social, calling it a "category killer."

CastleVille by Zynga earned a mention purely for its production values, though they called the game a "slick and really polished FrontierVille re-skin," according to Gamasutra. Social Point's Social Empires was name-dropped for proving Rohrl wrong that strategy social games would fall by the wayside in 2011. The indie darling of the social games world, Triple Town by Spry Fox, was named for being the most innovative Facebook game the two saw last year.

Of course, Words With Friends was mentioned for being the biggest game on Facebook in terms of daily players. Rohrl believes that the Scrabble knockoff will herald a trend in 2012: "This is the year of crossover from mobile to web." Well, congratulations, guys, most of you managed to impress two of the most important folks at Playdom.

Do you agree with Meretzky and Rohrl's estimations of these hit Facebook games? What Facebook games do you think deserve to be mentioned? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Here’s why pirates are important to our whole industry, nations and technological progress

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily like what you parrot lovers do, but I feel that there’s certain stuff that gets forgotten in all this piracy discussion. I’m taking economical point-of-view, and showing you in a pretty concrete way how we’d be screwed if there wasn’t pirates. (And, we’d might be in bad situation too if everybody would be pirating)

And no, pirating doesn’t make you as cool as LeChuck. Image googled and used without permission. I hope I don’t get into deep shit thanks to this.

I read one chap claiming that “pirates cost us (movie industry) 1 billion dollars revenues yearly” (figure that I just invented since I cannot remember the exact sum, but let’s say it’s 1 billion).

Now, pirates come and say “that’s not true!”.

But, I feel that’s pretty bad response. It’s somewhat irrelevant too. Let’s see what happens if we agree with the entertainment industry chap. That’s not necessarily a shinier future for the whole industry, or for technological progress for that matter. Let’s say that piracy costs for example 1 billion of lost revenue yearly to software makers.

1 billion is lost… but who have it?
Here’s the thing that these chaps fail to see:

the lost revenue from software manufacturers goes somewhere else, like to perhaps to hardware manufacturers

This is important, and this is also how software makers benefit. I explain.

The more revenue harware manufacturers make, the better computers they can make. More memory, more speed, and everything costs less.

That’s hugely important. I repeat the sentence bit differently, it’s that important:

if makers of hardware get more revenue, they can use that money to boost the development of computers

If CPU manufacturer gets more money, they can spend that money on research, and get faster computers at cheaper price which benefits software makers since cost of computers is getting lower, which means software makers don’t need to spend that much money to computers.

Let’s do an another example.

Let’s think of example world, called NormalWorld. In normal world, there’s pirates, non-pirates and something between. Here’s the population:

50% of population are Parrot Lovers, they spend 1 billion dollars to hardware and illegally pirate all the software, and spend 1 billion to Ship industry. 50% of population are Good Citizens, who spend 1 billion dollars on hardware and 1 billion dollars to software. But no money to Ship industry. In NormalWorld, software industry makers are spending 0.5 billion to buy better computers from hardware industry.

In NormalWorld, hardware industry is doing fine (2.5 billion total = 1 billion from parrot folks, 1 billion from Good and 0.5 from software), ship industry too is going strong (1 billion from Parrot Lovers), and so is software (0.5 billion total = they get 1 billion from Good but lose 0.5 to hardware).

Everybody praises how Good Citizens are moral and respectable people, and everybody loves them (expect the parrots, who like more the other chaps).

But there are people who say that we should see what our neighbour, SopaWorld does. In SopaWorld, there’s no piracy.

This leads to the following situation:

50% of population are Parrot Lovers there as well, forced to spend 1 billion to software industry, spending 0 billion to hardware, and ship industry gets 1 billion. 50% of population are Good Citizens, who spend 1 billion dollars on hardware and 1 billion dollars to software. But no money to Ship industry. In SopaWorld, software industry makers are spending 1.5 billion to buy expensive computers from hardware industry.

The hardware makers have less money on research, so they sell computers at 3 times higher price since they have got no technological progress which makes components cheaper. It follows that:

In SopaWorld, hardware industry is still doing fine thanks to higher prices (2.5 billion, 0 billion from parrot folks, 1 billion from Good and 1.5 from software), ship industry too is going strong (1 billion), and so is software (only 0.5 billion total = they need to buy 3x more expensive computers).

As you can see, the overall result is exactly the same as in NormalWorld. In NormalWorld, pirates bought so much hardware that software makers didn’t need to spend that much money, but in SopaWorld, pirates aren’t supporting hardware industry, so software industry needs to spend more money, as prices of hardware are higher.

