6 reasons why you should also build an internet browser-based version of your mobile game.

The Apple App Store is arguably the greatest casual gaming platform on earth. It has opened up the kind of opportunities for indie game developers that are currently unmatched by any other platform. It offers a very consistent hardware and software experience that developers can optimize their games for, and gives an equal chance to every game to succeed (unlike Facebook). Google’s Android is also slowly becoming a powerhouse in mobile gaming. 

One thing I want to be clear about is that MOBILE IS THE FUTURE OF CASUAL GAMING. But there are still many advantages to building an internet browser based version of your game which I will discuss shortly.

All said and done, even a mobile app store cannot guarantee long term revenues and sustainability for a casual game. There are about a 100,000 games on iOS right now and only a few hundred are actually doing well enough to sustain its creators. Some of the most successful games are the free games like Temple Run, Heads up with Ronaldo, Angry Birds, Stupid Zombies etc. These games are hugely ad supported and let’s be honest here, when was the last time you tapped on an advertisement within a game? Less than 2% of users are likely to do that. There is a higher likelihood that you will click on an ad while on a computer than on a phone.

This is one of the reasons why a lot of companies are now evaluating ways to build browser-based versions of their games too, especially after the mobile version has been around for a while. For example, the makers of Angry Birds started off on mobile and after its huge success, decided to build out the browser version. It is now available in the Chrome app store. It’s a no-brainer that at some point, they will also build out a version that will run on gaming platforms like Yahoo Games, Mindjolt, Tagged, Gaming Wonderland etc.

So if you have built an iOS/Android game, here are 6 reasons why you should consider building a browser based version of it.

1) Distribution – A browser based version opens up a plethora of opportunities for distribution across multiple geographies and demographics. There are hundreds of gaming portals like Yahoo games, Mindjolt, Big Fish Games etc who will be happy to showcase your game on their platform. Or you can just work with one game distributor like Oberon Media who will automatically distribute your game to some of the top gaming portals in the world. Oberon has existing relationships with various gaming portals and offers an easy way to integrate your game across all of them. And each portal generally has atleast a few million unique users.

2) Monetization – A successful game on mobile can get you a lot of revenue, and I don’t believe a gaming portal can really match that. But who can say no to a nice side income! Gaming portals have their own ecosystems in place (Advertising, Payments, Support etc) and can provide a decent revenue stream for your game. I have known garage developers who have been making hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for many years by just sitting at home!

Some portals will also be willing to pay you to put your games on their platform. Of course, this would depend on how successful your game has been elsewhere.

3) Demographic  - According to an Admob report, 94% of iPhone owners are over the age of 18 and an astounding 74% of them are over the age of 25.  On the other hand, the iPod Touch user base is nearly HALF (47%) composed of 13-17 year olds.  Only 31% of its users are over the age of 25.

What do you see missing here? What about kids below that 13-17 age group? Even though the main demographic for a gaming portal is middle-aged women with disposable incomes, a lot of younger kids play on these portals too. My 11 year old nephew recently got hold of an iPod Touch for himself but for the past few years, his favorite gaming destination was Yahoo Games. My 8 year old niece loves playing on the Big Fish games site and plays a lot of games that are made specifically for her. Every kid I know spends more time on these gaming portals than on an actual device. And parents prefer this too because it’s easier to supervise a kid’s playing habits on a computer than on an actual portable device. And more kids have access to a computer than to a portable device.

This is a win-win situation for your game because not only are you targeting an older demographic with the app store as well as the gaming portal but are also tapping into another, albeit smaller demographic through the portal.

4) Porting to future platforms like Kiosks, Televisions – Companies like Samsung and Sony are now building out their own app stores for their television products. The Samsung TV App store is actually doing well and you will notice a lot of casual games. Even coin operated game kiosks are embracing some of the popular iOS games like Fruit Ninja.

Games on these platforms work more like a browser. The screen is much larger and you are using actual controllers. By having a browser version, you are actually well prepared to port your game to these platforms in the future with minimal effort.

5) Better technical support and feedback – Gaming portals have their own dedicated technical teams and are happy to provide you with all the support you need to publish your game. They provide excellent production and analytics support and most of them are prompt with their payments. This can be a huge help in improving your game based on feedback that you receive not only from the game portal but also from the players.

