Goodsol Solitaire Blog

Selling Games Direct

Phil Steinmeyer has posted a number of interesting posts lately.

How much does an average casual game make?

Phil is pretty much right, the average (median) game doesn't make much.

The solution, of course, is not to make an average game.

In Converting Web Traffic to Sales, Phil says that Bonnie's Bookstore makes less than 1% of its sales direct from his web site.

I would say there are reasons for this.  First, he optimized the game for portal sales.  It's designed the way portals design games, it is not designed as a game to sell direct.

I think it would sell better direct if it were a little different.  First, the name of the game is not good for direct sales.  The name "Bonnie's Bookstore" does not tell you what the game is.  It is a word game, but the name doesn't reflect that.  To sell direct, you need search engine traffic.  You need a name that will generate search engine hits.  You need the game to come up when people search for word games.  Nothing in the name Bonnie's Bookstore does that.  It's a bad name for direct sales.

Also, if I had made that game, I would not have "themed" it.  Themes for casual games is a recent portal fad.  A theme is a subject for the artwork and storyline for a game.  Themes have become very popular on portals, to the point where it looks like the portals are almost demanding that games have themes.  The theme for Bonnie's Bookstore is artwork of a woman named Bonnie who has a bookstore.  It actually has nothing to do with the game itself.  The game could be made and played without the theme.  The theme really adds nothing to the game play, and in fact one of the problems with themes is that some people are turned off by particular themes.

The game would be better if there were no themes, or if the player could change the backgrounds or set their own background.  That would make it more like the kinds of games that sell well direct. 

I suspect that these themes got started when a couple of games with themes sold well on the portals, so they made more.  Now it is to the point where they just take the same game and put it out with several different themes and try to sell them as different games.  That's probably not going to last long when the customers figure it out.

More Tornado Blogging

More links about the tornado:

Disarranging Mine has posted again.

Here is a post on Lamezoid about the tornado.

Here is a very interesting weather nerd post about the Six State Supercell that the Springfield tornado was a part of.  And this is his tornado chasing blog report.

The University of Illinois site has video of the tornado.  Also, here is a storm chase log with pictures from the Springfield area.

Power Outages

We've been without power again, it just came back on again.

The damage all over town is amazing.  Most tornadoes affect only a small area.  This one affected a huge area, plus the power outages over the entire city.

A local radio station has lots of pictures of the damage.

Tornado Blogging

Here are some blog posts about last night's tornado:

Disarranging Mine LiveBlogged the tornado warning, but nothing since the power went out.

The Eleventh Hour also liveblogged.

The Capital Fax Blog reports on the storm.  It's nice of the Governor of Chicago to come down to Springfield to see the damage.  Perhaps after they finish that he could fly over the Capital Building and the Governor's Mansion so he could see what they look like.  Also, if you read the comments, you find out that it's a good thing that the Governor's Mansion has a backup generator, it's important that an empty house be well lit.

Holstein Grove has a long post about the storm.  R.I.P. the Barrel Head restaurant, that was one of my favorite lunch places.

Iggy Uncensored has pictures of some minor damage (the heavily damaged areas are closed off).

Our post office on Wabash Avenue has a hole in the roof and we are unable to get to it to send or receive mail.

Tornado

Our town of Springfield, Illinois was hit by multiple tornados last night.

CNN Story

We are fine and there appears to be little damage in our area, but we got very lucky.  At 8 pm, there were reports of tornados all over, including one on the ground near Knights Action Park, which is very near us.  We took the cats and went into the basement.  The power went out.  The storms lasted about an hour, then more storms returned around  1 am and there was another tornado warning, and then there were more storms around 3 am (although no tornados in this one).  We didn't get much sleep.

Our power came back on around 6 am.

The damage is said to be extensive.  Roofs have been blown off many buildings, including Wal-mart, the Gordmans store, and many others.  Roads are closed all over the city and schools are closed.  It hit the area around our post office, so we don't know if we are going to be able to get the company mail. 

Latest information from the Springfield paper here.

Customer Support

Here's a great article on Gamasutra about customer support:

Customer Support Orientation Guide

Sadly I get the kind of emails described in this every day.

“XXXXXXXX.com your CROOKS.  The Soliaire Games Are RIGGED.  A deck of cards does not have 6 5's or 7 Queens.  Their is no way mathematically  that after your hand is dealt that you go through the whole deck and not have one move, not just one game but 12 games in a row.  Cards change and they disappear.   Your CROOKS, and a bunch of cheats.  I wouldn't buy your games for nothing.”

This is really common.  People email who are certain that the cards are not random.  As if two of the same card (when there are more than 1 deck) can't ever be next to each other at random.  I get emails are cards being missing (usually this is in games where the cards are buried in the stock, when it deals 3 at a time).   And then there are the really fun ones who think that I have deliberately programmed the game to be hard, not for everybody mind you, but just to screw with them personally.

Ah, the joys of email customer support.

CatBlogging: Queenie

OK, Friday CatBlogging is a day late this week.

Did you see that incredible episode of Battlestar Galactica last night?

This week, we have one of my best pictures of Queenie, from 1999.

She is looking out the window.  Which is what our three current little rascals are doing on this very nice spring day.  Birds!

For more cat pictures, see the Friday Ark #77.

Carnival of Marketing

I'm a little late with this, but this week's Carnival of Marketing is at Jack Yoest.

3/9/06

Sorry about the lack of posting here, I've been busy with other things.    For one thing, it has been a busy week over at SolitaireTrader.com.

Some links:
Indie developer Jeff Vogel has some thoughts on innovation.  First question: what is innovation?  My idea of innovation (a really cool new FreeCell variation, for example) probably isn't yours.

Indie developers have a real purpose in this world. They make little niche products for markets too small for Activision. They make many new puzzle games for the casual audience.

I would agree with the first two sentences.  I don't agree with the last - the casual puzzle games just happen to be the current popular fad.  It's not what all indies do and there are types of games similar to casual games that aren't being served by the portals at all.

Microsoft has come up with a new device called Origami.  It's basically a hand-held computer, but it uses real Windows (at least, it appears to use real Windows).  This is as opposed to Windows CE, which handhelds use.  This apparently means that regular Windows applications will run on it.  I'd be interested to know how well Pretty Good Solitaire (and our other games) would work on Origami (although not so interested, yet, to go out and buy one).

The problems with the Windows CE handhelds is that you can't develop for it easily.  Microsoft has really needed to make a handheld that runs regular Windows.  This Origami thing might work if it can run any regular Windows application.

Friday CatBlogging: Ace

This is Ace, looking like she is posing for the camera.

Update to last week's CatBlogging: Pumpkin has mostly stayed out of trouble this week.

For more cat pictures, see the Friday Ark #76.