Casual Game Dev

Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games was quoted at GDC as saying "PC gaming isn't dead. PC gaming — the old model — probably is. Secure PC gaming is the future — it's going to thrive and we've all got to get on that."

But, this week, EA announced rather draconian security for Mass Effect and Spore with server authentication required every 10 days via Sony's SecuROM product, according to Kotaku and others.

It is worth noting that Apple's success with iTunes is based as much on ease of use and reasonable prices as its FairPlay DRM system which has been regularly broken.

Maybe simply lowering prices would be better security. After all, the "Free to Play" business model online is drawing in more and more players to games by lowering the cost to play.

Look at all the debit cards available at supermarkets - impulse purchasing is powerful. If games cost what a paperback does, how many more would be sold?

If gaming is as "mass market" as everyone alleges it is, lower prices will make reaching that audience easier... and make piracy less appealing.

Also, if developers think this way, they can divide the game into a $10 (or $5 or $8) module sold at retail and then add downloadable content (DLC) as Guitar Hero and Rock Band have shown. Even better, this additional content would come with a direct customer relationship AND no revenue share with a retailer.

... ADDED GREEN GAMING BENEFIT - we could get rid of those stupid boxes that don't hold manuals anymore and just have nice little slip covers for disks.

Make games an impulse entertainment purchase, not an investment.

Turn up the Irony Meter to 11. After all, with all of the complaints in the US about gold farming, it takes the Chinese to stand up and do something about it.

Yep, police in China has arrested 2 men for running a World of Warcraft gold farming operation and charged them with "unfair revenue distribution" (CHINESE READER ALERT - what in the world is "unfair revenue distribution"?).

The two men ran the operation for 7 months and earned 1.4 Million RMB (just over US$200,000). They had 20 computers and 20 employees (no shifts, I guess) and were based in Chengdu's Shuangliu county. The men were targeting The9's China-based World of Warcraft operation... I'm not sure if this makes their revenue more impressive or not.

(Chengdu Evening News via Pacific Epoch)

Hacking on the Wii just got a lot worse with digital piracy of WiiWare games. Hackers have apparently demonstrated (see video below) the ability to use the existing "Twilight Hack", a Save Game hack, to launch Japanese WiiWare titles without paying for them. The attack looks particularly serious as it seems to access Wii functionality (not just Gamecube features) as had been demonstrated previously.



This could be a real threat to Nintendo as WiiWare is already shaping up to be a great tool to remonetize old games. Also, it could be a threat to Nintendo's efforts to reach out to independent developers.

The next step in this attack would be to spoof a full Wii game via the SD interface (or other port) using this hack or something similar.

If Nintendo or any of its partners start utilizing online features more seriously, this style of attack would likely be useful for abusing achievements and persistent play features (as has already been seen with Xbox Live).

The bane of the next-gen consoles seems to be their "Save Game" systems.

What is unfortunate is that these types of problems CAN BE ADDRESSED via intelligent use of cryptography. Interestingly, traditional digital signatures are not necessarily the right answer.

The question is whether the vulnerabilities are deeply ingrained in the platform or if they can be addressed via a firmware / OS upgrade. I suspect that the problem will be difficult to really clean out as it is highly likely that developers are not using the Save Game services uniformly.

The Wii does have an advantage over Sony's PSP (potentially) - while the PSP had security problems, it was not selling many games, but the Wii is selling games pretty well, especially if WiiWare is included (though I don't know if a WiiWare game can be used to push an OS upgrade).... unless a downgrader can be created, of course

(via Wiifanboy via Joystiq)

Its official. 2008 is the year to complain about PC piracy. TG Daily reports that Epic Software claimed their were 40 million attempts to authenticate invalid license keys for Unreal Tournament 3 (via videogaming247). CORRECTION - Apparently, Mark Rein did not claim 40 million attempts, but simply "lots". (via Videogaming247)

This is an odd proof of piracy. Instead, it would seem to imply the effectiveness of Epic's anti-piracy technology. After all, these guys were all detected.