The Apple app store is different that way. You get absolutely zero feedback from Apple. They only make sure your game adheres to their terms and conditions and then go ahead and approve it. Every time my game was rejected from the app store, their reasons for doing so were sometimes so obscure that it would take my team a few days just to figure out what was actually wrong. Gaming portals are definitely more hands-down that way.

6) Localization support – It always helps to have some local language support for your game. China is a huge market and having a Chinese language version will take your game a long way. The same way, Latin America and the Middle-East are big on casual gaming too. And they prefer local language versions over any other language. India is a little different that way because most of the gaming demographic understands atleast basic English reading and writing.

Anyways, gaming portals are way better at providing localization support and targeted advertising than mobile app stores. A lot of gaming portals will even help you in building out local versions and assist you in specifically targeting a particular geography.

That’s all for now. It doesn’t cost a whole lot of money to customize your game for a portal. The main reason being most portal games are also run within a window which is slightly larger than a phone screen. And a lot of them work with HTML5 games too so you don’t have to build a flash equivalent.The main investment will be in optimizing graphics which is generally not too high.

I hope this information helps. Again, my blogs are based on my own research and experience so I welcome constructive (or destructive) feedback! I would love to hear your thoughts or hear other advantages (or disadvantages) that you see in such an initiative.

Finally, If you decide to build a browser based game and need help in distribution, feel free to reach out to me at aabid.s@live.com and I will be happy to assist.

Thanks. You can follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique to stay updated on my blogs and the gaming industry.

5 hassle-free ways to reward/pay an online customer without asking for too much personal information.

Most smaller gaming companies today struggle with this one. How do you pay or reward an online player without having to deal with too many legal and transactional hurdles? Especially when the payments are really small (micropayments), like a dollar or worth around a dollar. Indie game developers often like to offer tiny cash incentives to their players but opt out of it because of all the associated legal hassles.

Some of the major issues companies face are:

1) Asking for personal information - A lot of companies need a customer’s address and other contact info to mail a reward or transfer any money to their account. This almost always is a deal killer because most customers are wary of sharing any such information.

2) Game studios themselves can find it a little embarrassing to transfer such small amounts to a user. One alternative is to offer virtual gifts (coins, game points, virtual toys etc) but let’s be honest here, not everyone likes these things. Anything that has actual cash value is always preferred more. 

3) Sweepstakes: A lot of times, people who win online sweepstakes don’t even bother claiming their prizes if the prize is actual money. Because the company offering the prize money needs all kinds of personal information from the user. And because of this, a lot of users don’t even bother claiming them.

      My team built out a trivia game a while ago that would give out a $100 each day to a player who finished all 10 questions correctly and then entered his/her name into a daily sweepstake. Surprisingly, most of the winners didn’t even bother claiming their prizes inspite of repeated emails to them informing of their win! After some research we found out that no one was interested in filling up the claim form because it asked for too much personal information. But because of legal reasons, that was the only way we could actually pay a user.

At that point, I decided to do some research and find out different ways that we could pay a user without ever needing their personal information. The one thing I realized was that it was pretty hard legally to pay small cash prizes ($1 or more) to a user. The only alternatives were products that had ‘real cash value’. Not virtual toys and stuff, but paid services that we could offer as a reward. Here was the list I came up with. The only thing you will ever need to distribute these prizes is an email address. 

1) Redbox DVD rentals. These DVD’s rent for $1 a day and it’s very easy to give these out as prizes. As you may know, Redbox gives out free rental codes on a regular basis which can be redeemed for a one night DVD rental. A studio could buy these codes in bulk and offer them as prizes. They also have this for the Blockbuster Kiosks.

2) iPhone, iPad and Android paid apps, songs and other media – Most apps sell for 99 cents as you already know, so a studio could offer a bunch of paid apps as payment. The way this can be done is by using the “Gift an App” feature found in the iTunes application.

