Fairies and Atlantis-Not on Real Arcade? [Archive] - Indiegamer Developer Discussion Boards

Stu

02-02-2006, 08:43 PM

Perhaps there is nothing to this but it has piqued my curiosity.

Atlantis (developed by Funpause, published by Big Fish) spent 5 weeks on Real Arcade's top ten late last September to late October. Sometime thereafter it vanished from Real Arcade completely. I don't recall any game in the past doing well on Real Arcade and then no longer being offered there.

Fairies was released late October on Big Fish Games and all the large portals a bit later but has thus far not been released on Real Arcade.

Is there an explanation as to why Funpause games are not carried by Real Arcade any more or is this super secret agent stuff?:cool:

ManuelFLara

02-02-2006, 09:59 PM

Maybe when they were bought by Big Fish Games they wanted them to remove their games from Real, I don't know. Although it's curious to see than neither game is in BFG's Top Sellers list at the moment.

Another reason could be that Real launched similar games and they wanted to maximize sales. AFAIK Luxor was published by Gamehouse (Real Arcade), maybe Luxor Amun Rising is too. And as far as Fairies do, maybe there's some clone out there I'm not aware of that's being published by them too.

tretmike

02-03-2006, 02:30 AM

Hi all,

As I heard, Real and BFG didn't renew their contract. And that is why all exclusive BFG's games was removed from Real.

Phil Steinmeyer

02-03-2006, 05:48 AM

Luxor and it's sequel are by Mumbo Jumbo, not Real/Gamehouse. AFAIK, Real/Gamehouse does not have any internally-developed games particularly similar to Atlantis or Faeries.

Fabio

02-03-2006, 07:55 AM

Bmc

02-03-2006, 08:04 AM

I don't know if FunPause still gets royaltyes for their games, or if they have got a big forfeit payment. But in the former case (which I personally think is the most probable), I think that disappearing from RealArcade will very likely hurt their sales bad. I still wonder if the exclusive deal with BFG was as worth as many of you thought.

removing their exclusive games from Real will only benefit Big Fish(which Fun Pause now is a part of), especially when it comes to monster hits like MCF: Huntsville

Phil Steinmeyer

02-03-2006, 08:55 AM

If they did it, it's probably a leverage play - BigFish trying to get a better deal with RealArcade. I doubt it'll be a permanent thing - somebody will win whatever issue they're arguing over, or they'll compromise.

Fabio

02-03-2006, 08:56 AM

removing their exclusive games from Real will only benefit Big Fish(which Fun Pause now is a part of), especially when it comes to monster hits like MCF: Huntsville
Maybe so. But Real has such a high (and real) traffic that I think there are many many many buyers that won't simply migrate to BFG, but ignore it totally. And I'm not sure that FP, in the net of all, will benefit from it (BFG, a bit at least, for sure will do). Real? Will hardly notice any loss.

Bmc

02-03-2006, 09:18 AM

Maybe so. But Real has such a high (and real) traffic that I think there are many many many buyers that won't simply migrate to BFG, but ignore it totally. And I'm not sure that FP, in the net of all, will benefit from it (BFG, a bit at least, for sure will do). Real? Will hardly notice any loss.

Real is only the 4th largest casual game portal, big fish is 5th. I'd be willing to be that there is alot of overlap between Real customers and Big Fish customers. Even if that isn't quite true, Real is Big Fish's primary competition right now.

Go read the forums at real, you will see many posts like "When is X game coming to Real, I love it and want to use my gamepass to get it etc."

Now instead of waiting for the newest hit Big Fish to come to Real, the Real customer will be forced to get it elsewhere. In most cases that elsewhere will be Big Fish.

Fabio

02-03-2006, 09:36 AM

I don't argue your arguments, but what is the source of your data? While - again - I don't argue, I've learnt not to trust what portals want us to believe about their business (I'm talking about ranks here, not of course the evidence you bring about users' comments).

berserker

02-03-2006, 09:43 AM

Real is only the 4th largest casual game portal, big fish is 5th.

How do you know that?

Even if that isn't quite true, Real is Big Fish's primary competition right now.