What would be interesting (but, sadly, unlikely to ever be disclosed) is how many license keys WERE validated compared to how many PC games sold.

That would be a better measure of the failure of the anti-piracy system.

OR, if there was a known attack that allowed pirates to bypass the license validation system.

So, the only metric given, detected invalid license keys, is the worst metric for modeling piracy.

The TG Daily article focuses on Crytek's Crysis which is apparently suffering widespread piracy as well (see interview at PC Play). The Crytek's CEO, Cevat Yerli, argues that a console version of the game would sell 4-5 times as many copies (the game has apparently sold around 1 million copies according to Next Generation). But is abandoning its PC exclusive strategy.

The numbers here puzzle me.

Let's assume a console title can sell 4 to 5 times as many copies as a PC one.

How much more does a developer actually take home?

And, how much more does it cost?

And, what if the game doesn't do so well?

The fixed development costs for a PC game are definitely lower. Cheaper tools, more plentiful programmers, no "dev kits", no royalties to the platform manufacturer.

The break-even cost for the game is much lower. It has to be.

Also, of course, console games get pirated. Fairly routinely. And console games don't have a license key that allows you to detect fake copies... so, unlike a PC, you don't know how many sales you are losing.

Oh, and, to complete the week, EA has claimed they aren't releasing Madden for the PC because of... you guessed it, piracy (via Kotaku)

Needless to say, the PC is doing pretty well for companies that build for it. After all, there is that little game, World of Warcraft... much less Diablo which is still selling years later, Valve seems to be doing just fine with its PC focus, Stardock isn't complaining, and, of course, there are all those Korean and Chinese online games...

notice a common thread.

Yep, a strong, centralized online strategy for PC games.

Adding to the fun, the way consoles work online means that they are more vulnerable to piracy than PCs.

Winning money. There's no bigger draw in gaming.

Gambling. Big money, but lots and lots of regulation and, in many cases and places, prohibition.

Except.

When its not. If you don't pay, its a promotion or contest or sweepstakes. When there's no chance involved, its a skill game (usually). But, what if you want to have people pay and play and have a chance to win? You'd think you'd be stuck with all the rules and regulations and restrictions of a real casino.

God bless Bingo.

Ummm, literally, I guess.

The long tradition of church Bingo Nights and charitable gaming gives a way to gamble without "gambling". While the laws and regulations vary widely, this form of gaming for money is legal in many jurisdictions.

So, of course, why not take charitable gaming online?

Georgia's March of Dimes is doing just that in partnership with Game for Charity / Rezilio (see Press Release). They are running an online tournament where players pay to play with prizes provided by Delta Air Lines.

LAWYER QUESTION - Any opinion on whether players can legally participate in this from any US state?

What do you want from child protection online? If you are a parent, you want your child safe (obviously). If you are a business, you want some sort of liability protection...

What you don't want is a "money back" guarantee.

Woogi World announced that they are going to add the eGuardian service, according to Virtual World News (and elsewhere).

If I am going to look at a "child protection" or age certification service for my online game, I want liability protection. An assertion that the identity provider will accept the liability risks in case of a problem.

eGuardian's guarantee seems to be that I'll get my $29 lifetime enrollment cost back.

I'm sure that will be a comfort to a parent whose child is abused or stalked or whatever... a problem that seems to be vastly overstated, by the way.

My grumpy and cynical view of this deal is that it is basically a revenue share between eGuardian and Woogi World... Woogi World will get a percentage of the $29 for enrolling kids and that no one is ultimately terribly concerned about protecting kids. Basically, enrolling in eGuardian becomes a one-time subscription fee for Woogi World (I don't know the rest of their business model).

Too Grumpy? Too Cynical?

Oh, I did swing by Woogi World and was hard pressed to find anything about COPPA compliance, just a general "safe harbor" statement... and its privacy policy (there is a link at the bottom of the main page, but it is not the most comforting approach). The sites says they won't do any "direct" advertising for third parties (which is good) BUT... I guess direct marketing is OK.

