Games

An MMOs and Virtual Worlds Panel at PlaySpan’s Monetization 2.0 Forum had some great data points. I did some scribbling and typed up my notes below so forgive any inaccuracies. The panel was moderated by EA’s Nanea Reeves with panelists: Jim Crowley l CEO, Turbine Cary Rosenzweig l CEO, IMVU Johny Mang l EA- Dice Tom Hale | Chief Product Officer, Linden Labs/ Second Life John Bates | Entropia Joshua Hong | K2 Network Linden Second Life makes close to $100 million and not less than $80 million. They make money in three ways: 1) sale of currency, 2) premium… Read More »GDC Austin: MMO and Virtual World Monetization

I’ve cleaned up a quick version of a transcript at the ‘What is an “Indie Game” Panel’ at PAX over the weekend. As these things go, it’s probably only about 80% complete so please excuse any omissions in the content. Enjoy! PAX 2009: What is an ‘Indie Game’? Panel Panel Description: The rise in game platforms and distribution mechanisms has elevated the cultural profile of indie games. But along with this increased attention is an increasing debate about how to break through in the market. What really makes an indie title? Is it the game’s budget, art style, community outreach, or… Read More »PAX 2009: What is an ‘Indie Game’? Panel

Geoffrey Zatkin, president and COO of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), gave an interesting talk about what strategic questions developers should ask themselves before diving into game development. While I don’t believe that this is 100% relevant to the Flash games market, it did raise some interesting questions for me on how smaller indie devs can look for market data in planning their games. It may not be to this level, but it’s a great framework to think about what questions you could ask! I’d love to hear anyone who has thoughts on this. A Strategic Approach to Game Design… Read More »PAX 2009: A Strategic Approach to Game Design

I spent the past weekend at Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. It was a fantastic, packed event and definitely felt more like a gamer convention than a developer convention. The gamer enthusiasm ran the gamut from complex D&D games featuring 20-sided dice, card games like Magic, to XBLA games and hardcore console games. This year, PAX was huge with an estimated count of 75,000 attendees. Designing indie games with a team of one One of the most interesting talks I attended was “Designing indie games with a team of one” given by Michael Todd, the creator of several cool games and… Read More »PAX 2009: Designing Indie Games With a Team of One

In addition to my observations from Casual Connect, I spoke at the conference about emerging revenue channels within Flash games. I’ve linked the slides here. Earlier last week, I also joined the Leadership Development Forum to lead a roundtable on “Social Networking and Branded Games” with Vicky Tamaru of Plexipixel. Hosted WordPress doesn’t let me embed the video but you can watch the roundtable summary here on Ustream. Thanks to Deborah from GarageGames for an eloquent recap!

I just wrapped up the week at Casual Connect in Seattle. Overall, a great conference and big kudos to Jessica Tams and the Casual Games Association team for putting it on and growing the attendance to new highs in a difficult economy. 🙂 I’m not planning to spend too much time summarizing the content, though there’s some great overviews of the content out there already — Gamezebo has some nice roundups and there are some good summaries of sessions like how Corpse Craft turned RTS Casual and Jim and Greg from Kongregate on Fatal Flaws in Flash Game Design and Development. Instead, here’s… Read More »Casual Connect 2009 Recap and Observations