An entirely different technique to advertise a mobile game.

In my last article, I laid out a different method on how to market a Facebook game. The basic premise was simple: Instead of paying Facebook or other media companies to advertise your game. What if you PAID THE PLAYER directly to do this? I have tried my best to explain how companies can do this effectively without any legal or logistic hurdles. Here is the article (http://bit.ly/vixmo1)

In a similar vein, mobile games can be marketed the same way using referrals but with a completely different technique. To my knowledge, I haven’t seen a mobile game in the app store that uses “in-app-texting” to market its games. Not sure what this means? Then read on.

The concept is simple: Let’s say there is a game in the app store that sells for 99 cents. Under this technique, a player (let’s call her Jane) initially starts playing this game by downloading it for free.

After she has completed the first few levels, a window pops up that offers the complete game for free if Jane sends an Actual Text Message (SMS) to 5 (or more) of her friends inviting them to download the game.

If Jane agrees to send the text message, then the app directly accesses the native text-messaging system present in the phone. This way, Jane can access her phonebook and decide which friends to text the invite to. As soon as Jane sends these text messages, she receives the full app for free.

Such a technique hasn’t really been explored before. But the advantages here are quite a few. I will list some of them here.

1) Game studios could charge Jane for sending these text-message based invites. The way this would work is that these text messages could be charged 5 cents per text message sent. I know you might think “Why would Jane want to pay for these text messages?”  Well, it’s simple: If Jane can get a 99 cent app that she really likes by sending 5 text messages that will only cost her 25 cents overall, then why wouldn’t she?

The cool thing here is that studios are completely getting away from the freemium/paid model and relying on an entirely new system to generate installs. And this system is basically giving every penny to the studio directly without having to share it with anyone else.

Studios could even partner with carriers like Sprint, Verizon and have the 25 cents billed directly to Janes monthly cellphone bill. This way, Jane does not even have to use her credit card.

One issue here could be that in the future Apple or Google might not allow this feature because it deprives them of any revenue. Well, this system can be built in a way that the same 70:30 revenue share can be applied here too.

2) Jane can also be rewarded for her behavior so as to encourage her to send more invites. So if Jane refers this app to 5 of her friends, she can actually make money every time each of these friends refer the app to 5 of their own friends. For example: Jane spends 25 cents to invite 5 of her friends. Then she can get paid 2 cents for every subsequent text invite that is sent by her friends (the remaining 3 cents go to the studio). This obviously is not gonna make Jane a millionaire, but if she can make enough money to buy another paid app, then isn’t that a good enough incentive for her to send these invites?

3) In the same way, the reward structure can work for installs too. So if Janes invites 5 of her friends, then she can expect to get paid 2 cents for every install that happens as a result of these invites. If you do the math here, the studio will never have to pay a single dime on advertising because the studio earns 3 to 5 cents on every referral and also manages to distribute its app to a huge audience.

4) Using this technique, studios don’t have to rely on interstitial ads too. Ads generally use up some real estate in the game and it can be distracting a lot of times. Studios could provide a much more cleaner looking app which is also technically “free” for all to play.

Some critics may point out that if Jane doesn’t like the game at all, then why would she even spend that 25 cents? Well, again the answer is simple: She has the opportunity to get her money back if enough of her friends accept the invite or install the game. So technically, she can potentially end up paying nothing for the app.

This is an abstract idea for now. But I am confident of its prospects because it uses the power of incentives to encourage sharing of content. And ultimately, the best form of advertising is one in which the customer himself recommends a product to his friends.

I am happy to clarify any questions you might have or delver further into this methodology. I personally feel that this technique can do well as long as its implemented the right way. Companies like Playphone and Openfeint have the resources and the knowledge to develop such a system.

You can follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique to stay updated about my latest blogs. In case of questions, please reach out to me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com.

Please note: All the numbers/prices I am using here are purely for understanding how the system works. Studios should have their own pricing models in place.

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.

Virality, Monetization or User Retention. Which one of these matters the most in a social game?

I personally feel that virality is the most important aspect. Here are some reasons why:

User Retention: The core social game demographic consists of middle-aged women with high disposable incomes. Unlike hard-core gamers, social gamers tend to have a much shorter attention span. They play purely for fun with not a whole lot of competitive spirit (unlike hard-core gamers). Because of this, social gamers can easily gravitate towards other popular social games once they have played a particular game for a long enough time. So long-term user retention is almost always the hardest metric when it comes to driving the success of a social game. Think about it yourself, when was the last time you came across a person who had been playing the same social game for more than a few months? For that matter, hard-core gamers are known to stay true to a game franchise (Call of Duty, FIFA, Halo) for years at a time.

