Sunday, April 20, 2014

NO INNOVATION NO FUTURE: ZYNGA

I've been using Google Alerts to follow Zynga articles and news. I have noticed one alarming trend from Zynga's standpoint.

About 20-30% of everything caught in the Google bot net is related to Zynga Poker. That is either evidence on how stupid Facebook users are or on the importance of Poker for Zynga.

It makes a worrying scenario to think how a game company is not focusing on game content innovation but instead into a distribution channel. After all it is a sales channel strategy if you take a public domain game and present it to a new audience.

If your competitor wants to have your pie all they need to do is to pay more and grab that channel. Well, ok, I admit that it is not that simple those poker friends inside Zynga game also do count.

They really need to start innovating instead of managing business and cutting costs. I'd pull my money out of this stock if I had any. Maybe you should also consider what to do with your stocks.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

GAMER GIRLS ON YOUTUBE UPDATE

OK. I went and reshuffled the order on my gamer girl list. Vote your favorite up on the list by telling her name on comments! There is a whole new entry on the list the wonderfully racy Tara Babcock, don't you just love that name! Anyhow I was thinking that this will just be a random list, but now I'm thinking to set some sort of criteria for the list. Criteria might include post frequency, post quality, personal stuff etc. If you have any ideas - I'm listening.

THE FUTURE OF THIRD PARTY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY FRANCHISES

It is an interesting question what will happen to games, which are based on third party intellectual properties like FIFA, NHL, Madden NFL, UFC and other capital letter titles. Granted there is a BIG up as these titles do have ready following and many people do prefer a game with their real life heroes on it instead of generic characters. Today this is especially important because a basic unit for development budget keeps pushing up from million to ten millions.

However it is not your content so you need to pay for using the franchise theme. Also you can't turn the product into something else because you need to follow pretty strict guidelines regarding the brand - so no sharp metal sticks in NHL 2015 Extreme (which would be super fun). Also you end up sitting in many unproductive meetings regarding the implementation of the game and where the development is going and those meetings are already many enough without the third party implementation.

I know game companies are looking more and more into just creating their own content that can be turned into a cash cow. Rovio might be one good example that has now turned from game company into an entertainment company, which licenses its content to others. Rovio has tremendously good profit margin and while making good money from their IP they have managed to steer away from expensive product development as now they don't have a need to code up game engines without knowing if the product will sell. Unfortunately you never know what will be a success!

Third party IP will probably stay there as the games have carved up a solid segment for themselves, but I believe you need to go forward by creating your own original titles to capitalize the success.

SUPERCELL HAPPY WITH THEIR BOOM BEACH LAUNCH

Finland's leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat ran an article about Supercell where they interviewed the company CEO Ilkka Paananen. Ilkka was very upbeat about the preliminary success of the Boom Beach game and sales figures also support this claim as Boom Beach has been reaching TOP10 sales listings on many markets.

It seriously looks like Supercell is becoming a three legged horse, which would make it a strong candidate for future games. Focusing on quality instead of titles let's them have far more accurate hands on management style with their games, just check the latest update with Clash of Clans - CLAN WARS ARRIVED - now that is something that keeps on squeezing juice out of gamers.