Transcript Slide 1

Casual Games:
Where It’s All Going
Rob Glaser
Founder & CEO, RealNetworks
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Where It All Started
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Games For The Rest of Us
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Why Did It Take So Long?
• Before the Internet:
• No easy way to try casual games
• No dedicated place to learn about & buy them
• Lots of shovelware
• In the early Internet period:
• Web games became popular, but advertising didn’t
work well, so no way to get paid!
• Not enough bandwidth for easy downloading
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Broadband To The Rescue!
US Households with Broadband
70
60
(millions)
50
40
30
20
10
0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Sources: Jupiter Internet Access Model, Updated 2005 (US Only)
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Great Growth Potential Worldwide
Total Worldwide
Internet Users
845M
Current
Broadband
Subscribers
194M
Source: eMarketer, May 2005
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Where We Are Today
• Industry-standard Try-Before-You-Buy model has
yielded a robust PC download business
• Dozens of successful individual games
• Profitable subscription services
• Growing customer bases in 3 regions
• North America, Europe, and Japan
• Real downloads over 750,000 games a day
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Challenges And Opportunities
• Integrating with off-line properties
• New ways to monetize game play
• New connected platforms
• New markets & new interaction models
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The 98% Opportunity
• 750,000 downloads/day, but
• Only 2% result in a consumer paying for a game
• Early ad models didn’t work because either
• Consumers found the ads intrusive, or
• Consumers ignored the ads
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The 98% Solution: Advertising Done Right
• Ads *must* be designed right, not overly intrusive
• Ads *must* feel contextually correct -sponsorships, skinning, and product placement
are all parts of good execution.
• Fortunately, a successful model to build on:
• Clicktopia – our Dutch online game experience
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Banner
Pre-roll
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New
Banner
Reminder
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Original
Banner
Leave
Behind
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Integrating Ads into Downloadable Games
• Rich media between game levels
• Real partnership with Eyeblaster
• We will test & try multiple models
• “Extra” free game-play
• Full free games for library games
• Other windowing models
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Casual Games & New Platforms
• Mobile
• Next
generation
handhelds
• Next
generation
consoles
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Mobile is a Great Opportunity
• Massive number of IP-enabled devices
• The ultimate go-everywhere device
• Casual games are a great fit with the constraints of
mobile phones
• Small screens
• Relatively slow processors
• 70.5% of mobile game revenue is in casual games
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Luxor and Other Great Casual
Games are Leading the Way
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But, 2 Big Issues
• Device fragmentation
• Off-deck/D2C is a ball-buster
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EMERGE -- Our Solution to Fragmentation
• From a single code base, EMERGE supports
• Over 300 handsets (BREW and J2ME)
• More than 100 carriers
• 11 languages
• Some features filtered out to find the optimized
balance for each handset to create as rich a user
experience as possible
Panasonic X60
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Nokia 3200
SonyEricsson F5001
How EMERGE Can Work For You
• EMERGE dramatically reduces porting costs
• 1/3 or less compared to other porting methods
• Currently partnering with game developers:
• For More Information:
http://mrgoodliving.com/emerge
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Nintendo on DS/Train your Brain is
Capitalizing on the Health and
Education Benefits of Casual Games
• Current research opens
even more markets and
opportunities – games are
good for your health!
• Research has shown that
gaming activity that uses
problem solving skills will
slow age-related declines
in mental ability.
• Gaming has also been
shown to help with pain
management and
education
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XBOX 360 Live Arcade
• Bringing the casual download model to the console
• It’s early, but conversion to purchase is encouraging
• Xbox is bringing a new demographic to casual games
• The hardened gamer stops slaying dragons to play a
game of Uno? Yes…
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Casual Games & Community
• What is it?
• Shared high scores
• IM and chat around or during game
• User generated content
• Message boards
• Ratings
• Multiplayer games
• Competitive
• Collaborative
• Different users have different goals and desires
• Key is to offer a wide range of choices
• Now is the time to experiment
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Learning From Around the World
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Model is to Pay for Items & Social
Status, Not Basic Game-play
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Casual Games: Ready for Prime-time
• Together, we’ve built a very successful PC games
business
• Major growth opportunities in many dimensions:
• PC ad-supported Casual Games done right
• Mobile and Next Gen Handhelds & Consoles
• New underlying models around community & social
status
• Worldwide Growth
• While there are challenges, if we work together
the future opportunity is limitless!
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