Goodsol Solitaire Blog

Coupon Experiment

A couple of weeks ago, I tried an experiment with coupons.  I put a coupon code for 10% off Action Solitaire in my email newsletter.  Now this in itself was nothing new, I've done this many times before.  I've never had particularly much success with such coupons in the past.

The experiment was that I added a bit more.  In addition to the 10% code in the newsletter, I offered a 20% off code for people who have previously ordered either Pretty Good Solitaire or Pretty Good Mahjongg, and then a 30% off code for people who have previously ordered both products.  But these coupon codes were not in the newsletter - they had to email me with their registration codes (as proof that they had purchased), and I would email them back the coupon code.

So the question was, would I get more orders from the 20/30% off codes or more from the 10% codes?

On the one hand, using the 10% code is easy, all you had to do was order and use the code you had already from the newsletter.  The 20/30% codes were harder to get since you had to look up your registration code in the game and email it.  And there is a school of thought that you are supposed to make things as easy as possible for the customer, anything you do to make it harder to order will result in less orders.  Certainly the higher discount codes required much more work on the customer's part.

On the other hand, the 20/30% off codes offered a bigger discount.

On the gripping hand, you had to already be a customer to get the bigger discount.  While my email list has a lot of customers on it, there are a large percentage of people on the list who haven't ordered.

So the results would be interesting.  It has now been almost two weeks - although I'm still getting requests for codes by email, most of the orders should be in by now.  What happened?

The results were that the 20/30% codes, the ones where they had to email me for their coupon codes, resulted in 10 times more orders than the 10% codes.    Customers were quite willing to do more work for a bigger reward.  (The 30% codes got 50% more orders than the 20% codes as well).

Note: if you don't know what I meant by "on the gripping hand", you haven't read enough science fiction.

History of a Game

Here's an interesting article:  Behind the Game: Bejeweled

Some points to take away from this:

1) Fancy graphics are not necessary.

"The original graphics were done by me," Kapalka said with a laugh. "That's why they're pretty ugly."

2) Untimed games tend to be more popular than timed ones.

Of course the untimed version was included in the final product; something that Kapalka suggests might have been integral to its success.

3)

They decided to take a risk, one from which the repercussions are still being felt to this day. They created a deluxe version of their already popular Web game with better graphics, better sound and more modes that they would sell.

Creating a shareware version was considered "taking a risk" rather than just applying a time tested business model (which it was).

4) "E-commerce was in its infancy" in 2001.  Who knew?  I wonder what it was in 1996?

5) Price is an important factor in quality.

"He said that the cheaper a game is, the less people think its worth," Kapalka said.

Growth Despite Non-Paying Customers

There's an interesting interview with PopCap founder Jason Kapalka.

Casual Game Biz Poised for Growth Despite Non-Paying Customers

It's got a business model that's drastically in need of repair, which may be one reason why the casual games audience is spreading like wildfire. Indeed, because the typical casual game comes with a "try before you buy" offer, fewer than 2% of those played are actually purchased. Conversely, that means that 98% of casual gamers are playing for free without a cent going to the games' developers or publishers.

Comments:

He implies that casual games were not previously available by retail, but of course they were.  There have been casual games available in retail since the PC began.

I can't think of another industry where it would be acceptable to give away 98% of the product it makes.

Actually, of course, that's a very typical conversion rate for a direct marketing industry.  Casual games should be compared to mail order type conversion rates.

As far as advertising in games, that's been tried before and apparently it will be tried again.  It will run into exactly the same problems as before - essentially there's an unlimited supply of in game advertising impressions and only so many advertisers willing to pay.  And they'll be less willing to pay as soon as they've tried it and discovered how little return they get.

He's right about clones - they are inevitable.

Casual Game Survey Results

Here is an interesting article about the results of a survey done by PopCap:

Casual Games Survey Results Surprise Publisher

Among the most interesting findings of the survey were responses to questions regarding the location, duration and reasons for playing casual computer games, defined for survey purposes as "puzzle, word, simple action/arcade and other family-friendly, non-violent games which can be played on computers and mobile devices." Survey findings included: motives For Playing: 88% of players indicated they experienced stress relief from playing casual games and 74% cited mental exercise as a benefit; when asked to choose the most important reasons for playing, 41% picked "stress relief/relaxation," more than twice the number (19%) who chose "entertainment"; 27% said the games provided distraction from chronic pain and/or fatigue, and fully 8% said they derived actual relief from chronic pain and/or fatigue.

