Big Fish - "A new game every day!" - Your opinions please...

[Andy]

Subj.

Is it just me or...

Looking on the situation on my lovely portal I can state that it becomes absolutely unuseful for us. That's sad to say but we expect significant drop in income for all upcoming games there - except some awesome exclusions. I see how amount of good titles just appears on a moment and drops down to the bottom of the list if not dissapears at all.

To say this directly - I suppose they use almost all upcoming games to sell Big Kahuna Reef (nothing bad about your game James!) and another laud titles. They exclude the way for us to use them as additional income and I don't see any idea to give them away our new titles for this use.

It would be nice to hear your opinion on issue guys and gals.

REM: Yeah, I hear that "go and make an awesome one" - and everybody would agree with this would it so easy to do. But what else with exception of this obvious statement?

Thanks,

[Chaster]

It is a bummer, but what can you do? When Spellunker dropped off their "new" list sales through Big Fish plummetted (sp?). We're talking an order of magnitude drop (!)... I was/am quite bummed. Conversion rate stayed relatively respectable (0.9%) but there were just too few downloads... :(

Well, the only thing I can do is try to make the most awesome game I can... <shrug>

Chaster

[Andy]

To comment myself before Dan will push me out: I'm not concerend at all about Big Fish behaviour - that's their right to do what ever they like. I'm only about the idea what should we do as developers. This obviously the issue if you are expecting to have the game published by big portal or you go by your own - to develop puzzles or pinballs? (as example for our case).

REM: Just for sure - Chaster got my request by absolutely correct way. Thanks for opinion Chaster.

[Hamumu]

I think it's a pretty simple business decision. Why go with Bigfish knowing they're going to release a game every single day? There's NO chance they'll put any effort behind your game, so why do they deserve 65%? Forget them. Go with Real, Reflexive, or whoever (or yourself! Please! I'm a big fan of serious indiedom). It's not even gonna be worth the time it takes to configure your game to their system.

If you make a game like Big Kahuna Reef though - super production values, super casual bejeweledness - it might be worth your effort, since you know that it will do well with their audience, and thus will actually have some money and time put into its success (and of course it can tread on the rotting corpses of a different game each day, as Andy pointed out with BKR - not BKR's fault by any means). If you're not the exact thing they're looking to focus in on, you're just fodder to fuel the gaping maw of their tricolored empire.

Forget them even if you do make a super puzzle game - pick partners wisely based on what they can do for you, don't grab at every straw in reach. If Bigfish comes to YOU asking for your game, you might be on the BKR side of the equation. They wouldn't ask if they didn't think it would succeed for them. Then and only then does it seem like a wise choice to me.

That's my theory, but it's not my area of expertise, let's see what others have to say...

[ggambett]

I think that move is good for good games and bad for not so good games. Betty's Beer Bar isn't Jewel Quest but isn't a failure either - 15th straight month selling there, now back in the top 10 downloaded games. But I digress. Fresh games every day pretty much guarantees repeat visitors. Few of these visitors will buy the not so good games, but they will be increased traffic for the good games.

So, the situation for the good games. The bad : a lot more competition (some of these 365 games a year will be bad, some will be good, some will be excellent and drop the game a few places in the top lists). The good : more exposure, more customers.

Now for not so good games. The bad : very short life expectancy (our FaceIt survived 3 weeks there), being "filler" content to draw repeat visitors. The good... hmmm... I don't think there's much of a good side here :(

In the end, I think the effect of this is widening the breach in sales between good games and not so good games. So, sorry Andy, but I think my conclusion is the same as yours : try to make your games as awesome as possible!

[cliffski]

hammu speaks the truth! I KNOW Starship tycoon will be on the front page of Positech.co.uk (until democracy comes along).
I concentrate on building MY traffic, not a portals :D

[Andy]

It's not even gonna be worth the time it takes to configure your game to their system.

Hell! That's exactly becomes the case with last their marketing innovations. (add that their 20% discount for toolbar)

[Andy]

try to make your games as awesome as possible!

This is not under the question Gabriel. I'm just loosing with my explanation. :)

The question is "awesome for whom?" - for portal audience or for our own? (Got the differense?)
I suppose that even good games (common Gabriel! this is to easy to bash the rest as the bad ones...) get less chances to meet any success there. That's the issue. If earlier we could make a bet from time to time and return at least part of our money on development - looks like now we've lost even this chance.

[ggambett]

The question is "awesome for whom?" - for portal audience or for our own? (Got the differense?)
Well, I guess if you want your game to be successful at the portals, you should "optimize" it for the audience of the portal. I love the fact that I can say absolutely obvious facts as this one and sound profound :D
I suppose that even good games (common Gabriel! this is to easy to bash the rest as the bad ones...)
Note that I was very careful to say "not so good games", not "bad games"... my intention isn't to bash anyones games.