Monetization: This same social gamer demographic tends to be quite careful about its spending habits too. No matter how addictive a game, most social gamers try their best to keep actual spending to a preset limit every month. Again this is because of the demographic itself which is older than the average gamer and is more mature about its spending habits. It’s also because actual spending on social games is often considered wasteful expenditure by the general population. So it can sometimes become a taboo topic. Ask any of your friends how much they spend on social games and you will never get the right answer! This is different from hard-core gamers who are willing to spend a fortune on gaming equipment and accessories and make no bones about it.  

Virality: Coming back to my original point, the best way to drive the success of a game is by focusing hard on virality. That helps in keeping a safety cushion of new users and also helps in offsetting existing users who may or may not end up being a long-term customer. Every game will have its loyal fan base and they will generate a constant revenue stream. But often, that’s not enough to sustain a game. Because of this, generating new users is what every publisher should constantly focus on. And each new user brings with him/her a fresh perspective as well as a new revenue opportunity.

I personally believe that Facebook is one of the most expensive and unstable platforms for virality. The company constantly changes its rules to satisfy its users and not the publishers. So most of its policy changes are almost always detrimental to a games’ viral development. It’s not a level-playing field too. Everyone knows that Facebook has shown favoritism towards some developers and left out the rest. That’s one of the reasons why there is a strong need for innovation when it comes to making a game viral on Facebook.

(These views are solely that of the author and are open to random dismantling and violent criticism)

Follow me @aabidsiddique or check out my site at www.aabid.me

Have comments or questions? You can also mail me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com

6 different ways to land a job in the casual/social games industry

We can all see that the casual/social games industry is booming. Worldwide social gaming market revenues are expected to quintuple by 2015, reaching as much as $5 billion due mostly to advertising revenues and virtual goods sales, according to a new report from market research firm Parks Associates.

What does this mean? It means that this industry has jobs, lots of them. And because this industry is only a few years old, it’s not easy finding people who have tons of direct industry-related experience. And that means that young 20 some-things with a lot of passion for gaming can look for jobs in this industry, and actually be able to get them!

Based on my experience in this industry (I work as a games producer), there are 6 ways in which you can land a job in this industry.

1) GET ENTREPRENEURIAL 

Come up with an original game idea – There are tons of gaming companies right now that are more than happy to invest in your game idea if it has potential. You don’t even need to build the game first and then look for investors. Just come up with a good idea and start reaching out to game studios/publishers with a nice looking presentation or proof of concept. Companies like W3i technologies, Crowdstar, Nimbus Games etc have actually built out gaming funds for aspiring game creators.

I can quote the beginnings of my career itself as a good example. I come from an engineering/MBA background and have spent my whole career in healthcare and online video. As I was graduating last year, I tried really hard to get a break in the gaming industry. I must have applied in more than a 100 companies and spoken to more gaming professionals than the number of friends I have on Facebook.

Since nothing was working out and I was also about to complete my masters, I started working on an idea for a real-time trivia game. I built out a one page description of the game and reached out to various gaming professionals (God bless LinkedIN for this). I even travelled to some of the popular game conferences and randomly spoke to gaming professionals.

One of them turned out to be a games industry veteran who had worked for some of the biggest names in the industry. She introduced me to another gaming veteran who was known for investing in original ideas. This person liked my idea and offered me a job as well as the chance to help me build this game in his studio. Obviously, I had to take a huge paycut in my salary because I had no experience building/producing games. So I spent the next year of my life living just above the poverty level J

I built out these games for Facebook and mobile. Unfortunately they didn’t do too well and the games never really crossed more than a few thousand installs. But one of my personal goals was fulfilled. I now had some good experience in the industry and was a good candidate for any casual games company. That helped me land my current job as a games producer for Mindspark Interactive.

Even if you are not looking for an actual job but would like to work on a game idea that you feel has potential, then don’t hesitate to reach out to different companies. You can even reach out to me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com and I will be happy to introduce you to such companies.

2) GET TECHNICAL

If you are the kind who likes coding, then this is probably the easiest way to get in. Software engineers are generally among the highest paid professionals on average in this industry. Game publishers are always looking for professionals who understand iOS and Android platforms well and have the ability to handle Java, HTML 5, Flash and other Object oriented programming languages. Database administrators and graphic designers are a big draw in this field too.

