1848, was when gold was discovered in the Bay Area. People from all over the world came to the place in search of gold, wanting to make their fortunes. some made it. a hundred and fifty years later, the Bay Area is again a booming ground for gold. Except that this time, the gold can be seen only on a screen.
Social Gaming is a concept in its infancy. Nobody really understands how it works. With staggering statistics of a hundred million players per day, it certainly is a sizable phenomenon. More so, this could be a new business model that could be a significant factor to change the existing ones in ways and means that may not be obvious. These games rely heavily on something called a 'social mechanic', which makes sure that a player does not play alone. The player is rewarded for bringing in and playing with more and more people. The most successful games in this category offer avenues for a player's self expression, like coming up with a colorful farm, decorating a house, taking care of a pet, etc.
The existence of a social networking platform like Facebook, makes it possible for these games to reach millions of people in all age groups at the convenience of their homes. Adding to these numbers are the mobile devices that can play these games as well. So this is a new cultural phenomenon where family members can play together or with each other.
Now, these games can be played for free. However, there is a catch. To get items for farming, you could either work in your farm or you can pay cash. Yes, the cash is from your pocket. You pay real world money to purchase the cash online. Most of the times the amount is nominal ($5-$50). Assuming that even if 1% of people buy $5 money, it quickly becomes profitable. What the companies are selling, is virtual money. In other words, they are selling goods on the screen to the player. The player has a motivation to buy this virtual gold, so that he or she could make their farm look better without having to spend much time in the farm. This would give them a competitive edge over other members they know in real life who play the farm game as well. This in turn would elevate their social status in the real world. This is one line of thought, there could be many other reasons why people might want to get virtual money.
Another interesting factor about Social Games is their development time. With the existing networking infrastructure and the tools for making games it is possible to realize the game idea and deploy it into the market within a matter of few weeks. This is in strong contrast to the development of console games that takes 2-3 years to hit the market. From a business standpoint, this is incredibly luring - a short development time, a consumer market of a million people and very good chances of being commercially successful. So this new gold rush has attracted thousands of startup companies all over the world. The Bay Area, with its Silicon Valley is home to half of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment