casual games Archive

Earlier this month we reviewed mobile scavenger hunt game platform SCVNGR. Today, via Source of Inspiration, I found GPS Mission. Germany-based GPS Mission allows you to create games using the GPS functions on many mobile phones.

Here’s how GPS Mission works: You create a mission for your friends to travel through. Each winner receives "gold" which helps them move up the leaderboard. Here’s an example of a mission from San Francisco named the Nob Hill Gold Rush.

What’s great about both GPS Mission and SCVNGR is that the games are played outside. This falls in line with my article the other day about the airplane mode function on cell phones. While the phones must be on to play the game, players are outside and away from the desk getting exercise, social interaction and sunlight.

SCVNGR is one of the companies in the DreamIT startup incubator. SCVNGR describes their service as an "on-demand interactive mobile platform". What this really means is that they help companies and other groups create scavenger hunt games.

The actual game works very similar to any scavenger hunt but with more intelligence. Because everything is sent back via text message to SCVNGR, the system can appropriately send people to the next items and make sure that different groups are doing different things. A variety of commands can be sent via the moble to get tips, hints and current team scoring. The Web application is used to setup the actual scavenger hunt.

To-date the company has generated $25,000 in revenues including over $10,000 from a deal with a Philadelphia jewelry store. SCVNGR is currently targeting the university market segment and is expanding to the museum segment. 

SCVNGR has raised $125k to-date and they are looking for $650,000 for team expansion, technology and sales/business development.

Usain Bolt bolted his way into the Olympics winning gold medals in the events he competed in. Apparently he’s like the fastest man on earth. And now thanks to Puma (his sponsor), you can attempt to beat him at his own game. Puma has created a casual game that lets you challenge Bolt in a race. You race using your fingers, he races using his feet. I was able to beat him because I am a master of the arrow keys. You see I played Track ‘n Field all the time growing up so I was prepared for this world record holder. Play the game on Puma’s site.

The only thing Puma did wrong is not allowing the game to be embedded outside of the Puma Web site. This would have easily spread the game, Bolt and Puma further than keeping the game locked up on the site will. The game is a smart move for Puma and Bolt. Now that the Olympic Games are over, Bolt will slowly fade out of the spotlight. The game can keep him top-of-mind for casual game players and Puma Shoppers.

This game should see millions of plays a day if it gets the kind of traffic similar games I produced did. It’s a quick play and is addicting to hit the leaderboard. Can you beat my time above? Leave a comment with your best score.

The Entertainment Software Association is out today with a new report about video game usage in the U.S. It’s a very interesting read and discusses a variety of items including purchase intent, demographic data, online gaming activity, and which games are most popular.

I’ve created a number of online casual games over the past 10 years that had millions of plays a day. I was always a bit shocked at how game players (especially female players) interacted with the advertising we injected into the games.

Some of the highlights from the report include:

• The average game player is 35 years old
• 40% of game players are women, 60% are men
• 26% of gamers are over 50
• Halo 3 is the most popular video game over the past year; World of Warcraft is the most popular computer game
• 47% of online gaming is in one of these categories: Puzzle/Board/Game Show/Trivia/Card
• 41% of Americans have purchased or plan to purchase one or more games in 2008.

For all of you looking for a triple-word score, rejoice! Scrabble is now officially on Facebook in the U.S. and in Canada. SCRABBLE from EA on Facebook Platform will be the first EA Hasbro-licensed property to go live on a social networking site. Scrabble is a very complicated game – not just on the board but with regards to the property rights as well.

Update: I can’t find Scrabble on Facebook as of yet. Perhaps EA and Mattel shouldn’t put out press releases until said game is live?

Jordan over at Marketing Pilgrim has a look from April into who owns what. Basically Mattel owns the Scrabble rights outside the U.S. and Canada and they launched a Facebook version in April. Today’s announcement brings Scrabble to the worldwide Facebook audience. What’s silly is that two development teams built the same game – what a waste of company resources.

Back in January, Erick looked at Scrabulous and how the Facebook community came together to attempt to save the game. He noted that the  “Save Scrabulous” group has over 46,000 Facebook members.

Amit has a good look at how Scrabulous developers Jayant Agarwalla and Rajat Agarwalla, monetize their casual game using Google AdSense to the tune of $20,000 a month. Today’s announcement certainly will hurt – to what extent is still unknown.

EA and Mattel have also announced that Scrabble is available on the Pogo games network. The Pogo version will have additional hidden features that aren’t available in the Facebook version.

In case you are wondering how some tech blogs would do in Scrabble, here you go:

• SiliconAlleyInsider – 25 
• CenterNetworks – 23
• TechCrunch – 22
• Readwriteweb – 21
• Inquisitr – 18 (got the big Q but nothing else to boost)
• Venturebeat – 16
• Mashable – 15
• Webware – 14
• Profy – 13
• Gigaom – 10

(yes i get that the sites all have a different number of letters, just smile geez)

Back during my corporate years, we created many casual games for women and children. The amount of time both groups were willing to spend playing each game and watching our commercials between games was amazing. Today I learned that the AARP (association to help retired people) launched a gaming portal last week.

The VP for AARP’s Web Strategy and Operations says: "Boomers on the Internet spend more than 100 minutes of their leisure time per week playing video or computer games online.” I know that my mother won’t go to sleep until she wins at solitaire and I’ve seen that take hours.

The games are mostly puzzle games and the top game currently is Mahjongg Toy Chest with over 11,890,013 game plays to-date. It should be noted that the AARP game portal is a white label solution and my guess is that those numbers come from all plays across all networks. In any event, 2 bam, 3 crack!

What a smart idea this is for AARP. Get the seniors playing games and feed them important health information, deals, discounts and other marketing messages for AARP products.

It’s easy when you decide to work on a startup to only think about your demographic or whatever demographic the bloggers are discussing. But remember that there are so many other sets of people that can be marketed to. In this case, the 50+ set have lots of money to burn.

Burst Media continues their YAAN (yet another ad network) rollout today with the launch of the niche online gamers vertical ad network. This follows the trendsetters ad network, moms ad network, food ad network, early adopters ad network, and the family travelers ad network. Does there come a point when there are so many ad networks that it spreads the company so thin and makes it difficult to sell across all of these new networks?

Burst describes today’s new ad network, "The Burst Gamers Network’s young, predominantly male, audience is technologically savvy, passionate about digital and video games and has an appetite for a host of products and services — ranging from electronic gadgets and entertainment to snack foods and the hottest sneaker styles." They will be hand selecting sites to become part of the network.

Burst also notes that they will offer new creative formats including: widgets, video cubes, storytelling modules, and mobile display ads. I’ve never seen any campaigns in these formats in 12 years with the company. If they are able to sell more 2008-ish formats, that’s a good thing.

We are part of the early adopters ad network but so far no campaigns have come our way. I’ve moved most of our inventory to Tribal Fusion as they seem to be the best of the remnant compaign providers. I want Burst to succeed – I almost feel like after being with them for 10+ years that I have a vested interest (yet of cours no financial interest). As I’ve written so many times before, Burst is still stuck in 1998. Sometimes you have to realize that it’s time for a new playbook, the old one won’t work no matter how you turn it.