3 Business Models for your mobile game.

The topic of business models happened to come up at the GAMBIT event at MIT titled "Indies will shoot you in the Kneecaps".  Eitan of Firehose Games, Ichiro of Dejobaan Games, and Scott of MacGuffin Games and now of Viximo, talked about working for Indie Start ups in all stages of operation.  The moderator was Alex of Owlchemy Labs who stepped out from behind the lap top to answer a question himself.   For PC games check out a business plan for a computer game...  But let's shift focus to mobile games for a moment and take a look.

Some of the MIT students had questions relating to the business model for releasing games as apps.  They were concerned about spreading the game while also recovering some money.  The price point of most games needs to be low in order to attract an audience.  Competition is fierce to drop the price and get more players.  But development costs need to be recouped.  How do you make sure to have some kind of return on investment while still attracting an audience?  From that discussion came these suggestions about business models for your apps.

The Long Game: Give away your app for free to build a fan base.  Worry about recouping development costs later.  This method works if you are in college and have the time to really focus on community development.  In college you have time and a roof over your head to make games which build a name.  This is not a great option for those who do not have resources to cover their expenses up front.

The Guilt Game: Give away low cost of free app, have in app purchases.  This requires using a system that allows for in app purchases.  Which apparently completely excludes Microsoft products.  Some players may have negative attitudes towards in-app or in-game purchases, and this may drive some audiences away.  Many times gamers feel that a free game should be completely free.  They erroneously believe that games appear as if by magic, and there is no cost associated with the production of said games.  Free to play games are slowly eroding that stance.

The Twin Game: Release a free version of an app that contains ads along side a paid version of that app which contains no ads.  This requires more work, and more development time.  Not only do you have to code a version of the game which contains some kind of ad support, but you also have to code one without.  While this may not exactly double the amount of work you have to do before launching a title, it will require more resources.  However, it will allow players to self select into the kind of game experience they prefer.

Have you launched any games under these models?  Mobile or otherwise?  Any horror stories about a method that you will never use again?  If you know someone that can use this information don't forget to +1 the post!  Or share with them directly through twitter.

Razer Blade: Disruptive Technology that has missed the mark.

Razer released a full page Wall Street Journal ad telling us all the obvious. PC Gaming is not dead. Thanks. Mojang and I agree with you Razer. They made that claim as a teaser for the release of the Blade. A very thin, very portable gaming laptop. They must not have done much market research as they touted it as "the world's first true gaming laptop." Or perhaps they just don't feel that Alienware machines are up to par.

Gaming the stock market: PVP your own investments

Picture from Finance.google.com 8/5/2011

Here's a tip.  Find two investments; one that gos up at the same time the other goes down.  Make sure to buy the low one, and sell the high one.  You have just pitted two investments against each other in a PVP grudge match.  When one drops, buy more of the lower.  When one rises sell more of that one.  Wait for the cycle to repeat.  Sounds as simple as waiting for Gold Farmers to post their daily auction house items, right?

Now the practical side of that statement, it is very hard to do that.  Professional investors seek out that kind of thing, and occasionally find them.  Personally I have never found a relationship like that...  You would find it by looking at an industry or two that when one does better, the other does worse.  So what's a gamer to do?  Well the next best strategy is to find an investment that goes up and goes down, and find one that doesn't fall very much or at all.

Lets try that on Easy Mode.  The Stock market goes up and down all the time.  Daily volatility is impossible to get any kind of decent return from, but over the long term you can expect 8.28% per year.  Here is a neat little calculator that shows this.  That includes recessions.  But what about those recessions?  What if you are trying to maintain value during those down times?  The best place you can keep your cash right before a market down turn is a Money Market Fund.  Here is a link to a chart of the Vanguard Money Market Mutual Fund performance over time.  I'll save you the click.  It's worth $1.00 a share.  The chart is really boring, it's a straight flat line.  When the market is crashing, a straight line is a beautiful thing.

So to implement this strategy start buying shares in an Exchange Traded Fund, like we talked about.  Right now, because the market is very low.  Make sure that Etrade, Fidelity, or whatever brokerage you use allows you to exchange ETF shares into a MM fund.  Set up an automatic purchase plan and keep buying more (this is just good advice from The Intelligent Investor).  The market is going to steadily climb out of this recession.  If it looks like things are going to crash again, switch the money out before the fall to a Money Market Fund.  A few weeks later, switch back.

