Blue Frog Gaming Inc

Description

I’ve been talking to a lot of people about the future of social gaming lately. The perspectives I’ve been gathering are pretty interesting. A repeating theme is the question of what the future looks like. Is it going to look like console games? What do social games mean for the broader gaming industry? Are people going to play games anywhere other than on Facebook, the web, and maybe their iPhone? The answers I’m generally hearing are all pretty similar, which is that social games are pretty much going to go the way of console gaming. When the Nintendo grew up in the ’80s there were hundreds of independent developers making games, some of which were pretty high quality, some of which were not, and almost all of which were operating on a relative shoestring budget. Over time, as with many industries, the quality bar grew higher, mergers and acquisitions occurred, and now we’re at a point in time where there are a relative handful of players making big-budget games with brand names like Tiger Woods or Mario behind them. Those games sometimes take many years and many millions of dollars to ship, and it leaves little room for independent developers to achieve prominence. My thesis, and the one on which Blue Frog Gaming’s future actions are based, is that most people are taking an overly-simplistic view of the future in assuming that this is what will happen on the web. There are more ways in which social games differ from console/PC ones than I can count, but there are a few that I think are extremely important. First off, the distribution model is different. Console and PC games are largely bought in stores, even to this day, either brick-and-mortar or virtual. As such brand names have a huge impact. If there’s a game called Tennis 2010, and one sitting right next to it called Roger Federer’s Tennis 2010, which are you going to pick? It’s a no-brainer. Facebook is a little different. You get invited by a friend. If your friend says "I shot twelve under in Golf!" does it really matter whether or not there’s a famous athlete’s name attached? Social discovery, which is missing in platforms like the PlayStation and the iPhone (a more recent example of brand domination) might change the rules drastically. And then there are the habits of players. Most people play social games from work. Anyone running them will tell you that their traffic spikes Monday and Tuesday during prime business hours. Evony has a feature that lets you change the title bar so that your boss will see whatever you want them to in the minimized browser window at the bottom of your screen. Our game has an off-Facebook access point for people who wanted to get around work firewalls (which, unfortunately, is now being blocked by some itself). A way to play outside of Facebook was (and still is, since we don’t publicize it well enough) one of our most requested features for that reason. As a result, the games that succeed, I think, will be and have been, for the most part, ones that allow you to play for short periods of time and that you can quickly close your browser on and not be upset about.

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