3) Longer game playtime (Gaikai, Big Fish, Tagged etc) – Big Fish games offers their games in a way that the first 30 minutes of gameplay is free. A studio could offer the players’ longer playtimes (60 minutes of free playtime) as prizes. In a similar vein, Gaikai, Gamestreamer and Onlive offer cloud streaming of hardcore console games. Studios could offer digital copies of these games/demos as a reward.

4) Groupon/Living Social deals – These can be offered if the prizes are of a higher value. Groupon allows a person to gift a Groupon deal to someone else.

5) Subscriptions – A lot of publishing companies offer newspaper/magazine/game subscriptions. These can be gifted to a player too. I was supposed to implement this in one of my games and it actually works well.

I am gonna keep this list open for now. I am sure there are many other ways to reward a user and it would be great to hear from the readers on suitable alternatives.

You can follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique or mail me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com. 

How to build a business around buying and selling pre-owned (used) mobile games and apps.

Everyone loves a good bargain, isn’t that right? When you have pre-owned cars, phones, console games etc, then have you ever thought of owning a ‘pre-owned’ mobile game or app? This may sound weird and an unfeasible business model to a lot of people, but give it some thought (and read this article completely!) and such a business might actually make sense. I am surprised that no one in the industry has fully explored such a model.

First of all, what are the reasons people buy or sell pre-owned goods? Let’s run down a quick list. Let’s call this List A:

1) To save money.

2) To get rid of a product that they don’t use that much.

3) If they are not satisfied with the purchase and the return period has expired.

4) They just got bored of using the product after a while.

5) They found a better product.

6) In the case of a console game, they basically completed all the levels and finished the game.

Now what if you took the same principles and business models around the pre-owned goods business and applied it to mobile apps/games? Such a business has the potential to become a huge industry if it’s done the right way. By the way, I am using the terms ‘Apps’ and ‘Games’ interchangeably in this article. They both mean the same thing here.

First of all, how would such a system work? I did some research over the weekend (yup, my weekends are pretty lame) and came up with a plan that could potentially work. So here it is:

1) A user (let’s call her Norah) buys a mobile game named Rockstar for let’s say 99 cents. The game is built by a company called Bringit Studios.

2) She plays Rockstar for a while and then for reasons explained in List A (or some other reason), decides to sell the app.

3) She then puts Rockstar up for sale for half the price (49 cents).

4) She either sells it directly to someone she knows, or puts Rockstar up for sale through a third party pre-owned apps seller (like an Ebay or Craigslist mobile apps equivalent).

5) The sale goes through in a way that she gets to keep 50% of the sale, 40% goes to Bringit studios and 10% goes to the third party seller. Or if she sells it directly to someone she knows personally, then she gets to split the revenue 50:50 between herself and Bringit studios.

      Now if Bringit Studios sold a 100,000 of their iPhone game apps for a dollar. The revenue is $100,000 The 70:30 revenue split with Apple gives Bringit $70,000. This is the studios initial revenue. Now if let’s say 30% of the buyers decided to resell it for half the price. After doing the math, the studio would make another $7,000 to $10,000. And I am not even considering the revenues from in-app purchasing and advertising. That in itself would bring about a decent amount of revenue to the studio.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But obviously it’s not as simple as that. So what are some of the issues here?

1) The first one is the app store policies itself. Apple or Google will obviously not allow such a system to work because it can potentially cannibalize new app sales. One reason they might consider such a model is if they were getting a share of the sale too. So if Norah sells the app and a portion of it goes to Bringit Studios as well as Apple/Google, then it’s a win-win situation for all of them. But the mobile gaming industry in general is still in its infancy. So I feel it will probably be a long time before Apple or Google (or Microsoft) even consider implementing such a system.

2) The bigger and more successful studios would not want to do this for their popular games because they are anyways making a killing from new sales. Such a system will work best (atleast initially) for the less popular games and studios.

3) The biggest criticism of this concept would be that studios in essence or not selling the app itself to the consumer, but they are selling a license to purchase the app. So Norah only gets a license that gives her an instance of the app on her phone. Well, a license is always transferable to another user  as long as the eco-system allows it (case in point: Serial Key Numbers). Thats the primary reason why bigger platforms like the Apple app store or Android won’t be interested in this now but smaller gaming platforms like OpenFeint, W3i or Playphone can make such a system work because they build their own policies and all their apps are downloaded from their own app store. I have built games for the Playphone App store and they have the resources to implement such systems. But the main catch here would be that app developers will have to work through these platforms to resell an app.