NOTICE: these are imaginary numbers of course, and I’m not saying this would happen if governments introduce laws or if piracy stops. Just trying to explain that we cannot just look at one factor and forget everything else. I will be slowly be reaching towards the conclusions of this article. Read further.

Stopping piracy, might mean loss to other industries…
Then there’s also the DamnItWorld.

In DamnItWorld, things are bit different. DamnItWorld was exactly like NormalWorld, but then a new way to punish piracy caused the following change in the population:

Since Angry Parrot Lovers (they were like Parrot Lovers except they really had no intention of buying never any software) were no longer getting software free, and had no intention to get faster hardware (since they could no longer brag about how they saw in their goddamn expensive home cinema all the newest ripped full hd quality movies). These people had no absolutely any reason to continue purchasing better computers. They weren’t going to buy software anyway, so they stopped buying hardware too. Instead, they took their fishing gear and started buying ships. In DamnItWorld, the ship industry gets 2 billion Good Citizens still spend 1 billion to hardware and 1 billion to software, but they are using worse computers than their neighbours (since computer technology is not profitable here, so no much improvements are being made) and since computers are shitty, their games also have worse looking graphics than in the neighbour countries (that might be a good thing though). Software industry here uses 0.5 billion to buy from hardware, but gets crappy quality computers. Software industry is blaming hardware industry for high costs, hardware industry is blaming software industry for crappy quality products – and they both are whining that ship industry should be taxed so that some money would go into technological research which would help technological progress.

DamnItWorld has 1.5 billion hardware, 0.5 billion software and 2 billion ship industry. Tons of ex-software people nowadays manufacture ships.

Then there’s the LetsSavePaperWorld where people store 2 billion worth of paper under their pillows, hoping that after 30 years, somebody will be willing to buy that paper with some good price. Like, when for example all trees have been cut and there’s shortage of toilet paper. Then those might come handy.

The point
What I’m trying to show you here, that stating something like “movie industry is losing 1 billion or 10 000 jobs thanks to software piracy” also means that some other industries have those 10 000 jobs. (Since movie industry is losing, it means there’s buying power).

If movie industry arguments that stopping online piracy creates jobs, that indeed is true. It sure creates jobs to the software industry. What they fail to point out, that jobs are lost from some other industry.

It works globally too: sure, if random Finnish person (not that we honest citizens pirate, but for the argument, let’s say we do) pirates your US movies and shares it freely here, the US movie industry suffers (compared to situation where Finn would have spent 500 eur to buy stuff). But what the movie industry fails to notice is that the nasty imaginary Finnish pirate is buying your TV electronics that helps your TV industry. If our imaginary Finnish parrot lover is forced to “spend money to US movie industry” or “spend money to US tv industry” (as you see, we like your industries), then to US as a nation, it’s quite irrelevant. Finn is willing to spend 500 eur to your country, and you can choose which industry (tv or movies) gets that money. That Finn is too lazy to work more, so he won’t have more than the 500 eur to spend anyway. That’s all there is for you. And if you cut the piracy option, our imaginary pirate just might start go build ships instead – and then the US movie and tv industry is actually getting 0 eur.

And it works locally too, here’s an example:

If our Regular Joe american is spending 500 dollars yearly on hardware, 0 dollars yearly on software and 500 dollars yearly on shoes – and now is forced to buy software (since movie industry is losing), it means that Joe will spend 500 dollars yearly on hardware, 500 on software and 0 dollars on shoes. So yes, software industry wins, but shoe industry loses.

(Unless of course Joe takes another job, gets +500 dollars to spend on shoes too yearly, and then receives burnout at the age of 29 – then all other industries win, and Joe’s health suffers.)

So, shouldn’t we all become pirates! That way everybody wins, right?!
As said, this is a matter of balance. If everybody would be pirates and nobody would spend a dime in software industry, that industry would die.

If nobody would spend a dime in software industry, then it would mean that other industries win and software industry loses. If software industry dies totally, then it might lead to a scenario where hardware industry gets taxed to support software industry. Or, it might mean that after everybody stopped making software, nobody is buying any more hardware and we are all making ships.

The key point here is that, piracy is not just about “what is wrong and what is right”. This is a matter of allocation of resources.

What do we want to support?

Hardware makers? Software makers? Ship industry?