Smaller companies/start-ups are generally not inclined towards hiring graphic designers, QA testers and audio producers full-time and tend to outsource this kind of work. A graphic designer can charge as low as $30 an hour upwards to a few hundred dollars per hour based on the level of work he/she can provide. I have worked with graphic artists and illustrators who charged as low as $35 an hour and they were equally good or sometimes even better than reputed professionals. Testing is a low paying field and most vendors charge around $10 an hour per tester for testing casual games both on browsers as well as mobile platforms. Audio producers normally charge about $25 for a 3-5 second jingle. But it’s quite easy to find much cheaper music compilations online. I have personally brought 5 second jingles for $3!

Most casual games don’t require a whole lot of audio so an Audio producer is probably better off in the console games industry where the music tends to be much more elaborate and long.

A fresh engineer right out of college can normally start off in this industry at around $55,000 and after around 2-3 years of experience can easily start earning in six figures.

3) GET ANALYTICAL 

This is a high paying field and people who have a statistics/mathematics background can do really well in the games industry. One of the biggest differences between console gaming and casual gaming is that console game developers only have to build the games and then hand it over to game retailers like Bestbuy or Gamestop who do all the analytics/marketing/distribution. But the casual games industry works differently. Casual game developers are not only responsible for developing the game but they also market the games themselves. Because of this, every single casual games studio tends to have a marketing and analytics team. 

A basic job description of an analytics dude is something like this:

a) Look and dress like a nerd (very important otherwise no one takes you seriously)

b) Design, develop and produce weekly user quantitative and qualitative trends.

c) Retrieve and analyze data from server logs, online experiments (A/B testing), instrumented products, etc.

d) Model user behavior based upon previous findings and the most relevant available data.

e) Advanced statistical training and thorough practical experience modeling behavior from data.

f) A working knowledge of SQL, SAS/SPSS or programming languages useful to data retrieval and analysis.

Yup, as painful as this may sound, the salaries are pretty sweet. So if you got Math in you, then this is the job for you. You can start off at around $80,000 and hit six figures faster than any other profession in this industry.

4) GET SELLING 

Casual games are all about how they are marketed to the right audience. Most casual games are played by an older audience. The core demographic tends to be women in their mid 30’s with a decent amount of disposable income.

A marketing person needs to have an in depth understanding of the core audience of a casual game and know what channels to use to market these games to them. For example, you can’t market a casual game on the Sony Playstation Network just because it’s a network of gamers. These gamer dudes don’t really give a damn about casual games and would just give it a pass. For that matter, marketing a casual game on Facebook or Google+ with a special emphasis on targeting women will probably be more helpful.

A marketing person is expected to have a good understanding of SEO/SEM principles and also understand marketing on different platforms like Facebook, Google+, iPhones etc. Some PR experience is a huge plus. There are tons of books out there that can help you understand casual games marketing (reach out to me for suggestions).

One more thing that a lot of game publishers like Hi5 and IWON look for are people with good relationship management skills. Hi5 works with a bunch of game studios to release their games on the Hi5 gaming portal. And marketing guys are generally expected to handle these relationships too.

Marketing folks can really not expect high salaries to begin with. I know marketing people who have to make-do with about $45,000 to begin with. But again, once you get some good experience, the sky is the limit.

5) GET PROCEDURAL 

If you have project management experience, then there are a good number of positions available for game producers/project managers. Producers basically manage the development and operations of games. They manage teams, schedule project timelines, handle vendors and sometimes even do a little bit of the technical work too like graphic design, QA etc. It’s a fun job as long as you like the games that you are producing! Project managers and producers are really like twin siblings. A producer just tends to be the more technical and geeky sibling.

In the same mould are product managers. Product Managers and Producers tend to have a lot of overlapping responsibilities too. They both work on introducing new feature sets to a game and implementing them. A product manager will have the added responsibility of some P&L work and will handle a lot of the user acquisition efforts too.

You don’t really need a Project management certification (even though it helps in getting a job) but having some experience with tools like Photoshop, Basecamp, Fiddler and also agile development tools like Jira is a huge plus. If you have actual coding experience, then you are much better off being a producer than a product manager.

Producers play a vital role in a company and a lot of jobs can literally depend on the producers ability to execute a game project. A producers’ salary starts off at around $60,000 and the rise to a six-figure salary is somewhat slower than the other professions. You will have to show atleast 4-6 years experience in order to get that magical $100K + salary. Product managers are slightly better off and can expect a decent salary after about 3 years of experience.

6) GET TESTING

The grander name for this is Quality Assurance. These are generally low paying and somewhat clerical jobs and most companies outsource testing to vendors outside the US. But every company tends to have atleast a few testing positions. College students generally take up these jobs because it helps them get their foot into the industry and then work their way up.

If you are really keen on entering this industry, then you could consider testing jobs too. It’s all about entering the industry and then you can work your way around. The one good thing is that you will get to play a lot of games (every child’s dream)!

