Why don’t most game portals say who made the games?

[James C. Smith]

Why don’t most casual game retailer web sites (a.k.a. game portals) say who made (or published) the games?

Did anyone else notice that the Real Arcade web site and client app recently stopped showing the name of the company who published or developed the game? I can’t find any evidence of who made any of the games without running the game itself. Three weeks ago Real was listed the one company name and country for each game (either the developer or publisher). Today they list none!. But they do continue to list the country. So I can see easily see that Karu was made in Finland but I can’t see that GameGekko made the game unless I download, install, and run it.

MSN Games doesn’t seem to be any batter. They just mention Oberon all over the place for all the games.

Yahoo games doesn’t seem to list any company names either

Shockwave.com does list “credits” that say things like “Developed by: PopCap” or “Publisher: PlayFirst | Developer: gameLab” but nothing clickable.

Big Fish doesn’t seem to list any company names.

ArcadeTown.com doesn’t seem to list any company names.

Reflexive.com lists one company name for each game. It is usually the publisher (who is often the developer for self published games) but sometimes it is the developer who is listed even if the game was published by someone else. The company name is a clickable links that leads to a list of all the games available from that company.

GameFiesta.com doesn’t seem to list any company names.

download-free-games.com does list a single company for each game. For example Diner Dash says “Developer: Play First” (who is the publisher, the game was developed by gameLab) but Feeding Frenzy says “Publisher: Gamehouse” (FYI: the developer is Sprout) and Gamehouse is a clickable link that takes you to a page that says lots of things about game house “Studios is a Seattle, WA based game company founded in 1998 by 2 former Microsoft multimedia…” but the only list of game on that page says “Related DFG Site Resources:” and includes the games “Text Twist, Mah Jong Solitaire, Insaniquarium Deluxe, Letter Linker, Scrabble, Zuma Deluxe, Puzzle Inlay, Feeding Frenzy”. Some of those are PopCap game!

I could be wrong about some of these sites. Maybe they do list company names and I just didn’t notice them. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Ideally I would like to be able to find all games from a particular developer or publisher. If I was looking at Bejeweled it would be nice to be able to click a links to find all games by PopCap. But at a minimum, you would think they could just display a non-clickable company name.

Are these places just to lazy to do this, or are they worried it will somehow erode their customer base to identify the other companies responsible for the game, or do they just not want to deal with the questions of developer versus publisher? Obviously developers and publishes would like to see their name listed more on the retailers web site, but I would think this would also be valuable to customers.

I am surprised that Shockwave does the best job of displaying credits. They aren’t clickable but at least they are complete. I would have expected the best crediting to be done by one of the portals that started out as a developer such as Big Fish or Reflexive.

[smiles]

A lot of the games have a second splash screen with the developing company in it. I would guess that it's a business decision/need, so that the visitor won't go to the developer's site to buy the game...

[Vorax]

It's the old business adage: "He who owns the customer owns the business."

[Tom Gilleland]

I bet if you asked a end-user who made the game, they would say the Portal who they bought it from. And I think the Portals would certainly want to encourage this. I've had similar experiences in retail where the distributor or publisher "forgot" to put our BeachWare logo on the packaging.

Tom

[Stu]

I'd say the answer is because the average consumer just doesn't care. It stands to reason that they should care in the case that they enjoy a game and would like to play others that the developer produced. Unfortunately I don't think the average casual gamer shops that way, at least not yet. Many of the same titles are available on the large portals and the average consumer thinks the entire industry revolves around only a couple of hundred titles. To them, the last great game was available on Real or Big Fish as the next great game will be. A good many of them may believe that Real "makes" these games or just never gave any thought to where they come from.

Who makes television programs? Is credit always given to the studios that produce them? Who makes your favorite program? All I know is that ABC broadcasts it.

[svero]

From my point of view there are benefits and disadvantages to this. If you look at something like the movie industry, it pays big time for them to say the new "spielberg" or the new "cameron" or the new "pixar" film is coming out. People recognize those names and take notice if they like the director or producers etc.. So that can be used to generate interest in games, and in some cases help lead customers to what they want. Like finding all games star coder James C. Smith was involved in.

But on the other side of the coin.. if Portals create stars essentially then they might find themselves in the position of having to negotiate star rates. In our industry there are a few stars like Sid Meier and Will Wright... What if one of them were to announce a new series of casual games was in the works and real wanted it. Unlike most of us, they'd have some bargaining power on their side. The sims, or civilization, ultra casual edition etc...

[Vorax]

I feel they will eventually want to make developers into stars because it's in their best interest. At this stage, their focus is on their own brands, but it can only take the industry so far.

Stars generate interest, interest generates viral marketing and grows the industry in a ways that can't be matched by any other techniques. Developers like Blizzard, BioWare, Id, EA, Rockstar, Sony, UbiSoft are stars in the retail games world. Gamers know those names and are eager for thier titles.

In the end, this is entertainment and entertainment needs stars. MGM, Fox, Universal, etc. are brands, but it's the stars and directors that sell the tickets.

The question is, when will they do it? I don't know. They have an opportunity now with developers like PopCap, Reflexive, Mumbo Jumbo...or Vorax Games

[arcadetown]

My theory is we're selling our brand and games via it. Not trying to build another brand and possibly have users easily bypass us by googling for that other brand. Besides most developers co-brand games anyhow.

Movies are a bad comparison as you can't bypass the cinema and go see the movie at the film producer's private location (i.e. googling for it).

[berserker]

But on the other side of the coin.. if Portals create stars essentially then they might find themselves in the position of having to negotiate star rates. In our industry there are a few stars like Sid Meier and Will Wright... What if one of them were to announce a new series of casual games was in the works and real wanted it. Unlike most of us, they'd have some bargaining power on their side. The sims, or civilization, ultra casual edition etc...

Funny to say, but I had a person that contacted me to ask whether our game will be available at Reflexive anytime soon. He seems to like and trust Reflexive on buying games so portals can earn their own reputation as 'portal' not 'developer'
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Babi mac break away

[Chris Evans]

I am surprised that Shockwave does the best job of displaying credits. They aren’t clickable but at least they are complete.

Actually I was browsing through a few games on Shockwave.com the other day and a few of the credits were clickable and actually led to the developer's website. I was astonished to see that.

Anyway, I don't think the credits have to be clickable to the developer's site, but at minimum I think there should be a non-clickable credit listing the developer or publisher. If someone is determined enough to Google the developer's name to cut out the "evil" middle man, they're probably still going to do it by looking at the company name in the in-game splash-logos. This is probably a very small percentage of people. So I don't think putting a pint-sized non-clickable text credit at the bottom of a game page is really all that threatening to a portal/affiliate site in terms of losing sales.

For example, on portal 'X' I don't want my company name listed on the game page for sales "spill-over" to my website. I want my company name there so next time the user is on the portal 'X' and they see another one of my games there, they'll say, "Hey, I recognize this developer name. I liked their last game, I think I'll give this new one a try." It might encourage users to download my new game on portal 'X' instead of moving on to something else. Otherwise if no company name is listed, there's no way for players to know if a new game is made by a familiar developer or not without downloading it.

Personally if I saw the little words "PopCap" underneath a game, I'd be 10x more likely to download it. However if you strip-away the PopCap name, I might think it's just another puzzle game and may not download it. I think portals should take advantage of the developer recognition instead of trying to stifle it. Especially someone who actually purchases a game, they're more likely to recognize the developer name later on and have a positive vibe. This user might even convert better with new games from that developer. Portals should use this to their advantage within their service.

The way Reflexive handles it, is the best way, IMO.