There is a lot to be said to buying more when the stock market crashes.  But we're going to save that for another post.  Additionally more elaborate plans can be made based on that simple beginning.  Remember I don't advise playing a particular stock.  Timing the market as a whole is slightly easier than VVVVVV.  Timing one stock is damn near impossible.  Also this takes guts.  Everyone in the rest of the market will be shouting "SELL, SELL, SELL"!  But gamers have guts and smarts.  We know that grouping behavior is bad in FPS levels...  And guess what, it's bad on the stock market too.

An interview with the Coordinator of Everything at Harcos Labs

Every company has that person behind the scenes that does it all. There are the innovators, the founders who have the big ideas that turn into products. Most stories focus on those few crazy individuals who have zany ideas. But there are also the unsung hero's of the business world. The people who come with 1000 great ideas about making a business run. Today we have an interview with just such a person, and she's a gamer.

The Cheap Fast Guide to Google Adwords.

The Cheap Fast Guide to Google Adwords has been released!  It's cheap because you pay with a tweet! It's fast because it will save you time in creating your first Adwords Campaign.  It also is a bit less spread out then my blog posts, so you will save time learning.

This guide condenses my blog posts on the Adwords Experiment.  It also contains one or two new suggestions that were not mentioned in the posts.  Expect that number to rise over time as the guide will be expanded over time.  The current revision is 1.0, keep checking back to the Guides page for updates.  You will always be able to pay with a tweet.

If you just want to learn about how Adwords works, my guide is the perfect place to get a start because it's from a beginners perspective.  If you need someone to put the guide into practice, but don't have time yourself?  I'd be happy to help out with that as well.  I love helping out start up game companies and first game projects, as you may have gathered from the rest of my blog.

"Rules for Revolutionaries" by Guy Kawasaki

"Rules for Revolutionaries"
By Guy Kawasaki

This book was assigned reading at Boston University, and should be assigned reading for any game business start up or even a first project.  One of my professor, who is a serial entrepreneur and sits on the boards of start-ups, wanted us to read this book.  It's a short book, a quick read, but the rules Guy has put down are critical.  You can get the same general information by watching videos of Guy present his talks...  But they always change a little bit.  If you want all his ideas in one place this is the place.  Here is a youtube video that gives you a flavor for the man and his ideas.

Anyone with a business, a game project, a product, or a service  can benefit from understanding the philosophy of Apple Computers.  If you are an Apple fanatic and wonder 'how do they do it', this is how, written by one of the guys (ha) that helped build their corporate culture.

If you have talked to me for any length of time about business development or game development I have quoted two of Guy's rules.  "Don't worry, be crappy!" and "Churn, baby, churn!"  they are fundamental tenants of how I go about things.

Game Design + Project Management = a new kind of certification?

When you study Business Administration one of the main components is learning Project Management.  I had a great project manager at Boston University.  He has tons of years of experience in manufacturing and business project management, and was an absolute sage when it came to helping any project of mine.  But when I suggested a project based on a computer game, he shrugged his shoulders and politely suggested that I pick a different topic.  I did pick a different topic (a comparison of Call Centers including a new kind called a "Distributed Call Center") but kept working on my own project that became The ZoRTS Project.  Effectively doing two senior projects...

Keith Fuller has been writing blog posts on #ALTDEVBLOG about his Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certifications.  These are things that I was encouraged to get, and have thought hard about getting.  His recent posts have convinced me that learning more about them is a critical step for my future in game design, but actually getting the certifications may not be.

The issues that he's addressing today is more along the lines of creating a new certification specifically for Game Designers, born out of the same place as the previous two.  I am VERY interested in this concept.  PMP or CSM certification specifically for game design would resolve my "should I, shouldn't I" debate instantaneously.  The question is how do we move things forward?  I don't know the answer to that.  I actually only have more questions.

Are there any other break away certifications?  Have they succeeded or failed and why?  More gamer's who are learning to be game designers need a familiarity with CSM and PMP ideas.  Folks already established in the industry need more familiarity as well. We should find more folks in the Community who are very familiar with project management and get their advice.  Perhaps everyone interested in this idea should sit down face to face and talk about it.

This has already been brought up to with Scott Macmillan of Boston Indies in a casual way (a quick tweet).  But the Boston area has some great resources to start talking about this in a more serious way.  I think it's time to rally the troops and give this some serious talking time.