One last suggestion is to just play the damn games! I can’t stress this enough. The more you play casual games, the more you will get better at understanding how these games are built and what really makes them click. Remember, you are playing these games not only to have fun, but also to understand how they work. Take some time to study the graphics, the user interface, the game play, the audio, the game stability etc and start logging all this information in a word document. Once you have played about 5 games and completed this exercise for each game, you will personally notice minor differences that make some of these games really stand out.  

It always helps to know people in the gaming industry too. If you are really that passionate about this industry, feel free to reach out to me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com.  I got into this industry the hard way, and if someone wants to go the same route, I will be happy to assist.

You can also follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique for updates on this industry.

9 reasons why casual games will always do better than hardcore games on mobile devices.

Every industry goes through the initial growth phase where products that started off as being more simplistic in nature get increasingly sophisticated and complex. This has been the natural progression of almost every industry and that’s how the casual games industry is widely expected to grow.

The general thinking is that popular casual games like Angry Birds (Rovio), Dolphin Play (W3i) and Stupid Zombies (Game Resort) which are easier to play and less complex in nature will sooner or later be replaced by much more graphically and technically powerful versions of themselves. And this is because super-popular hardcore games like the Call of Duty series, FIFA, Gran Turismo are all entering the mobile space in a big way. Of course, these games are backed by huge investments, excellent graphics and gameplay, humongous marketing budgets and gameplay times that take weeks/months to complete. Our poor ol’casual games are no match for them.

Gameloft has been at the forefront of this and is working hard on ‘copying’ every popular hardcore game on the planet for mobile devices. It has games that are basically clones of Call of Duty, FIFA, Need for Speed and other high profile games and I have to admit, Gameloft makes some pretty darn good mobile versions of these games.

But there are also companies like W3i who have placed their bets on casual games and have had huge success in this space. W3i has been profitable for many years now and its game studio has developed a solid business model around funding and developing promising casual games.

In my opinion, the most popular games on mobile devices will always be the less complex, more traditional type of casual games. Here are 9 reasons why:

1)      Demographic: The main demographic that plays games on mobile devices is skewed towards older women and teenage girls. Compare this to the hardcore gamer demographic which trends towards males between the ages of 11 to 35. So at this point, it still makes sense to cater to the female demographic which is a 100% inclined towards casual games.

2)      Barriers to entry: You don’t need a large budget to build a casual game. There are thousands of best-selling games that were built by garage developers. W3i has actually built a games fund worth millions of dollars and they have successfully invested in many top selling games like Daybreak heroes, My Pet Zombie and Dolphin play. So finding an investor for a casual game idea is much easier than for a hardcore game idea.

3)      Higher focus/interaction: Hardcore games demand a much higher level of focus and interaction. It usually takes a dedicated effort to complete such games and the duration of game play can be anywhere between an hour to a few hours each day.   Mobile games, on the other hand don’t take more than a few minutes to complete a level. It’s this instant gratification that makes many mobile games a big success.

4)      Pricing models: Hardcore games are exorbitantly expensive to build and market. The development costs often runs into tens of millions of dollars and there is just no way the creators can recoup their costs by selling such games for the same price as simple casual games or by simply relying on in-game advertising/in-app purchases. A good game DVD generally costs about $50 - $60 and almost all casual games are priced at 99 cents. And I doubt anyone will want to pay more than $10-$20 for the mobile version of a hardcore game. And it would be a tiny demographic.

5)      Hardware specs: Smartphones come in a variety of different hardware specs and hardcore games can never be optimized to work perfectly on every device. Compare this to casual games that can run on 99% of smartphones without any performance issues.

6)      Network infrastructure: Most hardcore games take up a lot of hard drive space on a smartphone. It’s widely expected that such games will eventually run from the cloud. This would mean huge investments in content delivery networks (CDN’s) and general network infrastructure. Especially for MMO games.

A full fledged casual game can easily reside on a smartphone and can use the available 3G/4G network to operate very efficiently. It just does not require that level of investment in infrastructure/resources. And all multiplayer capabilities can be handled using third party servers like Amazon’s cloud service. At this point, there are no reliable mobile cloud computing platforms that can provide such an infrastructure for hardcore games.

7)      Creativity: Hardcore games have reached saturation in terms of the types of games being built. Almost every game you come across is either a racing game, a first person shooter, or a sports game. Every once in a while, a game like Portal comes across and changes the landscape a little bit. But other than that, the industry has already reached maturity.

Casual games, for that matter, are a whole different beast. There are millions of games right now that are actually based on very innovative ideas. I mean, there are games based on popping pimples that have become bestsellers! This industry is abundant with ideas that the hardcore games industry just cannot keep up with. Because of this, the casual games industry will continue to thrive as long as people have ideas.