The best example is products itself like MS Office. A user can download a trial copy for free, and then all he has to do is purchase a serial number in order to validate this application. Millions of users use MS Office and then sell these serial numbers to other buyers. And since only 1 instance of such a serial number is legal, the new buyer gets complete ownership of the license. This is exactly the premise that I am basing my idea on. An app can be serialized, and then only 1 instance can be allowed. This gives a chance to a license holder to resell the app. My whole concept deals with a business model that helps studios generate extra revenue. And I am discussing a model that in real life has worked for every single industry known to mankind. If the pre-owned business works elsewhere, then why can’t it work here?

4) As always, there will be resistance to such a system, because the pre-owned goods business has always been looked down upon by product creators. In the end, the customer always wins so sooner or later, someone will start doing this (if someone hasn’t done it already).

      Alright now let’s talk a little about its advantages:

      1) This method can actually benefit Bringit Studios. Most mobile games/apps have a very small shelf life. By giving Norah a chance to sell this app, they are making sure that the game is still being circulated within the gaming demographic. And every new user brings with him/her a new revenue making opportunity.

      2) Most mobile games don’t have a lot to offer in terms of in-app purchasing. There is only so much that Norah could potentially buy within the game after which she would either get bored or would not want to buy anything else in the game. And at some point, she will probably move beyond this game and play other games too. By giving her a chance to sell the app, Bringit gets to make some money, and when the new buyer starts playing the game, Bringit has another chance to make more money through in-app purchasing, advertising and as well as from the actual sale of the app itself.

      3) Let’s just put it this way, how many apps do you currently have on your smartphone that you haven’t used in a while? And how likely is it that you will actually ever use them again? So how about selling them off the same way you sell your other used stuff on Craigslist or Ebay? Sounds compelling? I am sure it does!

      

      4) With this method, Studios will actually encourage higher spending habits among its demographic. Because if Norah has the opportunity to sell an app after she has used it for a while, then there is a higher likelihood that she will actually buy it in the first place.

      5) And of course, this is software we are talking about here. So the buyer is getting a product that’s basically as good as new.

So what's the best way to actually implement such a system? There are definitely some nuts and bolts here that need to be tightened in order to make sure this model can succeed. Based on my limited intelligence and experience, this is how the system can work:

1) The best way to build such a business is through 3^rd party gaming platforms like Playphone, W3i, OpenFeint etc. These companies can build an online pre-owned apps store within their platform and encourage studios to work with them and make their apps available for sale in such a store. So all the transcations will happen within the realm of this store itself. It can function pretty much like eBay where users can buy/sell their apps. The ideal scenario would be if Apple or Google themselves allowed it, but they won’t do it unless this becomes a really lucrative industry. It’s best for smaller gaming platforms to indulge in such an initiative and become leaders in this space before the big boys start encroaching in.

2) Paying actual cash to a user is always a legal headache for companies. So instead of money, Norah can get paid in ‘digital currency’. So the approximately 25 cents that she made on one sale can be equivalent to 25 digital coins. And she can use this currency to buy other games/apps in the store itself. This way, the money will get circulated back into the app store, which would be awesome for the gaming industry itself because the money never leaves its ecosystem.

3) To make sure that these apps are not being constantly sold off multiple times at increasingly lower prices and also to avoid unhealthy competition between sellers, Studios can put limits on how many times their apps can be re-sold. So Norah could only sell it once and then the new buyer is not allowed to sell it again (because he/she already got it for a discount).

4) Once Norah sells this app, the app is automatically disabled or deleted from her phone. Only one instance of this app can be available for use at any time.

5) Now if the game itself is free and depends completely on in-app purchasing. Then Norah can find out the exact value of the app based on all the purchases she made, and then sell it.

6) Norah could potentially ‘loan’ this app to her friends too. This is a whole different story but the same business models that I have explained in this article can work for this too. I would be happy to explain this system in a future article.

