Indie Game Developers and the Facebook of Doom

Our feature presentation:
What does the coming year hold for the independent Facebook game developer?

The story of Facebook so far
Three big episodes:
2007-2008: The pioneering debut
2008-2009: The difficult sequel
2009-2010: Increased quality & maturity
And what next?
4. 2010-2011: The lame cash-in?

2007-2008: the pioneering debut
Viral growth, poke apps, simple games
Developers working out how to make money
Generally low quality apps
Novelty value and user freshness

2008-2009: the difficult sequel
Facebook removing/limiting viral channels
The Mafia/Mob wars
Realisation that apps could make money
Lots of money, >$1m/month
Mid 2009: world + dog decides to get into social games

2009-2010: more quality & maturity
More Facebook redesigns, less viral growth
Increased game quality
Big-name entries into the market
Big money: EA buys Playfish for $300m+
The rise and rise of Farm Town, FarmVille and the attack of the clones (yes, I know)

The indie developer today
Up against it
Limited access to resources
Facebook favouring the big names
Reduced Platform virality
Unable to match the quality of new games

So what next for Facebook?
2010-2011: the lame cash-in episode?
Big gaming companies dominate?
Impossible to compete on ad spend?
Game quality rises and production costs soar?
Existing game brands (Civilisation, the Sims) conquer all?

EA, Ubisoft, Zynga, Playdom, CrowdStar

Zynga spending $1m+/week on Facebook

Competing with Zynga’s 800+ team

Civilisation coming in the summer, what will EA bring to Playfish (or vice-versa)?

Things aren’t looking good
How can our indie escape?

Fighting the big guns
Competing against traditional gaming companies:
Big investments need big payoffs
No evidence that they can succeed:
Spore Islands by Electronic Arts Based on the Spore “franchise” Currently around 2.5k DAU

2010: boom and bust
Not everyone can win
2010-2011 will be the year of:
Increasing user-blindness
Reduced virality
Fatigue with virtual goods and offer monetisation
Virtual-world saturation
Social games go from hero to zero

Opportunities for Indies
Choose your battles:
Does increasing quality mean increasing complexity?
Do Facebook users even want complexity?
The death of the bedroom coder has been predicted for over 20 years now

5 tips that might help

My tips
#1 Go niche
Don’t try to compete with FarmVille – look for an audience that the big guns won’t be interested in
Create an edge that deters the cloners

My tips
#2 Retention, not virality
Viral channel effectiveness is reducing
Buying traffic is almost inevitable
Once you have a user, keep hold of them

My tips
#3 Concentrate on ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
100,000k users at 50c per user, or 1m at 5c?
A loyal audience monetises better than a mass migratory one

My tips
#4 Don’t overcomplicate
Release fast, early and often
Don’t try to compete with the virtual worlds
Maximise ARPD (Average Revenue per Developer)
Concentrate on fun, not realism
… but still maintain depth of play

My tips
#5 Build a portfolio
Not every game will be a success
Prepare to move on quickly
Cross-promote
Make a virtue out of changing your mind

A holy grail of app development?

A holy grail of app development?
Not quite
A tough year ahead
There are still opportunities for indies
Look for the gaps in the market
Take advantage of your ability to change

Thanks
[email_address]
www.karlbunyan.co.uk
fbExchange.net
twitter.com/karlbunyan

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Indie Game Developers and the Facebook of Doom

by Karl Bunyan on Feb 25, 2010

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Indie Game Developers and the Facebook of Doom — Presentation Transcript