Goodsol Solitaire Blog

RealNetworks Earnings

RealNetworks reported earnings today: RealNetworks Announces Record Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2005 Results.

For the fourth quarter of 2005...Games revenue was $15.7 million, a 52% increase over the fourth quarter of 2004;...

In 2005,...Games revenue was $56.3 million, a 63% increase over 2004;

eGames Earnings

eGames reported its quarterly results yesterday: eGames Announces Second Quarter Fiscal 2006 Financial Results.

Their sales dropped 40% and they lost money.

Jerry Klein, President and CEO of eGames, commented ``The second quarter of fiscal 2006 was a challenging period that represented a transitional phase for our business as we began reallocating our resources to increase our product distribution at retail. We continue our aggressive search to secure rights to higher quality gaming content from third-party software developers, which we plan to release for retail distribution at higher price points during the second half of this fiscal year. These titles include our recently announced Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators, Buccaneers Bounty, and Neighbors From Hell: On Vacation, all to be released under the newly introduced Cinemaware Marquee brand. Our recent acquisition of the Cinemaware intellectual properties, including its well recognized gaming brand, represents an important step toward improving the quality and brand recognition of our portfolio of consumer games.

Klein continued, ``As we have stated previously, we realize that for eGames to grow we must expand our business beyond the value-priced PC software market and penetrate other retail gaming markets, such as higher-priced PC and other gaming platforms. These markets continue to represent greater growth and profit potential compared to the value-priced PC software market segment we have primarily focused on in the past.

It sounds like they are trying to move away from casual games just as casual games are booming.  Their problem is simple - they price their products too low.  You can't make any money selling CDs at retail for less than $10.  They need quality product that sells for $20 or $30 dollars, where you can make money.  They missed the whole casual games boom because they didn't focus on the right price points.

Indie Game Case Study: The Story of a Modestly Successful Game

This post originally appeared on the old site on March 31, 2005.

Recently there's been a lot of negativity in the IndieGamer Forums. This is nothing new, but a lot of incorrect ideas are being thrown around. These ideas include statements such as "You have to be on the portals to be successful" and that "It was easier to be successful in the 90s". These are simply not true.

In one thread, one regular poster said:

At this point I like to point the n00bs at Dexterity's Brainwave as a counter-example. Brainwave has been ludicrously successful by our standards. It's $9.95, utter utter utter crap, and Steve P. reckoned once in a post that it had made him $10k-$12k over the years versus the 2 weeks he put into developing it.

I've never seen the game and I suspect it was not crap (especially for its time), but this gave me an idea. Everybody keeps focusing on the big hits like Bejeweled as examples of successful indie games. But how about looking in detail at a smaller game, a small success, a game that made money and shows how you can make money with small, simple games.

Therefore, I'll tell the story of my game FreeCell Plus. FreeCell Plus is one of my first products, released in 1996. It is one of my lowest selling games (now), but by comparison to some of the sales reports on Indiegamer, it was a huge success. It certainly is a very profitable game. Here I will tell you how FreeCell Plus came about, how it was developed, where it stands today, and how it shows that a small game with a targeted focus can be successful.

The Reason for the Game
It is December 1995. Windows 95 was just released a few months earlier in August. Bundled in Windows 95 was a new game in addition to the solitaire game that came with previous versions of Windows. Windows 95 came with a game called FreeCell. In these last few months of 1995 many people were seeing FreeCell for the first time on new computers with Windows 95.

But everybody didn't move to Windows 95 at once. In December 1995, most people were still using Windows 3.1. They saw Windows 95 on new machines, at work for example, but then came home to Windows 3.1. Windows 3.1 did not include FreeCell.

My Pretty Good Solitaire game had been on the market for awhile longer than Windows 95. It worked on Windows 3.1 and included FreeCell. A lot of people were finding it and buying it because it was a way that they could play FreeCell on Windows 3.1.

However, I started getting emails from people who wanted to play FreeCell and only FreeCell. They weren't interested in all the other games in Pretty Good Solitaire.  At that time it only had 30 games (now it has 610 [now 640]), but at that time 30 games was a lot.

