The Three Cs of GDC 08: Casuals, Children, and Coreans
The company once had a serious problem: Their digital distribution software was shipping preinstalled on nearly every major brand of laptop sold in North America. But, a quick check of their numbers revealed that while many people were clicking on their “Play Games” icon, scant few seemed particularly interested in giving them a credit card number to purchase WildCoins, the company’s microcurrency.
Their solution? Approach advertisers with a tantalizing proposition: Showing their ads directly to a captive audience who have willingly agreed to see them… and, of course, commanding a premium rate for the privilege.
The advertisers in question seemed rather receptive to this offer, and now, when one goes to load a WildTangent title, you are offered a choice: Pay WildCoins (generally one to four, four being the equivalent of a dollar), or, pay nothing, and watch a one minute long commercial for Coke while the game is loading.
St John claims that their revenue skyrocketed 600% after the implementation of this system, and, as a result, they’ve since gone on to attempt integrating it into MMOs, with NPCs who offer gold for watching commercials while in-game.
I am presently in the midst of securing an interview with them to discuss the can of worms that particular feature may be opening up. Until then…
The second answer to the question came from Olli Kallioinen, who quite possibly has the greatest title I’ve ever seen on a business card: El Comandante de la Propaganda y Corrupción.
As managing director of Chat Republic Games, he has been one of the primary factors behind bringing “advergaming” into the MMO genre.
Are you an advertiser? If so, Chat Republic will produce, market, and distribute an entire free-to-play MMO, just for you.
The one up and running at their booth while I was there was Battery Formula Racing, sponsored by the Battery energy drink company. And, not surprisingly, their logo was plastered all over every available surface.
Supposedly, this represents only the tip of the iceberg of many more corporate bought-and-paid-for MMOs yet to come. The Ford Focus Progress Quest Adventure Online Brought to you by Sprint might be a lot closer than any of us would like to think.
Moving on, the second C, was Children.
From FreeRealms, to ToonTown Online, to Club Penguin, companies of all sizes in recent years have seemingly banded together and arrived at a singular conclusion:
Children have parents. Parents have money. Money makes the world go round. Ergo, we must start marketing MMOs to children, or the world will cease to spin on its axis and the human race will surely perish as a result.
You will have to forgive my naivety, but this is something of a new and strange phenomenon for me.
When I was growing up, there were very few “kid’s games” on the market, aside from some extremely specialized titles made by Fisher Price, or Mattel tie-ins such as Barbie Super Model.
By and large, at five years old I was playing the same games on NES as my neighbor’s 17-year-old high school senior son—and, in fact, often traded cartridges with him.
As I got older, and gaming moved beyond the realm of 8-bit, the notion of “games for children” began to expand at a seemingly geometric rate, until finally arriving at today’s hodgepodge of Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Bob the Builder headlining every other title on the Nintendo DS.
And now, it seems that the same thing is happening all over again in the MMO genre.
I happened to come across two major instances of this trend at GDC. The first, was Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall, an MMO marketed towards, to quote executive producer Chris Waldron, “The nine to twelve-year-old, hopefully around ten” demographic. It features, as you may have guessed, a cast of characters from some of Cartoon Network’s marquee properties.
Honestly, I thought that it was an interesting game on its own merits—to the point that I plan on writing a feature on it. But, I was also somewhat troubled by the notion of an MMO, knowing everything that I know about the genre, being marketed directly to the elementary school age bracket.