I don’t even need to say this, but do you think you can build a hardcore game like Call of Duty or Unreal Tournament in your garage?

8)      Screen size: Come on, let’s be honest here, how much fun is it to play a game like Need For Speed on a smartphone? The gameplay really sucks. I still haven’t come across a decent racing or shooter game that actually is fun to play on a smartphone. One of the biggest reasons is the screen size itself.  Hardcore games are built to a cinematic quality and are best enjoyed on a big screen. Casual games are perfectly suited for the smaller screen because of the simplicity of gameplay and quick load times.

9)      Controllers: This can be a real pain in the behind for gamers when they play hardcore games on mobile devices. Most hardcore games require the use of a controller and mobile devices predominantly rely on the touch screen to simulate a controller. A touchscreen Is no match for an actual controller so games have to be reconfigured to work with touchscreens. These buttons take up unnecessary space on the screen and detract from the actual experience itself. And moving the device from side to side to simulate car directions is ANNOYING!

In the end, I really don’t see how casual games will ever fade away. Mobile games are really about instant gratification, smaller levels, quick load times and easier playability. Hardcore games are just not built like that.

8 reasons why Apple's iOS will continue to reign over Android as the best platform for making games.

Google recently claimed that 500,000 Android devices are getting activated every single day! At this rate, there will be more phones than people in the next few years. 

But does that mean it's time game developers started focusing their energies on building games for Android, and focused less on Apple? I am not sure if that's a good idea. Atleast as of now. Here are 8 reasons why:

1) Screen Sizes: One big advantage of Apple devices is that there are only 2 screen sizes that game developers have to deal with; the 3.5 inch screen size for the iPod/iPhones and the 9.7 inch for the iPad. This makes it easier and cheaper for developers to focus on building out UI and graphic assets that cater to only these sizes.

Android devices on the other hand, have an average of 20 different screen sizes! There are about 14 different screen sizes for the phones and another 5-6 screen sizes for the tablet versions. Building out art assets that don’t get distorted on such a large variety of screens can be a hard if not futile task. A lot of developers talk about using vector images so that the image can automatically adjust to the screen size without losing much resolution. However, based on my personal experience, this does not always give you the best results. The biggest problem I have faced is that the images on the screen tend to get displaced or lose their proportionality. This can look odd making the game lose credibility.

2) Playable on tablets: Almost every iPhone/iPod app can be played directly on the iPad. This feature is almost native to Apple and will most probably be hard to implement on Android. People who have used the iPad must have noticed the 2x button which enlarges the app window to somewhat fill the iPad screen. Even though the resolution goes down, in many games, it’s not a big deal.  This is one of the crucial reasons for iPad’s success: A user can port all his apps from his iPhone/iPod to the iPad and continue using them. So, a game developer who builds games for the iPhone/iPod automatically makes it available for the iPad too.

Doing this on an Android will be very hard because of the variety of sizes it offers.

3) Varying hardware specs: This is another issue that Android developers often face. Android phones are offered in many different hardware configurations. Simple flash games can pretty much run the same way on any phone. But, as the games get more sophisticated like the ones Gameloft makes, it gets harder to build a game that can give you the same gameplay experience on so many different Android phones with varying hardware specs.  Try playing a high-end Gameloft game on the dual-core HTC EVO 3D and then play the same game on a Motorola Droid X and you will know what I am talking about.

Apple, for that matter only upgrades its hardware once a year. This makes it easy for developers to build a game that’s optimized for that hardware configuration. It also helps maintain a more consistent gameplay experience across its phones.

4) Pricing confusion: This one may surprise you, but figuring out how much to charge for a game/in-app purchasing is a headache for most mobile game developers. The reason is that a lot of mobile games are being developed by independent/garage developers who are more technically sound but have limited understanding of how marketing/distribution/monetization works. They live under that notion that all they have to do is build the game and put it up on the app store and Apple will make them a millionaire the next day.

These developers often struggle to figure out what’s the best price to charge for their games and what’s the best way to market them. There are so many developers who end up putting their games up for free and rely solely on ad revenue only because they are not sure how to price their apps. This ‘strategy’ can sell their games well but it does not help them financially. They end up losing big time in the long run, especially if the game is good and becomes successful.

There are a ton of companies that have mastered the marketing/distribution model of the Apple App Store. Companies like W3i technologies (www.w3i.com) have done exceedingly well in this space. Such companies can be a big help for all types of developers, new and seasoned. But, there are only a handful of companies that even understand how monetization on Android works best. It will take a while before companies build their expertise for this platform. 