It occurred to me that there might be a market for a standalone FreeCell game for Windows 3.1. At that time, there were only two ways to play FreeCell on Windows 3.1. Buy Pretty Good Solitaire, or find a copy of the Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack in stores. The Entertainment Pack had a FreeCell game that worked on Windows 3.1. But it sold only at retail and was hard to find in stores. It also had a bunch of other games that people might or might not be interested in. And that was it. If there were other Windows 3.1 FreeCell games available, they weren't obvious to someone searching the internet or online service file libraries of the time.

Therefore, there was a clear market need.

The Development of FreeCell Plus.
Armed with Visual Basic 3.0 and the code for Pretty Good Solitaire, I created the first version of FreeCell Plus in one day between Christmas and New Year's. Since the game was already written, it was just a matter of pulling out the game of FreeCell and creating a new interface for the new game. I also added a couple of other games, Sea Towers and Stalactites, so it would actually be 3 games in one.

FreeCell Plus is released.
On January 25, 1996 I released FreeCell Plus. At that time, that primarily meant uploading it to file libraries on AOL and Compuserve. I also had an AOL based web page for the game. Primary ordering was by mail order. The only online ordering was through Compuserve's SWREG service, a system where Compuserve members could buy the game and put the charge on their Compuserve bill (what a great service that was...sniff). It had a 30 day trial period, but never timed out. It sold for $12, plus $3 if you wanted a diskette.

FreeCell Plus sells!
FreeCell Plus got it first sale on February 4, 1996. In fact there were two of them, both through Compuserve, one from Norway, the other from South Carolina. The first mail order came in on February 26, 1996. In fact, FreeCell Plus sold very well. It became my #2 selling product in 1996. Clearly there was indeed a market need. As the internet caught on, I added internet ordering.

On March 8, 1997 I released a version 2.0 with 2 more games, that took another day or so to develop. On July 5, 1998 I released version 3.0 with 3 more games, again a day or so of work.

By 1998 it was clear, though, that the days of FreeCell Plus should be numbered. Most people had moved up to Windows 95 (or 98) and Windows 3.1 was now an obsolete operating system.

FreeCell Plus is replaced.
In September 1998 I replaced FreeCell Plus with a new game, FreeCell Wizard. FreeCell Wizard was very much like FreeCell Plus, except it added the feature of being able to create new FreeCell type games from properties set by a Wizard (this came directly out of Pretty Good Solitaire 98). And it was made for Windows 95 (32 bit code), rather than the 16 bit Windows 3.1 code of FreeCell Plus. I introduced FreeCell Wizard and planned to phase out FreeCell Plus. In 1999 or 2000, I removed the link to the FreeCell Plus page from the main page of my site.

The game refused to die!
But a funny thing happened: people kept on buying FreeCell Plus. Into the 2000s, Windows 3.1 is dead and buried. But apparently, there are still people out there running it. And they still want to play FreeCell. And they still kept buying FreeCell Plus. Despite the fact that the game was replaced by another game, its operating system was obsolete, it just kept going.

Where FreeCell Plus stands today.
The FreeCell Plus web page is still up and running. The content is essentially unchanged from 1998. However, there are no links to it from my major web pages. The only traffic the page gets is from search engines or from my freecell.org site. But it does get search engine traffic. Just go to Google, Yahoo, or MSN (take your pick) and search on "Windows 3.1 FreeCell" or "Freecell Windows 3.1". People looking for a Windows 3.1 FreeCell game still find FreeCell Plus today. And it still get sales (usually my wife says "another FreeCell Plus sale!" to me whenever she processes one). Based on some of the sales figures given at Indiegamer, it's still outselling a lot of people's games.

Summary of FreeCell Plus.
To summarize: Over the 9 years of FreeCell Plus's life, it's sold thousands of copies and earned in the upper five figures (considerably more than $50,000). Not bad for a game that took about a week's work to create and release. For two years, 1996 and 1997, it was my #2 selling game. It then got replaced by another game which went on to be even more successful and earned in the hundreds of thousands, so it had a baby that was even more successful than itself. Its baby continues to sell quite well and FreeCell Plus itself still gets a few sales. Its customers now all come from search engines from people looking specifically for a Windows 3.1 FreeCell game.

Total marketing spending was about $50. I once submitted it to various BBS systems and file libraries using an old service called Author Direct and that cost around $50. That's the only marketing I ever did for the game.