If pre-owned goods can do well as a business in other industries, then what's stopping companies from incorporating the same mechanics into the apps industry?

I try my best to keep these articles short but that doesn’t seem to happen. I am happy to explain this concept further and clarify any questions you have. And of course, I would love to hear your comments/criticism about this idea. You can mail me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com or Follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique. My personal site is at www.aabid.me.

A unique and more cost-effective way to make a social game viral.

In my earlier articles, I have noted how Facebook is become a very expensive and unstable platform for advertising social games. A lot of Indie game developers opted out of Facebook because it was just too expensive to market a game on the social network and the returns did not justify the investment.

There are many reasons here. Facebook lacks an app store like Apple’s popular platform and because of this, it’s hard to gain visibility on Facebook. And Facebook has become notorious for changing its policies as well as its designs to better satisfy its users and not the developers. And of course, everyone has heard of the special favors it grants companies like Zynga.

Anyways, my article here is more about a different method of making your game viral on Facebook. I am not here to criticize Facebook (which I do regularly).

Here is an abstract of this idea. Instead of paying Facebook or other ad companies to advertise your game (Facebook Ads, Interstitial ads etc), What if you PAID THE PLAYER directly to advertise your game?

I know a lot of companies would think, “Well, there are legal limitations here, paying a customer in cash or rewards is hard because we will have to ask for their personal information to make the payment, and a lot of customers are wary of sharing any of their info”.

First of all, let me explain how this concept works, and then I can also show very simple and non-intrusive ways to reward a customer. 

1) Each player is assigned a unique referral ID when he logs into the game for the first time. (Like how Amazon does it).

2) Every time a player shares the game URL (with the embedded referral ID), he gets rewarded with a few points whenever one of his friends clicks on that link and installs the game.

3) Once a player has received enough points, he can then redeem them for real-world rewards.

In a real-world scenario, you could equate 50 installs to $1. So once about 50 of a players friends have clicked on the shared game URL (with the embedded referral ID) and installed the game, this player would be eligible for a reward worth about a dollar. (I will talk about types of rewards later)

Of course, this is very similar to the Frequent Flyer rewards program. Let’s just call it the Frequent gamer rewards program. But look at the advantages here.

With this method, you don’t have to spend money on advertising on Facebook. Generally CPC rates on Facebook are very high and you need to spend atleast a few hundred dollars a day on marketing your game. A lot of Indie developers spend about a $100 a day on Facebook CPC ads.

A $100 a day spending on Facebook can fetch you a few hundred installs at the maximum. But with this new method, you will be spending a $100 for almost 5000 installs!

      

      This also encourages players to recommend games more often. And people are always more comfortable playing games that are recommended by their own friends.

Ok, now to the tough part. How do you reward your players? For many companies, this can be a legal nightmare. Most rewards have to be mailed to a users address. But in this method, we can completely focus on giving players ‘digital’ rewards. For example:

1) Redbox/Blockbuster DVD kiosk rentals. These DVD’s rent for $1 a day and it’s very easy to give these out as prizes. As you may know, Redbox gives out free rental codes on a regular basis which can be redeemed for a one night DVD rental. A studio could buy these codes in bulk and offer them as prizes.  All a studio has to do is email this code to the reward recipient. No need for any home address, phone number etc.

2) iPhone, iPad and Android paid apps, music and games – Most of these apps sell for 99 cents. And iTunes allows a user to ‘gift’ an app to someone else through the iTunes application. So a company could ‘Gift’ a paid app to a recipient.

3) Game coins – Companies could partner with gaming portals like Hi5 or iWON and offer game coins as prizes. These are easy to gift too.

4) Longer game playtime – A lot of gaming portals like Big Fish Games, Wild Tangent or Gaikai offer playable demos of their games. These games can be played for about 30 minutes before the user has to buy the game. Studios could tie up with such companies and offer longer play times (let’s say 60 minutes) of these demos as rewards.

This is just an abstract and I am happy to share more info about this. As usual, feel free to discuss and point out potential flaws in this method. And I wouldn’t be surprised if such a system has already been tried before.

Thanks, you can follow me @aabidsiddique on Twitter to stay updated about my blogs. Or you can also mail me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com if you have any other questions.