… or health care, or parrot food, or wood leg industry or what. And of course we must remember that nowadays the different industries are so connected that it’s quite damn tough to say how things really affect. For example, if you like this article so much that you go and order my $1 ludum dare mini game thing from year 2010, the following happens:

Transaction handler industry receives their share of that dollar I get my share of that dollar Indirectly, Finnish government benefits from that dollar too, as I pay taxes And as my taxes support public health care, there’s some finnish hospital worker who gets his share of this transaction (or the tax money can be used to support roads building or library, or whatever they might do with it) Website server bandwidth thingy receives their share indirectly (as I need to pay that too)

And that’s at the expense of your dollar, which you could use to buy for example sweet cold drink.

It’s your call.

The final point
Please notice that all these numbers are fictional. I think there’s no person living in this planet who can accurately draw the flow of money in gaming/movie industry – and all connected industries. This doesn’t mean it would be irrelevant either. This simply means that “cutting piracy” has effects that affect various industries and arguments about “lost jobs” are shaky at most. I find this sort of legislation quite dangerous to be honest.

If there’s pirates, then there’s more support for example to hardware industry (or any other non-software industry for that matter, since pirates have more money left to spend on hardware, rest of us spent it on software you know). If we stop pirates, then they might take their money to some other industry. Or, if they are forced to buy software, then it means all those *other* industries suffer (like the drink industry which didn’t get your dollar when you chose to buy my game).

I wouldn’t be suprised to see more taxing of “industries that do well” to “support those industries that do poorer”, which practically would mean that we got rid of pirates yes, but thanks to taxation, things are (in industry scale) exactly the way they were before.

And after all, we are talking about entertainment industry here. There are much more important jobs in the world than making games or movies. Firemen, police, mental care, teachers, doctors, nurses, child care… all these are important industries.

I’m not saying that it’s somehow acceptable that certain individuals (or groups) have taken the right to share some one else’s invention without owners permission. Telling “it’s good for all” is simply not true, since it forgets the creator.

I don’t have no more so strong opinion on piracy, whether it’s right or wrong. I do not like the idea of government introducing laws and regulations into this industry. I do think that old copyright ideas might not be suitable anymore, but I do also think inventors should not be forgotten when we praise how good sharing of culture is.

I’m not fan of piracy, but stopping piracy is bit like fighting against windmills – and there’s some indirect benefits from piracy.

I think in the end, it’s an individual choice on how we respect each others effort, and how we balance everything. If we all support software industry, other industries suffer… which also makes software industry suffer (since there’s no good hardware). If we all support hardware industry, then software industry suffers (and then there’s no good software). If too many people join the pirate bandwagon, if too many think “I have the right to do this, as I support hardware industry – I let others support software”, then software industry will be facing bad times. It can mean poorer quality, or bigger lawsuits or other bad things.

I feel that as a person who supports both hardware and software industry – it would be equally nice if those pirates who do not support software industry, would re-consider if they too would like to have some direct support to software industry.

How do you vote?
Every citizen who spends their money to hardware and not on software is directly hoping of voting the following:

Hardware quality must get better, therefore I support your industry! Software quality (and all other industries) can suffer!

And every citizen who spends their money on software and not hardware, is directly hoping of voting:

Software quality must get better, therefore I support you! Hardware quality (and all other industries) can suffer!

By “hardware quality” I here mean “faster CPU, better gfx card, more memory, faster memory, better screens, etc”. By “software quality” I mean for example “better graphics, better gameplay, better innovations”.

To put other way around: those nasty pirates who don’t indirectly support software industry, gladly support hardware industry – which helps us makers of software industry too, indirectly (they help get cheaper computers, which means you and me pay less for CPUs).

I’m not saying this makes piracy legal or good in absolute sense. As noted earlier, if nobody supports software industry, software industry suffers.

Note to pirates who argue that “they pirate just because want better service”. There’s better way to get better service than boycott. It happens this way. (1) Buy stuff and (2) tell what you want. Sure, boycott might work too, but as a creator I know It’s easier to do better services when you have some money to fund the development of better service.

Naturally, this is only the direct support. As pointed out earlier, direct support to software industry might mean indirect support to various other industries. And of course directly hoping of voting here might not mean better quality products. For example, the maker of hardware might keep the profits and buy ships instead. That’s why you can only hope your money goes to making of better products. Long-term, I think it’s pretty safe to say that “industries that receive support tends to grow”, so your hopes might come true)

We need balance, and perhaps bit more respect towards each others work.

What is certain, that we hell sure should have much more respect for people who do some actual work (and not just watch movies or code magic numbers).

