Mobile Monday Boston 9/12: Mobile Games

Mobile Games
September 12, 2011
www.momoboston.com
#momobo

Nokia with Windows Phone
2
Nokia
http://jobs.nokia.com
twitter @nokiacareers
fb: Nokia: Global Careers
Richard Kasperowski
http://kasperowski.com
mailto:r@kasperowski.com
twitter @rkasper

Introducing a mobile-first, responsive BostonGlobe.com
Jeff Moriarty
VP, Digital Products
The Boston Globe
@jeffmoriarty
jmoriarty@globe.com

“Inconsistent window widths, screen resolutions, user preferences, and our users’ installed fonts are but a few of the intangibles we negotiate when we publish our work, and over the years, we’ve become incredibly adept at doing so. But the landscape is shifting, perhaps more quickly than we might like.”
Ethan Marcotte, Web designer and developer and Author, Responsive Web Design
4

Some of our goals for BostonGlobe.com
Develop a new revenue stream of paid subscribers who value The Globe’s journalism
Differentiate the product from Boston.com
Create an efficient, clean readable experience
Build for an increasingly mobile Web
Blur the lines between a Web site and native application

A quick overview

Consulting

Development

The Wii Tennis of Location-based games

The fantasy

The reality

87 million

The fantasy

The reality

750 million

The fantasy

The reality

The reality
Albert-LászlóBarabási

Sell to the fantasy

But design to the behavior

gtrefry@giganticmechanic.com

HTML5 Mobile Game Platform

Why Mobile Games in HTML5?
Ubiquitous across iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS
Known, open standards - Web and game developers share a common language
Open distribution

MocoSpace
Play Games. Make Friends.
#1 in
Social Engagement
#4 in
Mobile Web Traffic
#1 in
Mobile Entertainment
1H
M
F
>20 million members
>3 billion page views / month
25 million games / month

MocoSpace Game Platform
Viral channels to tap into social graph
“Moco Gold” virtual currency
Community – profiles, messaging, chat, discussion forums
Gaming – leaderboards, rewards (“Moco Creds”), challenges
Analytics for measuring, optimizing & monetizing

Crime-based RPG
125,000+ DAU
3.5M mins/day
3% conversion to paying users

Location-based celebrity RPG
HTML5 Geolocation check-ins
Facebook Places integration

3rd party games

MocoSpace recently announced the $1M Mobile Game Developer Fund, providing developers with the tools they need to build, promote, and monetize their games on the MocoSpace Game Platform. For more information or to submit a proposal, contact us at games@corp.mocospace.com
MocoSpace recently announced the $1M Mobile Game Developer Fund, providing developers with the tools they need to build, promote, and monetize their games on the MocoSpace Game Platform. For more information or to submit a proposal, contact us at games@corp.mocospace.com
$2M Mobile Game Developer Fund
games@corp.mocospace.com

Game Development Experiences
Erik Asmussen

Project Overview
Liked potential for iPad as a board gaming platform
Catan and Risk are fun but each broken in their own way - thought I could do better
Wanted a way to learn various aspects of iPad development

Challenges
No Money
Do everything myself
Don’t know what I’m doing

Gameplay
Settle territories, which produce resources
Use resources to build/upgrade structures
Structures generate more resources, including ‘Colony Points’
Enough Colony Points will win you the game, or you can spend them to invade your opponent
Get bonus points for owning large regions
All strategy, minimal luck

Version 1
2-4 Players (Local only)
Multiple Gameplay modes
Ratings: Low
Sales: Low
Biggest complaint: What’s the point?

Version 2
Added real-time multiplayer using Game Center
Ratings: Low
Sales: Low
Biggest Complaint: No single-player

Version 3
Added AI
Ratings: Med
Sales: Low
Biggest complaint: graphics

Version 4
Graphical Overhaul (60 fps, animations, all art redone, landscape mode, auto-rotate)
Quick-Match
Achievements
AI Overhaul
Gameplay Tweaks
Ratings: Very High (current average: 4.9 out of 5)
Sales: Low
Biggest complaint: Nobody Online

Version 5 (coming soon)
Universal (runs on iPhone)
New iOS 5 features:Turn-based online matches!
Improved graphics
Sales: Extremely High*
* I hope