The Forgotten Birthplace of Casual Computer Games

While surfing around recently, I came across the following Wikipedia article:  PLATO

This is the best source I've yet found for information about what was probably the birthplace of computer casual games: the PLATO computer system at the University of Illinois in the 1970s and 1980s.

Although PLATO was designed for computer-based education, many consider its most enduring legacy to be the online community spawned by its communication features. PLATO Notes, introduced in 1973, was among the world's first online message boards, and years later became the direct progenitor of Lotus Notes. By 1976, PLATO had sprouted a variety of novel tools for online communication, including Personal Notes (email), Talkomatic (chat rooms), and Term-Talk (instant messaging and remote screen sharing).

PLATO's architecture also made it an ideal platform for online gaming. Many extremely popular games were developed on PLATO during the 1970s and 1980s, such as Empire (a massively multiplayer game based on Star Trek), Airfight (a precursor to Microsoft Flight Simulator), the original Freecell, and several "dungeons and dragons" games, including dnd and MMORPG Moria, that presaged MUDs and MOOs as well as popular shoot-em-up games like Doom and Quake. Avatar, PLATO's most popular game, is one of the world's first MUDs and has over 1 million hours of use.

The first computer version of MahJongg solitaire was also done on Plato, in addition to the invention of FreeCell and the first computer version of FreeCell.  Jim Horne, who wrote the Microsoft FreeCell game, saw it on PLATO.  It's where I first saw many computer games (the PLATO lab was a great place to avoid studying).

Where are the Guns?

A fun read today on Creating Passionate Users:

What if Tech Companies Made Soduku?

Casual Game Press

Another news piece about casual games over at CNet:

Casual Games Get Serious

More Women Gamers than Men - Even Among the Young

Here is an article about how women gamers outnumber men - even among the 25-34 age group:

Study: Women Gamers Outnumber Men in 25-34 Age Group

A Game a Day Keeps the Developer's Profits Away

James C. Smith of Reflexive Entertainment has an interesting chart up on his casual game data site game-sales-charts.com:

Churn on the RealArcade Top 10 List

The chart shows the number of different games that have appeared on RealArcade's Top 10 list in each quarter since the 4th quarter of 2003.  In that quarter, 23 different games appeared on the weekly top 10 list (the minimum number would be 10 if all the same games were on the list for the entire quarter - the maximum would be 130 if every game were different every week).

In the most recently completed quarter, the 1st quarter of 2006, there were 40 different games.  The chart shows how the number of different games on the list has steadily gone up from 23 to 40.

This means that each game spends less time in the top 10 list and therefore spends less time at its full earnings on the portal.  It shows dramatically how less and less profitable the portals are becoming for the developers of the games.  Each quarter even the hit games have less and less time to make their money before they are kicked out by the portal.

Again, it just reinforces my belief that, unless you get very lucky and get a big hit, a game developer is much better off pursuing a direct sales strategy rather than a portal sales strategy.  Of course, you can use portal sales as an additional distribution method, but if you make all of your money that way this data must really make you wonder how long the portals are going to be a viable way for developers to make money.

I don't have anything against the portals - I have had a game on a portal for 6 years (and it still sells - it's not significant compared to my direct sales, but over the years the cumulative total is nothing to sneeze at).  But I've never believed that they are permanent or will always be a major part of the market.
I've just seen too many fads come and go.

Recently I've been thinking that my primary customers and the portal customers may be rather different.  Although demographically they are similar (largely older, more women), my customers seem to prefer more challenging games than the portal customers seem to (although I think it may be the portals are underestimating their customers and dumbing down their games too much).

My customers seem to be "hardcore casual".  While of course there are many very easy games among the 640 games in Pretty Good Solitaire, the hardcore customers tend to prefer the harder, more challenging ones (such as FreeCell, which although it can almost always be one presents a challenge in many cases).  The portal market solitaire games, though, are exclusively very easy, very simple games.

Indie Sex or Indie Cash?

Dan McDonald has an article on GameTunnel this morning:

Sustaining Independence

Basically, this article is Dan's take on the Sex & Cash Theory.  What is more important, making money or your art?

Dan clearly is on the sex side.

An independent developer that wishes to sustain their independence must pursue their own interests in game design and development and give them preeminence over their interests in business and profit.

Personally, I've never been big on the  "art" in indie games.  I'm more focused on whether the game plays well, provides a good game experience, that is, whether it is fun.  Grand ideas of expressing myself in the art of the game don't really enter into it.

The article is being discussed at length in the IndieGamer forums.