Apple makes it easy for young and upcoming developers by offering them a standard pricing model. It’s known that the magic number on the app store is 99 cents with dollar increments. This makes it easy for developers to stick to a standardized price tag which is proven to be a successful revenue generator if the app does well.  On top of that, Apple’s in-app purchasing model is a boon for free games.

On the other hand, Android has no structured pricing model attached to it. An app can be priced anyway the developer wants. (There are apps for $1.26 (Who charges like that?!). As simple as this may sound, it can be hard for a garage developer to figure out what’s the best price they can charge in order to stay competitive. Especially when a game is charged at $1.49 and another developer charges a similar type of game for $1.26 or $1.33. It leads to a lot of unhealthy competition.

Due to the highly fragmented pricing model of the Android, it makes sense for young studios to stick to iOS initially and then branch out to Android once the game takes off.

5) Resolution: This can be a real pain in the neck to deal with. I am currently building out a game for iOS and I only had to contract a graphic designer to build two different resolutions of each art asset. One was for the earlier screen res of 320*480 and the other was for the Retina Display. The designer only charged about 10% more for building two different resolutions.

Let's talk Android now! This beast has so many screen resolutions to deal with that it is going to cost a whole lot more if I had to build graphic assets for an Android game. Again, the standard of vector images does not always work too well because these are games with constantly refreshing pixels/screens and not a static app.

The way my earlier company ended up handling this is that we stuck to the top selling Android phones and only built art assets that catered to those devices (HTC EVO 4G, Samsung Epic, Droid etc). One problem with this approach is that most manufacturers don’t give out exact data on how many smart phones they sell. So, game developers are really just shooting in the dark here.

6) Demographics: Guess which is the best customer base for monetizing social/casual games? Its middle-aged/older women between the ages of 35 to 55! This is the demographic that has the time to play such games especially freemium/paid games. This is the demographic that has disposable income, uses credit cards and is fairly open to online transactions. The other positive aspect of this segment is that they are willing to consume lots of content in their favorite genres. If they bought one game and liked it, they are likely to buy more of the same.

Because of this same reason, this demographic is targeted by every gaming portal too. Companies like Hi5 and IWON have thrived in this space. Other than that boys and girls between the ages of 6 to 15 are considered an excellent demographic for free games.

Here is a question (Quick hint: Don’t think too hard). What phone or mobile gaming device do you think the majority of these 2 demographics will want? iPhones and iPods! Apple literally rules this demographic and Android does not even come a distant second. Most people in these two demographics who even have Android phones only have it because their carrier does not support iPhones yet. A recent survey claimed that even the ones who currently use Android phones are more than likely to switch to an iPhone once their carrier supports it.

This is the biggest reasons why games on Apple devices do far better than Android devices even though there are more Android devices in the planet as of now.

And Android phones actually have a learning curve and tend to be more geeky in nature. My mom still hasn’t figured out her phone even after months of using it. But it took her literally minutes to start using the iPhone. That's the beauty of the Apple OS. It's made for everyone.

7) Low quality apps: The Android app store has made it so easy for developers to build and distribute games/apps for this platform that a lot of low quality (shitty) apps have creeped into the store. I saw an app a while ago that was retailing for $10,000! And the description of the app was something like "I just wanna see who is dumb enough to buy this app".  It had 5 installs.

Google has been very supportive of the games industry by offering an open system but it has to tighten the screws here if it wants its apps to reach a certain threshold of quality. This is the reason why it is struggling with its mobile operating system too. There is so much segregation going on because each phone maker like HTC, Samsung, Motorola etc has built its own UI, that Google had to put the brakes on this and focus on building a unified Android experience with its upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich OS.

In contrast, Apple’s strict approval policies are actually good for the industry. Apple tries hard to maintain a certain level of quality in its apps and this benefits developers.

8) Resource Intensive: Ever noticed how almost every Google smartphone/superphone has battery problems? There is a good reason for this. Google products tend to be very resource intensive in nature. For example, the Google Maps navigation tool is one of the best navigation software I have come across. It’s an excellent substitute for GPS devices. But, this app absolutely kills battery life. Even other frequently used features like corporate email, gmail and the notifications bar can drain the battery out a lot faster than similar apps that Apple has built.

Google’s support for Flash games has not helped its case either. There is a solid reason why Apple hates Flash. Flash based games/apps can be a drain on battery life and graphics. They are rarely very robust or fast to load and almost all of them tend to crash often. Due to this, most of these Flash games on the Android cannot be played for too long before a user has to start snooping around for a charger. The whole notion of ‘truly mobile’ gaming is lost here. Whenever I am traveling and feel like playing a game on my Android, I normally have to shut off the game after about 30 minutes of playing because the battery literally goes down from 80% to 30%. My point here is that most avid gamers would not find the gaming environment too satisfactory in an Android device.

