Book Review of Nintendo Magic

By Tommy Leung on 05/28/2010 in Games

Nintendo Magic: Winning the Video Game Wars

There is one other book that talks about the business and history of Nintendo: Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World by David Scheff. That book is no longer in print. It hasn’t been in print for a long time. I have the 1999 paperback edition. I bought it used many years go. The cover is worn. It’s an old book and it shows.

I have several books on the history of video games. I love the industry. I don’t play nearly as much as I used to but, I grew up wanting to make video games. Video games had me at Mario.

When Nintendo Magic showed up as a recommendation for me on Amazon, I was intrigued. There are few books about the business side of video games and even fewer about specific companies and their successes. I was waiting for someone to write a book about the amazing success of the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

I have closely followed Nintendo ever since I was able to figure out how to use the internet to find information. So when Nintendo was warning of troubling times for the video game industry, I was listening. I was captivated by what Nintendo was publicly saying about the video game industry long before the success of the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

Continued Exclusively at AssociatedContent

Video Games Are Already Art

By Tommy Leung on 04/28/2010 in Games

Refuting Roger Ebert’s “Video Games Can Never Be Art” from an Entirely Different Angle

Not long ago, Roger Ebert wrote a blog post titled, Video games can never be art. I was actually busy making a game so I never got around to responding to it. I just rolled my eyes and went back to work. Someone has to make these things that can never be art.

Roger Ebert and I sit on opposite ends of the ‘video games as art’ debate. He adamantly believes that video games are not art and cannot be art. I don’t just think video games can be art, I believe they are art. I’ve long believed that video games are art and have even put it into writing. My favorite example for making the case being the Mass Effect series.

I am biased. I grew up with games. I love games; all of it, from the actual games to the industry of games. I make games for a living. There’s no denying it, I am biased.

That doesn’t mean Ebert is objective. We all know who he is. He is biased in the opposite direction. He is biased to film.

Whenever Ebert claims that video games cannot be or are not an art form, a fire spreads through the games industry. For one reason or another, we really want Ebert to tell us that video games are an art form. As if Ebert is the gatekeeper to what is art.

Continued at Associated Content

Propaganda Presentation

By Tommy Leung on 03/31/2010 in Games

I recently did a presentation with a coworker at the IGDA NYC Demo Night for Propaganda Lander. Propaganda Lander is an upcoming iPhone game that I’ve been working on for several months. It is about 98% done, we are just missing a few things before we submit to the App Store for review.

At the IGDA NYC Demo Night, we shared our development experience working on the iPhone and making an independently funded title. I’m not sure if it was recorded but, I have written a blog post at SMASHWORX detailing much of the same things we shared in our presentation.

So here it is:

We made our Propaganda Lander presentation at the IGDA NYC Demo Night on March 29th. Jess and I had a great time doing it and thoroughly enjoyed the conversations we had with other developers afterwards. So, for anyone who missed it or fell asleep during our presentation–I’m sure at least parts were boring–we are going to recap it here. In fact, we might offer a little more information than we were able to present in 15 minutes.

We kicked off the presentation with this trailer and then went into a little Propaganda Lander history.

Continued at SMASHWORX

Most Notable Game Developers Conference Announcements

By Tommy Leung on 03/16/2010 in Games

3 Most Notable Announcements at GDC 2010

GDC is the annual Game Developers Conference that usually takes place in San Fransisco. Each year, thousands of game developers–large and small–attend the show to learn, see new things, and network. Some companies

take this time to make big announcements and show off new games. Rarely does a GDC come and go without notable announcements that will shape the rest of the year for games and this was not a rare year.

As a fan of games and a game developer, here are the announcements that were most notable at GDC 2010.

Playstation Move

Sony had originally shown off their answer to Nintendo’s Wii at E3 2009. At GDC 2010, they announced an official name, relative price point, and a release window. Sony’s motion controller has been named the Playstation Move. It will be under $100 and scheduled for release this Fall. Microsoft’s answer to motion gaming–Project Natal–is also scheduled to be released during the same window.