What have I learned?
Single-player experience is important
Polish is critical (e.g. visual feedback)
Small/Focused probably better approach
Online matches almost useless for small games. Turn-based option should help
Freemium not necessarily the best option
Users are (almost) never happy = scope creep

What have I learned?
Good reviews ≄ High Sales
Low Price = High SalesBonus: forum posts + discounts

What doesn’t really work?
Facebook Ads (TBD to some extent)
Banner advertisements on large sites(smaller, targeted sites ok)
Begging Kotaku for a review

Hope springs eternal
Increased potential of iPhone market
More advertising options
Actual online multiplayer
Positive feedback

erik@82apps.com

Our Experienceswith Mobile HTML5 Game Development
@cykod / @games4language

The Browsers
Anything Webkit = Great
Anything Else = Horrible*

Cool Stuff
Access to some of the Mobile Goodies:
Orientation / Accelerometer*
Geo-location
Touch Events (w/ Multi-touch**)
Local Storage
Offline Storage
* Mobile Safari and Firefox only
** Except Android

Our HTML5, Node.js, & WebsocketProof-of-Concept
http://spacewords.gamesforlanguage.com/

BorkedStuff:Sound
This is actually a pretty big deal.
Android has no support
iOS lets you play one sound at a time which must be initiated by a user action.
No preloading
*Events fire at-random, seemingly when they want to.*

Solution?
Currently, there is none for Mobile HTML5, but...

There’s Always PhoneGap...
Wrap your Mobile Site, use PhoneGap’s Media element for Audio until that day comes.

Thanks! Questions
@cykod / @games4language
http://www.gamesforlanguage.com

MediaMob presents:
myKarma
In-Game Advertising & Engagement Platform
September 2011
MediaMob
Media. Mobile. Simplified.

Mobile Gaming: Opportunity!
Engagement: Typical smartphone user…
Spends ~15 hours / month playing games
Play a game once/week (92%)….almost half play daily (45%)
Volume:
Angry Birds downloaded 250 Million Times
Ads:
Ad revenue in mobile games is expected to rise tenfold from $87 million in 2010 to $894 million in 2015
Confidential - Not for Distribution

Mobile Gaming & Advertising Challenges
Growing pressure to release free games
Ad revenue within free games is sorely lacking:
* Where are the ad dollars promised from iAd?
* Why aren’t people clicking on banners from AdMob, Millennial and JumpTap?
Traditional ad units within mobile games are interruptive and not effective
Average mobile CTR is between .5 - .8%
Publishers, Advertisers and Players demand a better experience

MediaMob does it betterSears Auto Center / Road Trip

Introducing the myKarma Points & Rewards Network
Deliver a better, dynamic ad unit that publishers will want to display in their game, and that users will be more likely to engage with
Dynamic system for featuring sponsored goods and in-game benefits
Example: Sears provides users with new tires, making their car drive faster...typically $.99 but FREE from Sears Auto Center
Bridge the gap between IN GAME POINTS and REAL WORLD REWARDS:
Users are more likely to respond positively to sponsor offer at end of level / game
Example: “Would you like to learn more about a special offer from Sears for new tires?”

Value exchange: In-game benefits for ...
Advertisers may give away in-game benefits as a goodwill gesture or chose to have users complete an action before they can redeem their reward:
Within pop-up message: “To redeem your Instant Karma within the game, complete the following action....”
“Actions” can be defined by the game developer (only willing to accept these types of actions for my users to have to endure for redemption) and then selected by advertiser (based on different pricing levels and to meet their objectives for the campaign)
Actions to include:
Complete a form (i.e. email address + submit button)
Watch a video (served from backend)
Become a Fan (requires Facebook Connect integration)
At the completion of the Action, user is returned to the exact place within the game

- Create account
- Download SDK
- Upload games
- Manage features and placements
- Reporting
MediaMob - Publisher Portal

Brands & Publishers

Publishers - Brands – Gamers
Matt Snyder
President
MediaMob
matt@MediaMobInc.com
O: 781-777-2714
M: 781-789-1440

Hitchery
A new mobile/social game to rock your phone
(and your world)

About Us
Virtual hitchhiking game
Conceived October 2010, won Boston Mobile Startup Weekend in November
Runs on Android and iPhone

Meet Johnny

Johnny lives on your phone.
But your phone...

Your phone is also your bus.