In fact, since they are getting parents information and not the child's, Woogi World may be free to market away to the parents!

Gambling games, skill games, poker, contests, promotions, and sweepstakes - which is which? Prizes are a great incentive for players and ... money is a great way to be paid.... most of the time.

Who would have thought Chuck E. Cheese might be a casino? GamePolitics.com recently reported that South Carolina is passing a new law to ensure that kids can play Skee Ball and win candy and prizes and not be confused with a bar with poker machines or slots.

The rules are tricky... contests are often lightly regulated, skill games don't have much supervision (in 40 of 50 states), sweepstakes and promotions are just fine... most of the time and in most places.

Giant Interactive's monster MMO, ZT Online, just crossed another amazing milestone with 2,102,118 on April 26, 2008.

WOW! (not World of Warcraft)

ZT Online is the number one MMO in China and is still going strong after two years of operation.

Almost more impressive is the claimed Peak Concurrent Users on a single shard of 43,297. Now most MMOs that I am familiar with seem to peak out at around 1,000 players, so it is quite impressive to see these kind of numbers supported.

CCP Games' Eve Online also boasts very large numbers in its "single shard" model, but I tend to wonder what this actually means. My understanding is that Eve peaks at around 400-800 people in a single star system (server) before it has problems.

The press release with this news does not provide any details on the game's technical architecture. Any colorful anecdotes or details are welcome.

While Blizzard's World of Warcraft gets the lionshare of attention in the game industry, globally, there are two companies that have really stretched the world of online gaming. Nexon with its "casual MMOs" - MapleStory, Audition, and KartRider and popularization of the "Free-to-Play" business model and Giant Interactive, whose ZT Online which has pushed "Free-to-Play" to its limits ... making an MMO as addictive as a slot machine without those annoying payouts (at least with real money).

ZT Online has had relatively limited visibility in the US, though it is huge with 1.53 million Peak Concurrent Users in March 2008(!). What has been even less visible is the company's innovative marketing strategies as documented by Li Weitao in China Daily. While game developers may mock those "marketing types", Giant Interactive's CEO, Shi Yuzhu, shows what can happen when a pure businessman goes after online gaming (see Li Weitao's profile of Shi Yuzhu).

It is a bit awe-inspiring.

First of all, ZT Online focused its marketing at the "second and third tier" Chinese cities. Most Chinese MMOs are marketed online and traditional marketing is done in the major markets in Internet cafes and such. Thus, Mr. Shi was able to get Internet cafes who were willing and happy to post signs for the game. This was doubly effective as these smaller markets have lower broadband penetration to individual homes, so more customers use Internet cafes as their primary broadband source (unlike the major cities where people play at home).

Online Gaming Amway?

The second great marketing innovation was a huge 2,500 person marketing team(!).

2500 people checking on the Internet cafes, selling game cards, and reaching out.

Wow.

Brilliant.

This kind of marketing isn't done by other online game companies in China who, like their counterparts in the West, mainly market online. Face-to-face marketing reduces fraud and increases connection with the game.

The other notable thing about Mr. Shi is that he plays online over 10 hours a day and is "happy" when players are cursing him and the game in his forums:

"The more players curse, the more they like our games."

His logic is that if a gamer really doesn't like a game, he will not curse in the chatrooms but instead just switches to another one.

This is someone to keep watching.

NetDragon has launched an affinity credit card "The Peony NetDragon Credit Card" in association with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). The credit card service seems to be more than just some company artwork on a regular credit card. Users can make payments for the game through their mobile phone and the card (helping fight fraud, no doubt), purchase game credits through the card (and get extra bonuses in-game for doing so), and use the card as a regular credit card.

So, I guess its "2 (Two) cards for the price of one"... an interesting co-marketing strategy building on a common identity relationship.

This could also be interesting elsewhere by banks as a way of further montetizing their identity relationships with customers.