I had the iPhone for a long time and though the battery power wasn’t stellar, I didn’t have trouble playing a game for a satisfactory period of time. This is because of HTML5. It’s a simpler, less resource intensive, yet a very robust platform for developing games.

HTML5 is seeing widespread adoption because of this very reason. Even its arch-nemesis Adobe (creators of Flash) has finally given up and is now supporting HTML5 with its own set of HTML5 builder toolsets.

In summary, I don’t see how Apple will be beaten by Google anytime soon. There is just too much clutter surrounding Google’s Android offering in order for it to become a financially viable platform for game developers. Once Google tweaks its offerings to have a more unified UI experience, fewer screen sizes and resolutions, better pricing models and tighter control over its app store, only then will it become a lucrative platform for game developers.

10 reasons why Google+ is a better platform than Facebook for game developers as well as for gamers.

1) Soured relationships:

Facebook created a lot of bad blood with smaller game studios early last year when it started throttling its notifications sharing feature. According to the newer rules, a player could only view a specific game notification on his/her Newsfeed if he/she had already logged in and played the game before.

Most smaller game developers relied heavily on the original version of the notifications sharing feature because it helped their games go viral without investing heavily in marketing. Many emerging games failed miserably and studios either shut down or started focusing more on other platforms like mobile, browser games etc. I know this because I was one of them.

The Google+ service (atleast as of now) is universal in nature. The beauty of this service is that you can not only publicly share your notifications but can also notify only a select “Circle” of friends about your activity. This gives a lot of control to a user on how he wants his profile to look to any specific person.

This also gives smaller developers a chance to start building social media games again without worrying too much about big investments in marketing. As a former Facebook game developer, I know that the biggest hindrance we face is funding for marketing our games. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.

2) High cut of revenues:

Facebook takes a whopping 30% cut of game revenues from a publisher. Apple does the same too, but it’s far more easier to go viral on the app store than it is on Facebook because of Apple’s popular ranking system and the excellent segregation of its apps. And the Apple platform has been a boon for many smaller developers because of its low costs related to marketing and distribution of an app.

In comparison, Google+ is breaking ground here by initially charging only 5% of game revenues. This move has been welcomed by studios and there is a lot of excitement in the industry, especially among fledgling game developers eager to build the next great social game idea.

3) App Store:

Surprisingly, Facebook never built out an app store like the rest of its competitors like Apple, Google, Amazon etc. An app store could have helped Facebook build a very powerful platform/ecosystem for the industry to build apps and market them prominently on this store.

Google already has its Chrome App Store live in its browsers and on its Android mobile OS. It’s a no-brainer that eventually it will make the app store available on its social networking system too. And due to the universal sharing feature and ranking system, it will make it far more easier for apps to go viral and get shared among the larger demographic. And since Google pioneered Search Engine Optimization (SEO), game developers could eventually build out optimized apps in order to feature more dominantly in Google’s rankings, thereby reducing costs related to marketing and distribution.

4) Favoritism:

The high level of favoritism that Facebook has shown for Zynga is becoming a PR nightmare for the social network. The whole world now knows the special privileges that Zynga enjoys with Facebook. Most studios have sworn off this platform due to this.

Atleast as of now, Google has shown a solid commitment to the industry by making its platform equally accessible to all. And it makes sense for Google to continue the same way.

5)  Intentions:

Facebook always modeled itself as a social networking platform and was not too serious about gaming initially. It was only after the success of games like Farmville, Mafia Wars etc that Facebook started concentrating in this segment.

For that same reason, Facebook was never the most game developer friendly platform in the social networking space. And from the way things have gone, its gaming system has only benefited the biggest companies like Zynga, Crowdstar, Kabam etc. Game-specific portals like Hi5, IWON, Mindjolt, Miniclip etc are extremely developer friendly. Hi5 is still considered one of the best platforms to market independent games because of their easy integration methods and a very strong marketing support system.

Google, for that matter has made gaming a very strong priority. It’s launching its gaming service at almost the same time as the public launch of Google+ itself and has shown a lot of commitment to building out a robust, no-strings-attached platform for game developers. If it continues to operate in the same way, it will easily surpass Facebook as the leading destination for all game developers, and eventually all browser app developers. The top gaming portals today command a user base of about 50 million monthly users. So even if Google+ can’t beat Facebook in terms of total number of users (750 million+), it’s already built out a big enough audience to succeed as a gaming portal.

