Mobile games, in-game payments, gamification

Earlier this week, the International Game Developers Association (Silicon Valley chapter) and Silicon Valley Fundraising held a joint event hosted by Cooley LLP at their Palo Alto offices. Speakers included Jason Citron and Ben Savage, CEOs and founders at OpenFeint and Sibblingz respectively, Mark Weeks, a Cooley partner, Marc Burch, angel investor, and Benjamin Wan, game builder and investor.

Several themes emerged.

The business of games is changing again - the momentum is no longer in PC games, nor console games, but in mobile games - iOS and Android as the operating systems, phones and tablets as the physical interface. This was a dominant theme in the panel recomendataions for developer focus. Om Malik's article about the Alive Web, springing off from turntable.fm, has a similar theme - new entertainment is about doing something and enjoying it more because of your interaction with others doing the same. OpenFeint has built tools to be incorporated in games to encourage social network interaction while playing.

There's a big change in the business model happening in parallel. App games can be 'free to download', if they charge for virtual goods in the game. Players' competitive nature motivates them to purchase things which are used to more quickly gain points and achieve higher levels. One of the panellists cited numbers - 'free to download' game apps are downloaded 17 times more than apps for which there is an initial fee; players who make an in-game payment spend 3 times more than players who pay an initial fee. It would be good to know the source of those numbers - there wasn't an opportunity to ask during the meeting. Skpye gets business this way - lots of free use, some users who pay more for extra features - enough that they have 40% per annum growth rate in paying users.

Gamification - March Burch was very encouraging about enterprises's need for gaming techniques used in training tools, and his readiness to invest in companies offering suitable technology.

There were half a dozen tables, with demos for various games. I talked to OpenFeint and Fractal Games, as well as to Pam Washburn, SVP Business Development for Cooley who was hosting the meeting. TwitchGames introduced themselves later.

References

SVIGDA
How to build a successful game company - event agenda and speaker bios

SVF

Engadget on mobile gaming reshaping the game industry

Om Malik on the Alive Web

Skype free to use business model

Gamification definitions - Nicholas Lovell

Cunning Systems has an investment in Musemantik, which makes tools for adding music to games. Contact us at info@cunningsystems.com