This entry was posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2012 at 1:43 am and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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One important difference between shareware and free-to-play

“Trial” and “F2P” might sounds different business models, but if we look things from big higher level, there aren’t that many differences. Kind of.

Let’s look things closely between free-to-play (F2P) and shareware* trials:

*by shareware here I mean games that provide you a demo to check out, and then you can buy full version.

Price to get started:
F2P: free!
Shareware: free! (yes, the full game costs, but you can start to play free)

Cost of full gaming experience:
F2P: 0 to 50+ and more bucks (as long as you keep buying virtual items and stuff, there’s endless amount to pay)

Shareware: 1 to 50 and more bucks (many indie games fall in the 5-20 range, but on the other hand, very many games offer add-ons and stuff like that which in a way is quite similar to “virtual items” that allow you to “explore more stuff”)

Time or feature limitations:
(Does the game have limitation like 60 minutes or something that you can play)

F2P: yes (for example, WoW is said to be “free” to play, and it has level cap which effectively gives you certain time limit… at least you cannot progress after playing the game so much (10 hours or so) that there’s nothing more to gain)

Shareware: yes (Big Fish Games have “try 60 minutes for free and buy after” on all their games, many other games have limited features)

So far, these models actually are somewhat similar. I guess it’s much more typical for F2P games to let people buy “virtual goods” (in F2P), but in my opinion “buying new levels” (expansion pack of a shareware game) is quite close to the same idea. After all the point is that player gets more stuff to use and try.

Size of transaction
Virtual goods can cost like 99 cents or $5 or even $500 or whatever in F2P worlds. Indie games can have full game for like $10 and then $5 add-on contents. In F2P games, players make several more smaller purchases in longer period of time.

In shareware model you see few (possibly) bigger purchases.

So… now what?
From my own experience, there’s certain games that I buy no matter what they cost. There’s indie games that I buy for ten bucks. And I’ve even spent some money on in-game purchases (not that many really).

What is interesting that buying something in game (that costs like a buck or two) doesn’t require much thinking. Essentially, spending 2 bucks on some nice thing feels pretty close to “free” in my mind. Spending $50 for a game is something I stop to think for a second.

In a way, F2P model sounds like a “easy tiny payments scattered over a period of time” (bit like how credit cards work).

I don’t know how far F2P model will go, but I feel that if me and you aren’t prepared and designed our games totally ignoring F2P then we have a serious problem. It’s simply something we gotta take into consideration when figuring out how to price our games.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 9th, 2011 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Facebook Ecommerce: What Features Are Important in a Page Storefront Application

The following is an excerpt from the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive guide to marketing your company, app, brand, or website using Facebook. The full version of this article includes 10 more important features to look for in an ecommerce app, with explanations of each, as well a discussion of why you might want to send users offsite to complete transactions.

Future articles in our ecommerce series will look at examples of well executed Facebook ecommerce strategies, compare different storefront applications, and provide, walk through how to set up your store front, and provide best practices for promoting your Facebook ecommerce experience.

Facebook offers a huge opportunity for increasing brand loyalty, but there’s also a way to earn money directly from the social network’s built in audience of hundreds of millions of users. Ecommerce delivered through Page tab applications can help you to generate a return on investment that is easy to measure.

In this first installment of a Facebook Marketing Bible series on ecommerce, we’ll discuss what features to look for when choosing what ecommerce storefront app to use for your business. We’ll list the features, such as product  catalog importing, checkout, design, and promotion, and explain why each is important and what choice is best for different business types.

Facebook Pages can install third-party ecommerce storefront applications that allow them to display a catalog of products, let users add items to a shopping cart, and the checkout either within Facebook or on an external website.

Some key features of Facebook ecommerce storefront apps include:

The ability to import your existing ecommerce webstore or catalog of productsIntegration with other ecommerce software such as Magento and ShopifyCheckout functionality that either lets users complete the payment process within Facebook, pay with popular payment system, or that direct users back to a business’ website to finish the payment process

Ecommerce software integration or catalog importing will make it much easier to get your ecommerce storefront started and keep it up to date as your product line changes. When choosing an application, make sure it is compatible with whatever software or product database format you use. In terms of checkout functionality, there are advantages to both checkout on and off of Facebook. Checkout on Facebook means there will be fewer clicks in the purchase flow, which can significantly reduce drop off. Some users may not want to navigate away from Facebook to complete a purchase, as the primary reason they were on Facebook in the first place was probably not ecommerce.