The Moral of FreeCell Plus.
FreeCell Plus shows how an indie game can be successful if it fills a market need. Note that the game was created because there was a market need. I did not just create a game for the heck of it and try to sell it. The market need came first. It also shows how a game will sell off of search engine traffic alone. No portals necessary. What you need is a game that is something people search for. FreeCell Plus has owned a search keyword ("freecell windows 3.1") for almost a decade.

Now note that people don't search for the game specifically. That is, people don't search for "freecell plus" (well, actually, a very few people do, but obviously they've heard of it before). If you have a big hit game, people might search on the game name (I'm sure lots of people search on "bejeweled" and lots of people do search on "pretty good solitaire"). But that only happens after the game gets huge brand awareness. That only happens for the handful of hit games. Let's face it, that's just not going to happen to you. Not until after you already are successful, anyway. But a whole lot of people search for games every day on the search engines. 95% of these people have probably never been to a portal and will probably never go to one. But they do know Google, Yahoo, and MSN. And they are looking for games there. A game can be successful like FreeCell Plus if you can find a search keyword that people are looking for. And FreeCell Plus also shows that the keyword does not need to have much traffic, either. Not many people are searching for "windows 3.1 freecell" these days (and it was never very high traffic, as when there were lots of Windows 3.1 machines, there were few people on the internet).

There are probably thousands of potential keywords that you could create games for. It is just a matter of targeting something that people are already looking for. It seems like a lot of indie game developers are trying to create demand for their games rather than creating games where demand already exists. You can succeed by creating demand, but probably not. It's easier and less risky to go where the demand already is. Find a keyword and own it. It's a profitable strategy. And look for ones that aren't already taken, as that really helps. FreeCell Plus had no competition for its keyword back when it counted and that helped.

I'm sure the negativity people will say that it can't be done today, that it may have worked in 1995 but won't in 2005. That's nonsense. In the Long Tail there's an embarassment of niches. Find one. Find a game that fits something people are looking for. Then you'll get free traffic from the search engines.

Friday CatBlogging: A Couch with Two Kitties

It's Friday, time once again for a cat picture:

Ace and Pumpkin sharing the new couch.

Don't forget, Pretty Good Solitaire users, to download the new More Cats Card Set!

For more cat pictures, see Friday Ark #73.

Kawasaki on Rainmaking

Guy Kawasaki has another must read post:  The Art of Rainmaking

...Sales fixes everything.

As long as you have sales, cash will flow, and as long as cash flows,
(a) you will have the time to fix your team, your technology, and your
marketing; (b) the press won't be able to say much because customers
are pouring money into your coffers; and (c) your investors will leave
you alone because (i) they will focus on companies with weaker sales
and (ii) they won't want to jinx your success.

And he once again advocates a shareware approach:

My recommendation is that you enable people to test drive your product
or service in order to make their own decision. Essentially, you are
saying, “I think you're smart. Because I think you're smart, I'm going
to enable you to try my product to see if it works for you. I hope that
it does and that we can do business.” Therefore, do whatever it takes
to enable people to download a trial version of your software, use your
web site, drive your car, eat at your restaurant, or attend your church
service.

Job Lost Because of Solitaire

The New York Times is reporting today that a man lost his job with the city because he was playing solitaire.

Solitaire Costs Man His City Job After Bloomberg Sees Computer

Edward Greenwood IX was fired Jan. 30 from his job as an assistant in the city's lobbying office in Albany, not long after the mayor spied the game on his computer screen during a Jan. 4 visit to the state capital.

Mr. Bloomberg confirmed yesterday that Mr. Greenwood's firing offense was the game of solitaire, saying that city employees were not paid to play at the workplace. The firing was first reported yesterday by The New York Post.

Mr. Greenwood said yesterday that he always finished his work in a timely fashion, and that he played solitaire only when there was nothing else left to do, usually a few times a week or during lunch breaks.

Mr. Greenwood said that he had left the solitaire game on his computer while going to pick up tickets for the mayor and other city officials to attend the governor's annual address to the state. When he returned, Mr. Greenwood said, the mayor had arrived and was posing for pictures with other office workers.

What can we learn from this?