6)  Innovation:

A lot of the newer games are incorporating innovative features like location-based gaming, voice activated menus, live game-room chats, video streaming etc. In each of these segments, Google+ can provide a much more powerful platform than Facebook. Here is why:

a)      Location based gaming: Google Maps is one of the most advanced mapping tools in the world and most game developers rely on this API to develop location-based games. And Google is known for providing the latest features and functionality of its tools to its own customers first (Think Stock Android on Google Nexus). It will obviously do the same for Google+ games too that use this feature.

b)      Voice activated menus: Google has invested a large amount of money in voice recognition technologies and can provide a ton of resources to developers who wish to use this feature for their games.

c)       Online video chats: Unlike Facebook, which partnered with Skype to offer live chatting, Google has its own internal tool on Google+ called Hangouts. This feature is a boon for MMO games because they can use this service to chat with other players inside a game-room.

Facebook can never be too flexible with its video chat system because it’s not internally developed and is a partnership with Skype.

d)      Video streaming: When you think of video clips, what comes to mind? YouTube right? And guess who owns YouTube? Google! As games get more sophisticated and start including live game streaming and video recording capabilities, like for example, being able to record a clip of your performance on a game and then sharing it with your friends, or being able to actually broadcast your game activity live to your friends, both of these features can be easily handled using YouTube. And all Google+ has to do is include a little icon on its browser window that allows this functionality.

7) Presence of an excellent games catalogue:

Google has launched its gaming service with a bunch of extremely popular games like Angry Birds, Diamond Dash, Bejeweled Blitz, Crime City etc. The fact that it has Angry Birds is gonna play a huge role in the initial excitement surrounding its gaming service. Farmville and Cityville are enjoyed by a huge population but still there are millions of people who can’t stand these type of games. Angry Birds has universal appeal and is the only game that can truly rival or even beat the likes of Cityville and Farmville.

Interestingly Google has already started featuring its games much like how it features them on its app store. It has a cute little games icon on top which automatically shows you its existing games catalogue.

8) Cloud gaming:

As games get more and more sophisticated and start offering much more powerful graphics and playability, all these games will start functioning more predominantly from extremely powerful cloud-based servers. Companies like Onlive, Gaikai, OToy are already doing this.

Google has always been at the forefront of Cloud Computing and has a much better understanding of this technology than most of the competition. It already has built out a cloud based OS and offers it on the Chromebook. Some of the largest server farms are owned/operated by Google. It won’t be long before games like Call of Duty, Infamous, Portal 2 etc will be available directly inside a social network. And Google has the resources, knowledge and capabilities to implement the infrastructure to cheaply and effectively handle this.

9)  Facebook marketing:

Advertising on Facebook is a funding nightmare. The costs per acquisition have skyrocketed in the past year from a low of a few cents per acquisition to close to $10 as of now. It’s no longer a feasible platform for many studios. 

Google, on the other hand has two methods of advertising that it can leverage to help smaller developers. The first one is the CPA, CPM model itself which for now is very low on the social network. The other model that Google has pioneered and can easily make accessible for developers is Search Engine Optimization. Developers could optimize their games in order to feature more predominantly in its search rankings. And if Google integrates these results into its regular Google search feature (www.google.com), then this will also help developers in increasing the brand visibility of their offerings.

10) Tight integration with mobile, tablet and browser OS:

This is probably the most important aspect of Google+. 500,000 Android devices are getting activated every single day. The Android mobile OS is now the most popular platform on earth. The Android tablet and laptop OS’s are slowly catching up. And companies like Wild Tangent are already launching gaming portal systems designed specifically for Android mobile.

Most of the games that are being launched on Google+ already have a presence on Android mobile and tablets. Google+ has made it clear that it wants to integrate all these systems into one cohesive ecosystem. For example, you could start playing Angry birds on Google+, then midway through the game go to your Android phone and continue playing from where you left off. And then stop playing on your phone and continue playing on your Android tablet PC from where you left off on your Android phone!

That’s the beauty of integration. It helps in keeping a consistent leaderboard across multiple platforms, and leaves out the frustration that many gamers face today when they have to play the same game with different overall scores on every device.

Summary:

As time passes and Google+ becomes more prevalent, its advantages will become more apparent to developers as well as gamers. Google may or may not surpass Facebook in terms of the total number of users, but it’s definitely poised to become one of the leading destinations online for casual games. Facebook is extremely popular in the US but outside of the country, it hasn’t exactly become a phenomenon. Google owns another social network called Orkut that’s extremely popular in South America and in countries like India, the Middle-East etc. These are all high growth countries and Google can easily integrate its games functionality on both platforms thereby offering better revenue making opportunities for game studios.

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