By Trip Hawkins on Aug 30, 2010 in Apple, Digital Distribution, Mobile Games
0
Western fascination with the iPhone has invigorated the mobile games and content market, but here are ten things that must happen for mobile to fulfill its enormous destiny:
1. It’s About the Mobile Web
The principles that have made the World Wide Web such a huge success have to be enabled on mobile networks and devices. This includes innovative and healthy content supply chains, social value, viral spread, viral discovery, free trial, and having a variety of...
read more
By Trip Hawkins on Aug 23, 2010 in Business, Game Development, Licensing
0
I will make a case here for the importance and strategic value of companies publishing their own intellectual property (IP) on new digital platforms like the emerging app stores.
In the old days, big companies could build strategic value by developing control over conventional channels of distribution. When you own the Golden Gate Bridge you can charge any kind of traffic to use your pipeline, but it loses value when everyone discovers how to fly. Browsing and...
read more
By Trip Hawkins on Aug 23, 2010 in Business, Game Development, Licensing
0
My prior post analyzed the vote of the public on the App Store and asked the question: Is anybody dominating? Well, yes. I saved three companies to discuss here. These are the only companies that have at least 10 of these 200 slots of shelf space and at least five owned self-published intellectual properties (IP) with at least one or more that the public had to buy. It is a special club with perhaps one big surprise.
Electronic Arts – OK, here we go...
read more
By Trip Hawkins on Aug 13, 2010 in Business, Digital Distribution, Free Games
0
Recently, my 9 year-old daughter asked to borrow my iPhone during a three-minute car ride. I could hardly refuse. When we pulled up to the house I asked to have my phone back, but she said, “wait, I have to finish sending this email.” I didn’t even know that she knew what a browser was, and there she was using my device to send her emails.
It just goes to illustrate the point: The explosive growth of the World Wide Web and mobile phones over the last two...
read more
By Trip Hawkins on Aug 10, 2010 in Digital Distribution, Facebook, Free Games
1
An estimated $7 billion in virtual goods was sold in China last year, and another $1 billion in the Western world. What gets me intrigued about this is the fact that the West is just getting started and we have 8.5X more gross domestic product (GDP) than China. That should generate enough buying power to suggest that when the West is comparable to the 2009 China market, it might be a $60 billion market in the West alone. At that point on a global basis, including...
read more
By Trip Hawkins on Jul 22, 2010 in Business, Facebook, Social Games
0
Magic Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all? In the world of social gaming, it might be getting easier to tell.
New social games lacking a growing virtual goods economy and unable to easily exceed 100,000 daily players (DAU) on Facebook shouldn’t expect to generate much revenue and will likely struggle to recoup their development costs.
Despite the rising popularity of social games, only 17 new games released in the first half of 2010 have...
read more
By Trip Hawkins on Jun 30, 2010 in Facebook, Online Games, Social Games
0
Zynga is obviously not just a leader in the social network game development and publishing field, but a big leader with a big lead. But as an industry category, the barriers to entry are low and it cannot possibly be “winner take all” in such an open type of environment. This provokes for me two big questions:
What’s going to be their Achilles’ heel? Everyone has one.
Who’s on the “Flip Side?” No matter how big the hit single,...
read more
By Trip Hawkins on Jun 30, 2010 in Business, Casual Games, Digital Distribution
0
Facebook recently announced some interesting new developments to its interface and back-end, but I find myself wondering right now if the firm has gone a bridge too far. Beginning about six months ago, Facebook began to indicate that they were going to reel in the game spam on their social network. This was followed by a series of moves that turned down the spigot and began to choke off the viral coefficients of Faecbook games.
Using www.Appdata.com and...
read more
Loading ...
Scott Steinberg is the CEO of video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, and founder of GameExec magazine and Game Industry TV. Hailed as a top technology and video game expert by dozens of publications from USA Today to Forbes and NPR, he’s covered the field for 400+ outlets from Playboy to Rolling Stone. A frequent on-air analyst for networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, he’s also the author of Video Game Marketing and PR.