Mr. Greenwood was probably playing the solitaire game that comes with Windows.  Had he been using Pretty Good Solitaire, he could have used the Minimize to Taskbar Tray feature to reduce the game to a tiny icon in the lower right corner while he was gone.  If he had done that, the mayor probably would not have seen it.

Reboot 2006 February Update

At the beginning of the year I posted Reboot 2006, about my plans to make significant changes to my business this year.  It's now February and we are a month in, so it is time for an update.

This is a year-long plan, so most of the changes are only just starting.  I've got 4 parts of the Reboot going so far.

1) Changes to the trial period in our games.  I've completed the coding to change the way the trial period works in Pretty Good Solitaire to start bringing it closer to the way the indie game industry is doing it these days.  These changes will go into effect in version 11, which will be released sometime in the next few months.  Although I've got the trial version changes done, I'm still working on other parts of the new release.

2) Change in ecommerce provider.  I spent January evaluating a number of ecommerce providers and I selected one that I think will improve on RegNow.  I'll be blogging about this once the change is actually made, it will take some time to get set up and test the new system.

3) Major changes in product structure and new products.  We have started a big new development project, but again it is too early to say anything about it.

4) Web site redesign.  I've selected a web design firm and the web site redesign is in progress.  The first drafts of the design indicate that it is going to be cool.

So there it is.  Yes, not much to report on yet.  But I think there will be real details on at least one of these projects (and possibly new projects starting) in the March update.

Real Networks buys Zylom

Real Networks has bought one of its competitors, Zylom.  See the story in the Financial Times.

Privately-held Zylom will add around $8m in annual revenues, around 54 employees and a portfolio of 70 games to RealNetwork’s games business...

Michael Schutzler, vice president of RealNetworks global gaming operations, estimates that the casual gaming market is worth around $2bn to $3bn globally compared to the $25bn total games market.

In the third quarter, the games business was the fastest-growing business division at RealNetworks, with revenues up more than 60 per cent at $14.7m.

And so the portals begin consolidating.

Small is the New Big

Great article on CNET today: Small is beautiful for Web 2.0 start-ups

Highlights:

Jason Fried, president of start-up 37Signals, is a bona fide software entrepreneur. But he wants nothing to do with the traditional model of starting a software company.

"You can build a great business on a niche product because with the Internet, you can reach a million or a half-million people," said Fried.

37Signals, for example, has not spent money on marketing, relying instead on viral marketing techniques, like blogs and word-of-mouth advertising from its customers, said Fried. The company of seven employees has no sales people.

And, of course, a venture capitalist has to make a snarky comment:

"We're seeing a proliferation of start-ups, many of which may be nice little businesses that will be beneficial to the founders, but few that have the fundamental ingredients for creating lasting, meaningful businesses," said Onset Ventures' Hilderbrand.

Read that as saying, we can't invest in companies like these because they don't need us.  I bet 37Signals will be in business long after Onset Ventures closes its doors.

This reminds me of the great Seth Godin post from awhile back: Small is the New Big.

Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.

Small means that you can answer email from your customers.

Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others, while you keep the power because you invent the remarkable and tell stories to people who want to hear them.

Small is the new big only when the person running the small thinks big.

Don’t wait. Get small. Think big.

 

Good Links from Last Week

The Obligatory Blog has a weekly link summary of the best MicroISV links of the week.  There's some good stuff there this week that I meant to link to but didn't get to it.  Here are the best ones:

Creating Passionate Users has a great article: Death by Risk Aversion.  This is the big advantage that small companies have: a willingness to take risks!

Joe Indie wrote about what happens if you cut your Google Adwords budget.  He notes that you need to watch out for the delay - you may cut your budget and not notice a drop in sales, but the drop may come a month or so later.  That's because not everyone buys right away.

Eric Sink wrote Yours Mine and Ours, about MeWare, YouWare, and UsWare.  UsWare is definitely the best way to go, if you don't use your product, why do you think anyone else will?  Remarkably enough, in the indie game area I get the impression that a lot of people don't play their own games, especially after its done.  I spend probably 99% of my time playing computer games playing my own games.

Christopher Hawkins wrote Face Time and Free Stuff about how small businesses use face time and free stuff to succeed.  He uses face time in the sense of face to face in person meetings, but you can also consider email a part of face time for an online business.