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Social Gaming Summit: Monetization and Business Models for Social Games My laptop battery had already died, but the final panel at the Social Gaming Summit on monetizing social games was too good to not take some notes. David Perry, CCO, Acclaim, who's been putting together a hefty tome cataloging, if I remember right, as many possibilities for gaming as possible, noted that there are 22 ways to monetize a game. He didn't give a list, but there's certainly a range out there. For now, though, the most prominent for virtual worlds and social games seem to be subscription, advertising, and microtransaction, especially when packaged around a free-to-play experience. You just have to make it clear that eventually there needs to be money exchanged, explained Mattias Miksche, CEO, Stardoll "We've always said this is free and this is pay," said Miksche. "I think a lot of people are missing out by tring to build a big audience around entirely free content and then...

This guest post is written by Susan Wu, a Principal with Charles River Ventures, where she focuses on digital media, software, and infrastructure. Susan is coproducing the Virtual Goods Summit this Friday at Stanford University - most of the companies mentioned below will be presenting. People spend over $1.5 billion on virtual items every year. Pets, coins, avatars, and bling: these virtual objects are nothing more than a series of digital 1s and 0s stored on a remote database somewhere in the ether. What could possibly possess people to spend real, hard earned cash on ‘objects’ that have no tangible substance? The virtual worlds space has received tremendous press attention in the last year, fueled in no small part by Wild West stories of fortune and anarchy in worlds like Second Life and the plight of the Chinese gold farmer in World of Warcraft. But people aren’t paying attention to the bigger story. While people preoccupy themselves with mocking the absurdities of some of these vi...

My name is Steve Williams, and I am a MMO gamer and also a casual gamer. Give me an MMO, and I’ll play it. Give me a simple Flash game and I’ll play it. Wouldn’t it be fun if someone could mix the two flavors together and make a peanut butter cup of gameplay that would satisfy both MMO fun and casual fun? advertisement So let’s talk about what mini-games are doing in a self-respecting MMO like Stargate Worlds - let’s talk about putting the peanut butter into the chocolate and making something tasty. Since time immemorial, or at least the past few years, MMOs have focused upon two things: Killing stuff (and getting their loot) and making stuff for people to go kill stuff (and get their loot). As building games goes, that’s a pretty good spread of features, and it’s not too hard to make that work. Recently, however, the thought struck the minds of some developers out in the deserts of Arizona that a lot of fiction is built not around killing things (and getting their loot), but in solvi...

TODAY'S COMMENTARY by Jack Myers #151 Thursday, December 28th 2006 Jack Myers Media Business Report CLASSIC JACK: Memo from Leo Burnett The commentary below was written by Jack Myers in 1991 and is re-published here as both a retrospective as well as an opportunity to assess your current approaches to a radically changing business environment. Originally published in 1991. In light of the challenges to traditional advertising business models, it might be worthwhile for the industry to reflect on the words of legendary Leo Burnett, who founded the advertising agency in 1935 during the great depression. Following is a definition of Burnett'sadvertising objectives, which serve as important insight into a credo that is even more relevant nearly fifty years after they were written. Following is just a small part of an eight page memo written by Burnett to his staff. By Leo Burnett People sometimes ask us: 'What is your technique?' The answer is: We have none. We think the ma...

I believe that everyone feels alone or questions themselves from time-to-time. When it gets bad, it is akin to losing one's MoJo...where you doubt your instincts and find a bit of paralysis-by-analysis setting in. In baseball it manifests itself as a slump. Pretty soon you are standing at the plate and the ball looks really small...almost like a BB. And because the ball appears so impossibly small, you begin to believe the only way you'll ever hit the ball is if you begin to 'guess what pitch is coming next.' This then leads to BIG SWINGS...at curveballs...or LATE SWINGS...on fast balls. Net/net you look ridiculous! And the biggest thing...you LOOK lost...and everyone in the grandstands can see it! This happens in relationships as well. You start to lose your MoJo and doubt yourself in your relationship. You doubt the other person's feelings...your own contributions emotionally and intellectually...whether the person is still 'into' you...and you get a bit ...

I got a note today from one of my Jewish friends today telling me all the good things one can do on Christmas if one is Jewish. What I loved about the note is that it was both a reminder that we live in a world where what is commonplace to one (Christmas) isn't nearly so to another (my Jewish friends). And it also was uplifting, as it mentions different organizations where the Jewish workers will volunteer to work on X-Mas so that Christian workers can have the day off and celebreate X-Mas. So what is this blog about? Simply this...the world is made up of wonderful and diverse people and cultures...and while I have never thought of one of my friends as 'Jewish' or 'non-Jewish'...I am privileged to have friends from every race, religion and nationality...and I love them all...for the wonderful mix of stories, lifestyles, opinions and overall diversity that they represent...and that I only tend to notice when it is brought up to me. You see...to me...they are simply m...

TO THE BASEBALL FIELD After meeting Suzanna Zanolli and negotiating our mutually beneficial contract...her translation skills for 'making conversation' - we were ready to get a job playing baseball in Italy! The problem was that Laerte (Baseball Federation President) didn't really want to talk via a translator. In fact, once I returned with Suzanna in tow it wasn't more than a few minutes before we jumped in his Olive Green Mercedes and went screaming down impossibly narrow alleys to the ballpark in Verona. At this point I had been traveling for nearly 20 hours...awake for about 30 hours and was feeling a bit punchy! However doing 50 mph down a narrow cobblestone alley was enough to get me to put my seat belt on and wake up a bit. We arrived at 'al Centro sportivo Gavagnin' (Gavagnin baseball field) where much to my delight there appeared to be a full fledged baseball practice in progress on a gorgeous baseball diamond. The familiar sounds of balls being hit......