[Andy]

Note that I was very careful to say "not so good games"

Correct Gabriel - my fault!
But you got an idea - current fresh could be accepted as "not so good" and could do much better before these innovations.

if you want your game to be successful at the portals, you should "optimize" it for the audience of the portal

Correct again! :)

Now looks like I'm ready to step up the correct, short and detailed question (pardon guys! that required the time ;) )

According with new marketing steps of BigFish are you still planning to develop and submit new games for them? And would you recommend that for your fellow developers around (like we are at PoorWildSnake :) )?

[ggambett]

According with new marketing steps of BigFish are you still planning to develop and submit new games for them?
We finally got to the question :D

I'm not sure about what will we do when we finish our current game (in development for 7 months already!). We'll probably try to find an exclusive publisher. But if we don't do that, and do the same we did for Betty's Beer Bar (try to get it everywhere we can), then yes, Big Fish will be one of the first places we'll submit it.

Once you made a game, I don't see why not submitting to them. Except if you belong to the portal hater crowd, it's just another source of revenue. But note that I said once you made a game and you said develop and submit new games for them. There's a huge difference between "once you made a game, submit it" and "develop a game with BFG in mind" (or maybe I'm just reading too much and it's your russian accent ;))

[Anthony Flack]

I've never read Andy's posts with a Russian accent, but now that you mention it, I like the effect.

[svero]

I think Bigfish has been actively looking for ways to increase their market share. To do that they have to increase visitors. So you need a hook. A new game every day is a brilliant hook in theory. It's great for repeat visitors. Scheduled regular content.

However, how does it work in practice? I guess it still remains to be seen, but so far it's looking kind of so so. One major concern I'd say is the quality of releases dropping. And looking at the games released recently on the site I'd say that it has dropped a little overall. It only makes sense that if you release far more titles you will have less top games to pick from and you'll have to lower standards a little to keep the volume up. That could have a long term negative impact on regular visitors so maybe it ends up being a self defeating marketing hook.

And it's fairly clear looking at what games get promoted and which sell that the way games are promoted on the site might affect the success of particular titles. I've seen titles like Platypus or Bricks of Egypt, that were #1 sellers on Realarcade only have mediocre results on Bigfish. Why is that? Is it that bigfish's audience just likes different games, or is it a reflection of the way they promote games and what they choose to promote?

I think ggambetta is right about how it might work. If visitors increase then what you may see with a game of the day is just an increase in the top titles while anything that isnt top 10 languishes quickly. That's somewhat true of all the other sites as well though. The top games will get promoted and the medium or bad games will never reach their full sales potential because their spots are sacrificed for the bigger earners.

[Andy]

or maybe I'm just reading too much and it's your russian accent ;)

:p

No. You are reading everything correct Gabriel. Even after my accent. :D

[Vectrex]

personally I hate this game a day business. It's so 'quantity over quality'. It's like mp3.com proclaiming over a million songs, which is a huge put off :) I'd rather have 3 good things than 300 crap things.
It might work in the short term but I bet it'll cheapen them in the long run... especially with that toolbar/adware crap.

[Andy]

One major concern I'd say is the quality of releases dropping. That could have a long term negative impact on regular visitors so maybe it ends up being a self defeating marketing hook.


I got the quotation from Steve to add it to my vision of the situation. I just forgot to mention this part at first.

And speaking about "the same on all archives" - there is the difference for us specifically. Because I liked how Big Fish was working for us specifically even when we weren't on the very top. And I don't expect this in the future.

[Jack Norton]

I find much easier to bring more traffic to my website than to make a game that will sell well on BigFish or other portals... :)

(I can't do good casual games... it's a genetic pathology!!)

[papillon]

If only they would run out of silly puzzle games to feed their game-a-day and decide to add some categories to their site that aren't boring... :)

(says the adventure/RPG fan)

Enh. Where can I find a portal that features only games that aren't cheerful bland casual family-friendly happy colorful puzzles? :)

[Pyabo]

Enh. Where can I find a portal that features only games that aren't cheerful bland casual family-friendly happy colorful puzzles? :)

This is a great idea! How about "uncasual.com"? I think it's available...

[picman]

Just thought I would risk jumping in here at my own peril :)

There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

First Andy, I am curious how many games or sales you have received from Yahoo, MSN, Pogo etc. I would wager it is very close to zero, as they are very hard to get on. What we are offering allows every developer with a high quality game a shot at very substantial sales if their game does well. Our difference is WE do not try to Judge every game as great or only good, we let our visitors decide. This gives small developers a chance at distribution that other large game portals do not offer.

