Casual Connect 2013 – F2P as the Mainstream
August 2013 – The Casual Connect conference in San Francisco celebrated the F2P (Free to Play) gaming marketplace and the traditional app model casual game for the mobile marketplace. Unlike the console oriented AAA games, these are targeting the 15sec-3 minute a level game play that can played during waiting time on a second task. This marketplace is expanding with the emergence of more smart phones, tablets, phablets, smart watches, and ultrabooks.
One of the major themes was the transition from social games 1.0 to the social games 2.0 era. Social Game 1.0 was the 2007-2012 period and was represented by social on distribution and low cost software development – mostly targeted at computer based users. Social games 2.0 is based on social installation on mobile devices and include local communication within the game community on a continual basis. These installations and support are now moved to the community as have driven the cost per installation (CPI) down to $0.01/user. The new games are also supporting a transmedia model with a tie in to TV episodes and movie releases.
The new models have a challenge of non-uniform distribution. There is no uniform publishing model, nor is there a uniform licensing model for the social games. The new model has independent developers launching free to play games through simple negotiated part channels that are typically content tied in, rather than distribution tied in. The availability of public repositories like iTunes, Google Play, the Samsung, LG and Amazon App stores, and many other large open branded stores, allows end users to find new products that are targeted for their specific products without having to sorry about platform compatibility. The diversity of platforms in the mobile space, and the desire from the end user to “just get the content and use it” after they purchase a platform, has brought these targeted stores to market. From the developer side, this simplifies the product release, as they can be hosted and targeted to the correct configuration as available rather than having to make a “all platform and configuration” product release.
One of the keys to holding an audience in the F2P world is bing current with a game or as a tie in through being a 2nd screen. This means the game has to be (A) authentic to the theme and quality of the source material, (B) it needs to relevant and integrated in the experience of the source so it enhances the source, not detract from it and ( C) it has to be an agile platform that is current withe source, is not stagnant and most importantly – when the source show or theme is not changing (between seasons and or sequels) the content is still updated in the game to hold the user’s attention and interest until the new source content is back and available.
Zynga opened up the event with a discussion on games and game development as art. Traditonal art has existed primarily as an expression of ideas by the artist while simultaneously being a business that supported the commissioning model and contract assignment models. This means that art is a business fundamentally, and gaming is also. In a business it is important to know, understand and service your customers and audience. The F2P model is much more audience targeted, as the diversity and game play times are not the same as the traditinoal AAA game development of multi-person/multi-year followed by large focused marketing efforts. Rather they are quick release games with only a few targeted goals per games, for a small audience that is looking for those features. As the games expand and develop, the audience for the games can grow – but these growth modes are typically detailed by the commentary in the social media for the games rather than decided apriori by an internal marketing team.
They likened the need for a long term vision of the games on a 5 year basis even though the details of the steps along the way are not worked out. For farmville, there was a basic plan, but not a strategic 5 yr plan. This was implemented after the fact, which caused a number of complications in the development and maintenance cycle. Other games had these plans in place, and were initially architected to be expandable to the end point model, and are built with layers of game play like an onion- which allow for development and branching without breaking the core database structure.