I doubt Big Fish is a significant competitor to Real. To my understanding Real is at least 10 times bigger. IMHO more correct comparison would be Real vs Oberon (with all their game centers) or Real vs Yahoo.
But anyway I doublt there are any hard competition between them as I see Real (GameHouse) games distributed by Oberon, Oberon games like Magic Match distributed by Real and vice versa. In the end everything comes down to numbers and I believe it is more profitable to have a win-win deals where both parties benefit the most.

Dan MacDonald

02-03-2006, 11:03 AM

This may be true, but I suspect BFG is one of the fastest growing distribution sites...

Bmc

02-03-2006, 12:58 PM

How do you know that?

I doubt Big Fish is a significant competitor to Real. To my understanding Real is at least 10 times bigger. IMHO more correct comparison would be Real vs Oberon (with all their game centers) or Real vs Yahoo.
But anyway I doublt there are any hard competition between them as I see Real (GameHouse) games distributed by Oberon, Oberon games like Magic Match distributed by Real and vice versa. In the end everything comes down to numbers and I believe it is more profitable to have a win-win deals where both parties benefit the most.

The oberon site itself, no... it's game center's yes. Msn is of of it's game centers, msn is in the top 3.

Whether or not Real is 10x bigger than Big Fish or not, I guarantee you that in Big Fish's eyes they are their primary competition *At this point in time*...

for number 5 to get to number one it's gotta go through 4,3 and 2

Mike Boeh

02-03-2006, 01:56 PM

Bmc you didn't answer berserker's question about how you know Real is only the 4th largest portal....

Bmc

02-03-2006, 02:13 PM

i can't quite remember, maybe I read it in one of the casual game whitepapers. it's been talked about here before though, numerous times. Things may have changed alot since the last time it was talked about, but probably not

Indiepath

02-03-2006, 02:21 PM

Funny what you hear. I heard oberon were coming to the end of contacts with said portals and that contract(s) are up for grabs. But don't count yer chickens until the contacts are signed :p

Matthew

02-03-2006, 03:16 PM

Bmc you didn't answer berserker's question about how you know Real is only the 4th largest portal....

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?p=57526#post57526

svero

02-03-2006, 05:10 PM

Hmmm... Well... That list... I'd wager that ordering is wrong. I've never seen or heard anything money wise that would confirm that ordering. Most of the devs I know say they make the most from Realarcade sales. I've heard of very good sales from other sites, but they seem to be oddly skewed somehow. Maybe you need to be one of the few heavily promoted games and then you can make a bundle on Msn.. Not sure. But I would have thought Real was the biggest portal in terms of pure sales volume.

DFG

02-04-2006, 12:04 AM

I would guess the issue revolves around the titles being involved in the subscription service. I think there is a war going on around this highly profitable marketing method.

Real/Gamehouse have Bounce Out Blitz and Tumblebugs which are similar to Fairies and Atlantis. However, I don't think that is the issue.

svero

02-04-2006, 01:04 AM

Ill just note as well that when I talk about portal size Im speaking specifically about how many sales of downloadable games through trial versions the portals can generate. I don't doubt yahoo has a huge audience for it's online backgammon or whatever, and maybe generates good ad revenue from that... It's just not that relevant to me or my business.

James C. Smith

02-07-2006, 02:26 PM

Luxor and it's sequel are by Mumbo Jumbo, not Real/Gamehouse. AFAIK, Real/Gamehouse does not have any internally-developed games particularly similar to Atlantis or Faeries.

I am sorry to continue this off topic branch of the thread, but I wanted to respond to this. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Luxor is published by Game House. Mumbo Jumbo was the developer but I think Game House (Real) owns it. You will see the Game House logo in Luxor if you download it from MSN, Big Fish, iWin, Reflexive, or anywhere else.

svero

02-07-2006, 06:15 PM

Gamehouse published Luxor, but I don't think they had anything to do with the sequel "amun rising" since it first appeared on yahoo.com -- Im guessing MJ just did that one on their own.

- S

arcadetown

02-08-2006, 08:38 PM

I believe Mumbo Jumbo owns original Luxor and Real/Gamehouse published it as it's cobranded MJ and Gamehouse most everywhere. Saw it in CompUSA with just the MJ logo so figure they self published in retail. Appears they self published the sequel with no problems getting it everywhere. Shows what one great hit can do...