Second, we do not pass editorial judgement on ANY games or promotions. We are almost 100% statistically driven. If a game perfroms well it bubbles to the top, if it does not, it drops to the bottom and eventually off the site. A great example of this is Betty's Beer Bar. This is a game that most distributors other than Big Fish Games did not pick up when it was released. We gave it a chance and our visitors loved it and it bubbled up to the top and has been in and out of our top ten for over 15 months.

Third, if a game we take a chance on but no one else does actually performs well on our site, other big distributors keep an eye on us and will often contact the developers of our top performing titles, thus giving the developers even more distribution.

Bottom line is yes, "A new game a day" helps us build more traffic, but in my (perhaps biased) viewpoint, helps out small developers who often never even get email returned from most the other large distributors.

And by the way...while we do have large traffic, we started 2.5 years ago as a small indie developer and are still a small private, independant comapany, not a big evil portal.

So...to agree with others, make great games and you will be successfull!

Paul Thelen
Big Fish Games

[picman]

To the comment we are "quantity over quality". We have far less quyantity than others like RealArcade, the only difference is we let our visitors decide which games to keep and which to let go (delist) based on how much they like a game.

Cheers!
Paul

[Andy]

Great to see you here Paul! Now the discussion really becomes representative.

Good mentioning about another portals Paul - that's exactly our pain. We had at least one who was helping before - right now looks like we lost even you. :(

Speaking about great games. Well. That's the recommendation for newcomers Paul. We both already know how this works - come here guys! give us your games to build the traffic for our favorites.
Do your give a chance to newcomers? - Yes. I suppose so.

But in current moment I'd like to hear the recommendations from another developers around what to do with such proposals to collaboration. And most of them don't like your last ideas as you can see.

Well. We have valuable and detailed answer from Big Fish portal guys and gals. What do you think about it?

[Ricardo C]

Third, if a game we take a chance on

What "chance" are you taking?

[picman]

My reference to taking a chance with a new game was simply that we have no idea how a game will perform, and we only launch a new game once per day...so there is oppotunity costs. Why do you think Yahoo only launches one game per month...they do not want to risk throwing a bunch of promotion behind a title that does not perform. We launch only about 1 game out of every 5 that get submitted to us (which is much better than other that launch 1 in 100).

Granted my risk is much lower than a developer that develops a game from scratch, but remember, my roots are as a developer (Mahjong Towers, Word Wizard, Word Search Deluxe, Bursting Bubbles, etc were all developed by yours truly on a shoestring budget) and I try my best to be fair to all developers.

If any of you have other ideas how a small indie game portal such as myself can compete with the likes of Yahoo, AOL, Real, etc....I am all ears ;-)

Cheers!

Paul

BTW contrary to an earlier post, our new BFG toolbar has ZERO ads and ZERO spyware features. We get a (very small) token bit of revenue from Yahoo searches that take place in the search box, but that is it.

[Ricardo C]

If any of you have other ideas how a small indie game portal such as myself can compete with the likes of Yahoo, AOL, Real, etc....I am all ears ;-)

Stop imitating the business model that big corporations decided we should follow. As it stands now, I don't see you as "one of us". You're "them", or at least trying to be.

There would be no indie developers if all we were trying to do was figure out how to be like retail developers, and there will not be indie distribution channels if all you try to do is figure out how to be like corporate-funded portals.

[gmcbay]

Ricardo,

Did an indie game portal kill your parents or something?

[Ricardo C]

Yes, and then took 65% of my inheritance ;)

[Andy]

Err... Please pardon me guys! I don't like to be annoying but... ;)

The question of the thread: According with new marketing steps of BigFish are you still planning to develop and submit new games for them?

REM: I need to figure out basically that our decision to cut out the whole "absolute casual" direction from the titles we are considering for future or developing right now was correct.
Because they were only the portal we were collaborating with in the past - (who helped really). And because we became strong enough now to not try to win a big lottery but make a living from our own site.

Let we bash that evil portals or consider how to help them survive in another threads. :D

[Andy]

...And that games with adware/spyware from Zango now in addition - I haven't noticed in another thread that guys talk about Big Fish (just got email from them) :confused:

Hell. The things go even worse than I thought before. :( Such actions could kill down good part of shareware gaming market. Well. Up to them.

Thanks for your opinions guys. Including that ones through PMs, messengers and emails. :)

I got all info I need.

PS That's exactly the time to collaborate out The Good portal. :D

[Lerc]

Second, we do not pass editorial judgement on ANY games or promotions. We are almost 100% statistically driven. If a game perfroms well it bubbles to the top, if it does not, it drops to the bottom and eventually off the site.
On the whole, I think this is a fair way to rank games. The concern that I have is that a game that gets a low ranking will be considered a worse game from the outset so has an inherent disadvantage in trying to bubble up. Could you tell us if your ranking system ranks by download count or conversion rate? Ranking by conversion rate would suffer from this problem a great deal less but it would still have some bias. A player starts with a negative outlook of a low ranking game which may mean that they will not give the game as much of a chance. Some may not even install the download.