In all of this, Nintendo of America’s President and Chief Operating Officier, Reggie Fils-Aime, used the word “embarrassed” to describe what Sony and Microsoft are doing. Competition in the games industry is as tough as ever.

The Playstation Move uses the existing Playstation Eye camera with a wand-like controller–similar to the Wii–to detect and translate a player’s motion into a game. The Playstation Move is much more accurate than the Wii remote and should allow for interesting new game play mechanics originally dreamed up by the Wii like 1 to 1 sword control–or light sabers, whichever.

Continued at Associated Content

Pricing iPhone Games

By Tommy Leung on 03/14/2010 in Games, Marketing

The average price of an iPhone game is less than $1.50. That buys very few things these days. You can’t get a cup of Starbucks coffee for $1.50. The iTunes Store culture is one of low prices. This precedent was set by Apple’s own pricing of music at $.99 a song. This is the price most App Store customers are accustomed to.

This might make sense for music where a CD traditionally cost $15 – $20 so the average price per song is about $.99. Take away the cost of producing CD’s, cases, and the label’s cut and the artist is probably better off. Games have traditionally had double digit prices depending on it’s platform and scale. PopCap sells Plants vs Zombies as a PC downloadable for $19.95. The same game on the App Store is $2.99.

When Super Monkey Ball was released on the iPhone, it came with a $9.99 price tag. It is now $3.99 and the price range for high quality premium games have settled to around $6.

While the low expected price of games on the App Store is a problem for game developers, there is little good in complaining about it. The initial rush to iPhone game development was spearheaded by hobbyists and small game companies that had low costs and seemingly infinite upside. Almost any game could have succeeded by just being available on the App Store. Times have changed and the pricing strategies have to change with it.

The $.99 price point is not going to work for 99% of game developers. The quality bar has been raised so high that it is impossible to break even at $.99. Losing money on every game you make is the fastest way to no longer be in the business of making games. The App Store is not exempt from traditional pricing strategies.

Virtually every pricing strategy that has ever been developed in marketing apply to the App Store as they do to the sale of all products and services.

Competitive Pricing

The simplest and most logical pricing strategy is competitive pricing. This means you are going to set a price similar to or exactly the same as competitors in the market. This has been the predominant strategy applied across the board in the App Store.

Smart marketers who use this strategy don’t apply it across the industry. You will notice that not every beer is priced the same or every shampoo, detergent, orange juice, deodorant, etc. This is because each product is not the same. There are some products that are virtually identical and in those cases, you either need to differentiate or you match prices. Generally speaking, when a customer has to choose from two identical products, price is going to be the determining factor.

Cost/Economy Pricing

Cost pricing is coming up with a price based on your cost to produce plus a suitable mark up. This is a strategy that generally ignores the prices set by competitors in the market and is derived solely based on the company’s cost structure and goals. If each product costs $5 to make and you want a $2 profit on each sale, you would set a price of $7.

Loss Leader

A loss leader is a product that sells at a loss to spur customers to buy other higher priced items. This is usually done to bring customers to a store hoping they will also buy other things. Big chain stores do this often in their circulars and usually only have a limited amount of the advertised product.

Penetration Pricing

Penetration pricing is usually used to break into a new market or gain market share. Prices are set lower to attract customers and then raised later once significant market share has been gained. This happens a lot in cable TV where companies offer a low price for 6 months and then changes to the regular price thereafter.

Premium Pricing

This is the general pricing strategy for high end luxury items. This is also the most desirable pricing strategy as it has the highest profit potential. It is also the hardest to achieve because the product needs to be seen as highly unique in the eyes of the consumers. This also happens to be the traditional pricing strategy for Apple. Their products are built with a unique design and experience that can command generally higher prices.

Price Skimming

Price skimming is the act of releasing a product at a relatively high price where only a small percent of the market is willing to afford it. This is usually because it is the only product of its kind at the time and competitors have not yet entered the market. Once more competitors offer the same or similar product, prices start to come down. This is the general pricing strategy in technology and electronic products like flat screen televisions.

