Event: Smart Money in Gaming

A current and future look at monetization strategies in Retail, Mobile and Social Gaming

Last night I went over to the Microsoft NERD center (still love that) and hung out with Dave Bisceglia (from Tap Lab) who was a panel member for the event.  It was moderated by Marco Mereu (uCool), and included  Jeff Goodsill (Stomp Games), Chris Rigopolous (Harmonix), and Layne Ainsworth (TapJoy).  As the name implies they talked about making money with games, and I soaked in as much information as possible.  I went with a burning desire to find out if anyone is monetizing HTML5 games on the web or mobile and how they are doing it.



And the answer was surprising   HTML5 does not really change how people are monetizing games.  At least it hasn't yet.  Mostly because it is still an evolving set of standards and no one is really sure how it will work out.  Also HTML5 is almost completely invisible to the end user.  Unless you don't have it.  Companies are very worried about disrupting the monetization method of their game.  Which means few new innovations just because of HTML5 adoption.  There are very few games relying on HTML5, and therefore very few special products or services offering special monetization strategies unique to the platform.

Monetization ties much more closely with how you build your game, not what platform you use.  Jeff Godsill really stressed that the monetization strategy needs to be 'baked in' to the game.  I would add "in a way that does not violate verisimilitude".

Here is a TechRepublic info-graphic that might seem random, but helps tell the story.