Last month saw gaming’s 2nd most successful November of all time. Impressive when you consider the current frugal economy and the fact that we’re already 2 years into this “current” generation of consoles, meaning the industry is expanding well beyond the extended cadre of casual gamers. All three consoles saw significant increases in sales and software purchases, including the Xbox 360’s most successful november ever with 819.5K units sold, while the Wii continued its dominant run, posting another 1.26M and Sony’s PS3 Slim surging with 710.4K consoles sold. With Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony all finishing the year strong, who will continue their solid showing and prove to be the platform that matters most in 2010? Surprisingly, next year’s most important platform didn’t sell a single console this past month and yet sports more users than the “Big 3” combined. Granted, gaming isn’t it’s soul purpose, but Facebook and its growing population of over 350 million will continue to find itself the hot topic not just on marketers’ media plans and creatives’ concept boards, but also high on the lists of game developers and publishers wishing to expand their gamers’ experiences and grow their current audience.
Experts are worried that casual gaming’s growth will leave traditional publishers and their blockbuster titles with little room to reach a burgeoning audience, especially given the number of free alternatives prevalent on social sites created by developing upstarts the likes of Zynga and Playfish. “The market for intense, big, honkin’ huge games is more limited than people want to acknowledge. And the casual market – which is supposed to drive the later half of the console cycle – is busy playing other games,” remarks Arcadia Research analyst John Taylor. With this in mind, it’s no wonder EA anted up close to $350 million to buyout social developer Playfish last month (as discussed in November’s PLAYED), especially considering EA’s wealth of creative minds is more talented at developing graphically-rich, epic entertainment experiences the likes of Dante’s Inferno, or Medal of Honor instead of simple point and click flash-based gaming nuggets. But conceding to the “can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em” rhetoric in expanding the casual market should only prove to be a part of a publisher’s gameplan for the changing industry.
The obvious route of leveraging (or buying) existing developers to continue to create mass-friendly casual games would surely net some success in both revenue and audience growth, but what should prove to be more exciting for publishers and gamers alike, are the possibilities social gaming opens up for those big-budget, blockbuster releases in terms of expanding the gaming experience while concurrently extending their scale and reach.
NCAA Football 10’s Team Builder (http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/ncaafootball/create_a_school#/school/2251026429:1258150752) was a unique extension to the perennial title, allowing users to customize and create their own team (from uniforms to rosters) for use in-game via a simple, yet effective, flash interface on an EA Sports microsite. In its first week of release last summer at E3 over 100,000 custom user teams were created for mass consumption. Imagine the growth of that number if fans had the option to design with an identical Facebook app, and then share their creations on friends’ walls, or post images of their latest uniform designs to photo feeds. Instead of requiring users to visit a custom website and create a login to begin building their dream team, NCAA Football 10 gamers and college football fans alike could construct directly in the social platform – the ideal space to share their created content anyway. In this scenario, a game-changing feature is available not only to those traditional fans who play the title yearly, but to general football fans as well who may soon find themselves football gamers after creating a team they’d like to see in (virtual) action.
There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is by far gaming’s biggest blockbuster yet. With 6 million units sold and over $550 million in sales in its first five days, Infinity Ward’s striking first-person-shooter will certainly be top on gamers’ “most played” lists for months to come. Obviously MW2 is a title with little need for scaling a prospective audience, especially with analysts predicting sales to eclipse 15 million units during the title’s lifetime, but with a gameplay experience so lauded in the world of online multiplayer, it’s surprising that there isn’t an option to view your latest matches online or check friends’ leaderboards, let alone view your own game stats or customize your current soldier’s weapons and perks. Why not extend trash talking amongst friends to include stat-supported wall posts and kill cam video feeds? Instead of requiring gamers to be in-game on their console to create and edit custom loadouts, a simple Facebook flash app allows them to satiate their MW2 jones during some downtime at the office and then post their latest creation with a custom challenge to their friends for game time that night. The out of game interaction keeps the title top of gamers’ minds and the disc in their console, opening additional opportunities for publishers’ DLC.
WIth over 120 hours worth of RPG gameplay on the disc, you wouldn’t expect EA/Bioware’s Dragon Age: Origins to necessitate an opportunity for an expanded experience, but that’s exactly what gamers got with the free online 2D flash title available at DragonAgeJourney.com. Acting as a prequel to the epic adventure, gamers explore the beginnings of the Origins story and are rewarded for their efforts with exclusive unlockables for the disc-based title. Once again, why not allow gamers to experience this content within the social platform where they could share their progress, but more importantly, facilitate a cooperative experience with their bastion of Facebook friends. Zynga’s Mafia Wars and Farmville have close to 90 million active monthly users, many of whom rely on their “wall armies” to supplant their gaming success. You’ve no doubt have seen the myriad of friends’ news feed updates: “Matt is offering a bounty for any friend who fights his enemy”, “Ellen found a lost White Kitty on their farm”. And while these feeds serve to promote the user’s progress and advertise the game, they’re also giving Facebook friends the opportunity to play cooperatively through their chosen adventure, albeit in slightly shifted real time. But if CMUNE can make Paradise Paintball, a 3D first-person Facebook shooter, can blockbuster-worthy, epic RPG adventures be far behind?
Publishers and gamers aren’t the only groups who should find this expanding platform exciting, however. Marketers have a place to play in the changing space as well. While designing and developing for the social platform is definitely more quick and cost efficient than most console titles, dollars and hours are still necessary to create successful programs. Advertising dollars can go a long way to bringing these experiences to life and connecting audiences to expanded content. For brands looking to extend an effective in-game program, these Facebook opportunities can provide the online presence to support the initiative. And those marketers who haven’t found a great fit in the AAA-title space due to long lead times, cost, or even content, could have an alternate solution for their media mix, via a relatively familiar advertising platform.
While experts raise concerns and panic over social gaming’s impact over the traditional space, it’s up to the publishers themselves to embrace the evolving market and capitalize on how the platform can enhance their audiences’ experiences, outside of drowning gamers in a flood of “snack-sized” titles. A social gaming/traditional gaming “friendship” could prove to be a gamer’s best friend in 2010.
November 2009 was gaming’s 2nd most successful November of all time. Impressive when you consider the current frugal economy and the fact that we’re already two years into this “current” generation of consoles, meaning the industry is expanding well beyond the extended cadre of casual gamers. All three consoles saw significant increases in sales and software purchases including the Xbox 360’s most successful November ever, in terms of 360 revenues, with 819.5K units sold, while the Wii continued its dominant run, posting another 1.26M and Sony’s PS3 Slim surging with 710.4K consoles sold. With Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony all finishing the year strong, who will continue their solid showing and prove to be the platform that matters most in 2010? Surprisingly, next year’s most important platform didn’t sell a single console this past month and yet sports more users than the “Big 3” combined. Granted, gaming isn’t it’s soul purpose, but Facebook and its growing population of over 350 million will continue to find itself the hot topic not just on marketers’ media plans and creatives’ concept boards, but also high on the lists of game developers and publishers wishing to expand their gamers’ experiences and grow their current audience.