You can drop Johnny off in real world places
by “pulling over”.

Places where other players can pick him up!

Johnny’s owner gets a notification when
interesting stuff happens to him.

And when Johnny does cool stuff, he earns hats!

Of course your bus does cool stuff too...
so it earns bumper stickers.

Drivers and passengers
(or hitchers in the same place)
can chat in realtime

Share photos of your passengers
wherever you pull over in the real world

And those photos go into each hitcher’s scrapbook.

Your hitchers can have destinations in mind

Of course, there’s more...
but them’s the basics.

Business Model
Free to play (w/ads)
In-app purchase: bigger bus + more hitchers + no ads...
Huge marketing potential for brands/businesses

The Hitchery Team
Glen Daniels - founder, Rails and Android developer
Kevin Monahan - SW team member, iPhone developer
Mike Altman - User Experience

So... when?
Beta-testing now around Boston
Android out first, then iPhone
Hopefully both by Halloween

Help us playtest
We need a great local graphics/UI person
If you are an investor, we’d love to talk
Get on Board

Get on Board
Scan a sticker, or visit http://hitchery.com/qr1
We’re on Facebook, and @thehitchery on the Twitters.
We’re also local, and enjoy beer. :)

Thanks andHappy Hitching!
www.hitchery.com
info@hitchery.com

www.thetaplab.com
founders@thetaplab.com

The State House
Disney World
MIT Media Lab

Working with The Tap Lab...
Fun, Creative, and Rewarding
Small Team w/ Big Vision
Work Hard | Play Hard
Most importantly...

We hang out with Penguins!

Mandatory recess on Wednesday!

What we’re looking for...
Smart, Talented, and Resourceful
Local/relocate to Boston
Loves playing games
Wicked Fun!

Rails DevelopersBackend
CS Degree (not required): Hackers Welcome!
Rails 3, MySQL, MemCache
External API Experience
Bonus points for Google and Foursquare

Mobile DevelopersiOS & Android
CS Degree (not required): Hackers Welcome!
iOS and/or Android Experience
For iOS: CoreGraphics and CoreAnimation
RESTful APIs | Map Views | Geolocation

Experience designing Social/Mobile games
Prior work for us to review
QA, Game Testing, Balancing
Metrics driven design
Game Designers
Social & Mobile

Experience designing Social/Mobile games
Prior work for us to review
Playful/approachable look and feel
Lover of Games!
Game Artists
Social & Mobile

iOS & Android Developers
Social Media Gurus
Campus Reps
Internship Program
Tech, Biz Dev, & Social

Send Resumes to...
dave@thetaplab.com

founders@thetaplab.com
www.thetaplab.com

FieldrunnersHD Gameplay Trailer - iOS and Android
Fieldrunners HD Gameplay Trailer

HTML5Open Web Technologies
Not just the next version of HTML
Integrated media content
Collection of open web technologies
http://slides.html5rocks.com/

FieldrunnersHTML5 Tech - Getting Fieldrunners in the Browser
JavaScript
ECMA-262 3rd Edition
jQuery
glMatrix
http://code.google.com/p/glmatrix/
WebGL (OpenGL ES2)
http://doesmybrowsersupportwebgl.com/
WebAudio (Not the Audio tag)
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/raw-file/tip/webaudio/specification.html
FileSystem API (for offline support)
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/file/filesystem/

FieldrunnersHTML5 Gameplay
Fieldrunners HTML5 Gameplay

HTML5Now more than ever
Big Creators
GameLab
Bocoup
Atlas Ventures
Google
Zynga
Great Middleware Evolving
Facebook (Project Spartan)
Game Closure
ImpactJS

HTML5Get on Board
Wider audience
Everyone has a browser (http://gs.statcounter.com/)
WebGL (39.09%)
Firefox 4+
Chrome 8+
Safari 5.1+
Hardware Accelerated Canvas (21.77%)
Internet Explorer 9.0+
Firefox 5+
Chrome 13+
Safari 5.1+
Conversion (Browser to Mobile)
Connect Browser and Mobile

Talk with Us
@gradientstudios
@trevorsayre
@zofgames

Mobile Games
September 12, 2011
www.momoboston.com
#momobo

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Mobile Monday Boston 9/12: Mobile Games

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Mobile Monday Boston 9/12: Mobile Games — Presentation Transcript