Determining Price

There are literally tons of other pricing strategies and hybrids of each other. These are the basics for a general understanding of pricing. The best pricing strategy for the App Store is going to depend on the company and the products. EA’s pricing strategy is not going to be the same as a five man game company.

It would be safe to say that you do not want to price at $.99 as there is no where left to go after that and as more premium titles are released, $.99 is going to come to mean low quality. When you don’t know much about two similar products, the higher priced one is assumed to be the better one.

A pricing strategy should fit within an overall marketing strategy. It is impossible to come up with a good pricing strategy without knowing what the marketing goals are. Prices that are too high or too low can derail an entire marketing plan from achieving business objectives. Poor pricing can also make or break a business.

Luckily, in the App Store, prices can be easily and quickly changed. A poor price may not be terminal but, there are still lost profits at stake.

Know your product, marketing objectives, and then determine a price.

3 Principles for Successful Facebook Games

By Tommy Leung on 01/31/2010 in Games

Excerpted from an exclusive article I wrote for Associated Content:

Online social networks changed the world. King of thee networks is Facebook. Facebook’s user base is greater than the population of the United States and they have overtaken MySpace in popularity. Entire companies have been built on top of Facebook’s platform. Facebook changed the world in the last decade.

The popularity of Facebook Applications has spawned a ton of games that currently flood our Live Feeds. Few days pass without a mention of a quiz result or a lost brown cow. The early days of Facebook Applications allowed for successes like Vampires and Werewolves. Those were Neanderthal apps. Apps can no longer become successful by being incredibly annoying.

The Facebook audience has evolved.

Facebook Applications are only going to get more complex as features become standard. People expect to see their friend’s high scores and how they rank. They expect to be able to interact with their friends. Zynga’s model has become the standard for what a Facebook game can do.

This makes success for new apps more difficult. A couple of guys in their spare time can’t make a game on the scale of FarmVille. Zynga and other large social network game giants can only be defeated at their own game by each other. The little guys trying to break in will need to find a road less traveled.

Continued at Associated Content

Avoiding iPhone Game Obscurity

By Tommy Leung on 12/29/2009 in Games, Marketing

There is no shortage of iPhone developers. There is no shortage of iPhone applications. With over 100,000 apps, there is no shortage of extra features. It makes me wonder how I ever lived without my iPhone. I use Google Maps to get around. I share picture perfect moments using the Facebook App. I use the Subway Map app to get around NYC. I use Shazam’s tiny elfin librarians to tell me the name of songs. I use the Chase Mobile App to check account balances.

You name it, there’s an app for that. A year from now, you name it, and there will be apps for that and the ten other things you didn’t think of.

These are all conveniences iPhones owners have enjoyed. I have taken these services for granted. I don’t worry about where anything is anymore, I can find it on Google Maps. All of this convenience is fantastic for the consumer, while those trying to sell apps on the iPhone are finding it harder to stand out.

The most competitive category is Games. There are few categories as popular as the Games section of the App Store. There are more Games than any other category. At over 20,000 strong, avoiding obscurity will be a challenge.

But not only that, you need to have a lasting impression. You may have created the hottest iPhone game to date but, what is going to stop someone from releasing a $.99 clone? How do you ensure a cheaper clone isn’t going to eat away at your sales and market share?

Take the once popular iShoot. It made $800,000 in five months and prompted its creator, Ethan Nicholas, to leave his job at Sun Microsystems. iShoot has since been buried by competitors and copycats. Nicholas says it’s “terrifying” and that iShoot’s success was “pure luck”.

Pure luck is not going to work for a business selling games on the App Store. Relying on luck to run a business is the surest way to the land of businesses-that-were. And I’m not sure all businesses go to heaven.

Luckily, the solution is as old as time: marketing. Why do you buy Tide instead of Acme Brand? They may have exactly the same quality and stain fighting power but, Acme Brand isn’t going to hold a candle to the power of Tide.

There was a time when only a handful of games were on the App Store. The best games sold well in those prehistoric times. Those days are long gone. You can release a game on the App Store tomorrow and it’ll be in the company of a hundred other games. Only a small fraction of all iPhone users are going to know your game came out. People can’t buy what they don’t know about!