Some additional features to look for in a Facebook ecommerce storefront application include:

Product search, browsing and display options

This will define how easy it is for users to find the products they want. “Most Popular”, “Recommended for You” based a user’s Likes, and “Liked by Your Friends” display options can quickly lead users to the products they’ll find relevant and may be more willing to buy.

Display customization and branding

Some apps require you to use a default color theme, layout, may show the developer’s name, and may not allow you to add a branded banner. In contrast, some white-labled apps allow you to customize your storefront’s them and layout as well as brand the store with a banner and other signage.

Analytics about product views, checkouts, sales and other metrics can help you optimize your storefront and track your return on investment. For example, analytics could help you determine what step in the purchase flow is causing the most dropoff, and then allow you to track the results of design changes. Conclusion

Look through the features above and decide which are most important to your business. You can then use this as a checklist when choosing which Facebook ecommerce storefront Page tab application to choose.

For the complete list of important storefront features and a discussion of why offsite checkout might be best for your business, visit the Facebook Marketing Bible. Future installments in our ecommerce series will include case studies of Facebook ecommerce, a comparison of storefront apps, a storefront set up walk-through, and strategies for promoting your storefront.

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Cafe World Strategy--Why the Layout of Your Cafe is So Important in Cafe World

A lot of the fun of playing Cafe World is the fact that you can customize your cafe in all sorts of ways.  You can choose to add many different kinds of tables and chairs, doors and windows to create just the atmosphere you're looking for.  You can also select from any of a number of other tasteful and interesting decorations.  There are even several stylish options for the clothing that your own character wears.  

But no matter what you decide to do when it comes to decorating your cafe, you need to remember that the way you set up your tables, chairs, counters and stoves will not only impact the ambiance of the place.  It will also have a lot to do with your ability to succeed in the game and grow you business overall.  

Easy Access Means Easy Money

First and foremost, you need to arrange your furniture so that your customers will actually be able to get to all of the available tables and chairs.  If you have, for instance, three chairs in a row up against a wall, the middle chair is simply wasted space.  Your customers can't walk past the outer chairs to get to the middle one, so you'll actually likely lose customers needlessly when they walk in and can't find a place to sit.

Do you want to discover some real Café World Secrets? Click HERE to instantly download this great guide that reveals the Best Café World Secrets ever Seen

Since you know you never want to let customers walk away unsatisfied, you want to make sure that you have enough seating.  It's easy to lose site of this aspect of your cafe.  After all, you're the most actively involved in preparing and serving food ' trying to make sure you always have food available and that the food on your stoves doesn't sit there too long and spoil.  But none of that careful planning will do you any good if you don't have tables and chairs available for your customers to sit and eat at.

Save Your Waiter's Legs

Even when your customers are able to find an empty seat, they'll only wait so long to get their meal.  That's why you need to make sure you set your tables up in a way that makes it easy for your waiter or waitress to get around.  The quicker they can get back and forth from the serving counters to the tables, the easier it will be for you to make sure every customer who walks through your door gets their food in a timely manner.

Another thing you can do to help give your wait staff more time to serve your customers is to give your customers a long walk to their tables.  This means essentially putting in a lot of twists and turns so that your customers will have to take the long way around from the door to their seat.  Being generally rather agreeable, your customers really don't mind this at all.  And the extra walking time for your customers means more time for your waiters and waitresses to stay caught up on their serving cycles.  If you keep these items in mind as you add more tables and chairs to your cafe, you'll be well on your way to success in Cafe World.

Do you want to discover some real Café World Secrets? Click HERE to instantly download this great guide that reveals the Best Café World Secrets ever Seen

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Which is more important, FarmVille or the Oscars?

You may remember that Zynga have been encouraging players to attend real life meetups on February 27th to meet other FarmVille players who live in their area. Now some observant players on the FarmVille forums have noted that this is the exact same day as the Academy Awards.

While each meetup has the ability to schedule their time individually, meaning they could have morning meetups, some of the meetups are already planned for the evening time. Some players are a bit undecided on whether they should stay home and watch the Oscars, or attend the meetup in their area. Not to mention, Sunday night is one of FarmVille's update nights.

We're not sure this was the best decision by Zynga, to pick the same date as the biggest awards show for movies. It could have also been intentional - a way to get players to be thinking about FarmVille on February 27th instead of thinking of the Oscars.

Will you be attending a FarmVille meetup, watching the Oscars, both, or neither? Tell us in the comments!
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