A couple of suggested possibilities.
Have a second chance draw, have a higher ranking for titles on rotation. Note their conversion rate before and after to see if that title deserves a higher ranking.
Another option is to make titles fight for their higher spots. Have a negative factor proportional to the ranking. The highest ranking title has the largest negative factor. Working on the assumption that more people will give the #1 game a try. If you had two games of equal worth at #1 and #2. Under a normal system, the #1 game would stay in the top position. If it had to fight for it's position it would flip-flop with the #2 game. Of course the weighting factor would be a matter for experimentation. A clearly superior game should quite easily retain it's position.

Perhaps sheduling algorithms for multi tasking operatings systems may offer some clues to maintaining the best balance between giving titles a chance and promoting the best.

[Jack Norton]

I must say that I am not very found of portals myself, but BFG and Reflexive seems good exceptions. They don't refuse games based on some arcane formula like others (Real for example) but at least they give it a try.
That doesn't mean that if a game does badly on their portal is bad, just that isn't good for their market (did happen to me).

About the original question... well when I'll finish a good casual game I'll think about it, but so far I like more doing my "niche games" (just a personal preference).

[picman]

Could you tell us if your ranking system ranks by download count or conversion rate?

Lerc -
We actually do give every game a chance before we "brand" it successful or not based primarily on conversion rates, but also take into consideration total downloads(a measure of the game's first impression appeal) . A new game goes into a NEW section and does not get ranked untill it has been in NEW for a month or gets 20,000 downloads(a statistacally relevant sample size). The NEW section is also one of the heaviest trafficked sections so each game does get good exposure out of the gates.

Best Regards -

Paul

[Duke]

The NEW section is also one of the heaviest trafficked sections so each game does get good exposure out of the gates.
Paul
This is quite right.
I hope you don't mind me saying this in public Paul, our game got about 11,000 (yes, eleven thousand) downloads in it's first week on BFG.
Unfortunately, CR was as bad as can be, but that's not BFG's fault.

[Chaster]

Hmmm, we didn't get as many downloads for Spellunker as Duke did for his game the first month on BF, but we did have a 2.19% conversion rate - which seems pretty good to me...

Then, we got moved off the "New" list in December, and downloads PLUMMETED.... And while the conversion rate was still decent (IMHO) at 0.93% (not dazzling, but respectable...?) the fact that we got a small fraction of the downloads we had in the first month meant that the net profits were 1/12th of what they were in the previous month... OUCH... :(

[lakibuk]

but we did have a 2.19% conversion rate
That sounds like a very high CR. And still your game got dropped? Which CR do the bestsellers have then?

[luggage]

I'm guessing the best sellers are the ones that bring in the most money so conversion rate isn't that important.

1% of a 1000 downloads or 2.19% off 100 downloads?

(I made those figures up just to show a point, bares no reflection on Chaster's game )

We had the same experience as Chaster, while in a top 10 list of new game list you do healthy, not on those and it kinda drops away quickly.

[James C. Smith]

Yes. Conversion rate is often over rated. Some chess games get great conversion rates but very low sales. They are still great games, but not what you want to put in the limit space on your front page.

I like the lottery sort system we use on Reflexive.com. Every game gets a random chance to be near the top of the list and/or be featured, but the best selling and converting games get more chances. We also give extra chances to the new game. But “bad” games aren’t permanently banished to the last page. We randomly give them another shot every once in a while.

[Duke]

I like the lottery sort system we use on Reflexive.com.
I like this lottery system too. I was pleasantly surprised when our game appeared on Reflexive and saw that once in a while it also appears in the 'featured game' box. This feeling was further emphasized by the fact that it's a pool game and not one of the casual type of games that get most attention on portals.
This gives every developer's game equal chance of attracting attention.
That, and a few other things (commision % not being the most important) make Reflexive the most pleasant portal to deal with, IMO.
Keep up the good work.

[Chaster]

I also must chime in and say that even though the sales of Spellunker on Reflexive's system have been VERY disappointing :o (for both Reflexive AND us), they (Reflexive) have been very good to work with and I will submit games to them again in the future. I think what we discovered is just that our game (Spellunker) wasn't to the tastes of Reflexive's customer base.

Reflexive's treatment has been very fair, and the fact that we didn't get automatically relegated to the bottom (or completely OUT) of their system even though sales have been poor speaks a lot about their attitude.

Not only that, but they are the only portal so far that allows us to check our sales in real time (although Big Fish has indicated they are going to add this feature soon).

So, basically, a Big Thumbs Up for Reflexive from me. :)

Chaster