This is logical reasoning but, not everyone is on board. In an interview with Wired, Austin Sarner, CEO of Design by a Knife, said this:

“Basically everybody’s on the same level once they submit an iPhone app. Unlike traditional marketing, there’s no ad campaign: A user just sees what he sees in the iPhone store, and the applications kind of have to sell themselves to some extent.”

Sarner’s philosophy is that great content drives App Store success and not “marketing”. Sarner is a developer by profession so this an understandable point of view. Sarner confuses advertising with marketing and doesn’t realize that developing a great product is a fundamental function of marketing.

It is inaccurate that there is no advertising behind iPhone games. EA didn’t come to the party without their advertising muscle. And with hundreds of games being added to the App Store every week, the clutter alone will make you invisible no matter how good your game is.

It is suicide to release an app and hope it will be magically discovered. Only 7% of iPhone users download through iTunes, 62% knew what they wanted, 60% browsed the top lists, and 46% were from word of mouth according to AdMob. The 62% who knew what they wanted heard it somewhere first. It didn’t come to them in a dream.

If you are convinced that making the greatest iPhone game in the world, releasing it to the App Store, and then praying it will sell is a viable strategy, I have two words for you: good luck. You are going to need it.

However, if you want a viable business, there is a better way.

Game developers worldwide will disagree and hate this but, marketing has to be part of the development process from day one. You can’t create a game and then sprinkle some marketing pixie dust as an after thought. That’s the equivalent of wearing a blindfold, spinning around a few times, and then trying to hit a pinata. You have no idea where the target is. You are going to miss.

The development process starts with an audience. You need to target someone. You don’t need to go after the same audience as everyone else, but you need an audience. Who is going to buy your game? You need to make a game for them. You can make a game for yourself, but that’s not a business–it’s a hobby. Doing things in that fashion means it’ll always be a hobby.

Your game needs to be characteristic of your company brand–your company does have a brand right? There is a reason EA has multiple brands. Each brand has its own image and their games reflect that. EA Games caters to a more traditional audience, EA Sports develops games for the sports audience, and EA Play is solely focused on the casual market.

Engage with the community. If your audience is there, you need to be there engaging them: blogs, forums, YouTube videos, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, etc. If your audience is there, you need to be there. Being engaged does not mean spamming. Join the conversations and use your company as the name of contact or end each comment noting your company. Don’t be obnoxious. Be informative, helpful, and provide useful discourse.

Marketing your game is a full-time job. People who solely work on the development side find this difficult to swallow. In their world, they are doing the hard work. Their point of view isn’t without merit. Without them, there would be no product at all.

To make things worse, it is difficult to accurately measure the impact marketing has on your business. You may never know how or if someone who interacts with your marketing ends up buying your product. In fact, they might not buy your product at all. They might talk to ten other people about their experience with your company and then one or more within those ten may end up buying. We cannot accurately measure this.

For people who are used to concrete and visible patterns, marketing may as well be voodoo. However, this doesn’t make marketing less important. It does mean marketing requires a different mindset than that of development.

Social medias has allowed us to monitor our audience’s thoughts, concerns, and feelings in real time. This lets us adjust our marketing efforts on the fly if it isn’t working or is having a negative effect. You need to be constantly monitoring your audience. It isn’t just a matter of marketing during a release–you will end up like iShoot. Cultivate your audience and develop a community.

Infinity Ward, the makers of Call of Duty, understands the importance of a strong community. They have a community manager, Robert Bowling, whose sole job is to monitor the Call of Duty audience. Without him, Modern Warfare 2 may not have become the highest grossing entertainment release of all time. The game would have done well no matter what. Call of Duty has a history, the first Modern Warfare was excellent, the hype surrounding Modern Warfare 2 was spectacular, it was a high quality product, and Call of Duty is a known entity–a brand. But, would it have done as well without marketing? Of course, we can never actually measure it but, I’m willing to bet marketing made the difference between one of the highest grossing and the highest grossing.