Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Craig Blair Director from Netus, a Web 2.0 venture capital investor, charted the rise and rise of casual gaming within social networks such as Bebo and Facebook. The numbers – at least in downloads, not so much in fiscal returns, dwarf those of any hardware based console.
Applications and games on social networks are getting increasingly sophisticated, still they are very simple in nature, subscribing to the accepted definition of a casual game, being simple to pick up, addictive yet only requiring a short expenditure of time.
And though the numbers are impressive, Blair did warn that only the strong survive; “ For every 40,000 Facebook applications out there, 4,000 make enough money for a round of beers. 400 make enough money to live comfortably and 40 (or 0.1 percent) are very successful”.
The last 12 months has seen an explosion of investment in Web 2.0 apps, despite the chances of hitting it big, around US$300 million invested last year, compared to a little over half that in the year before.
Blair believes that the future holds winners and losers as this investment in social network gaming continues. Pressure will be put onto the traditional distribution outlets, publishers will consolidate (something we are already seeing, such as the merging of Blizzard and Activision this year) and there will also be pressure on developers to keep staff. Blair expects talented development staff will be attracted to the PopCap’s and Zynga’s of the world.
Unsurprisingly, Blair sees the consumer as the winner; however he includes traditional or hard-core gamers in this.
Out of this year’s GCAP08 conference, this was the major message I grasped. Developers are being urged to jump on the casual/social gaming band wagon. Publishers and Distributers are likely to be under pressure to merge, whilst looking for non-traditional means of getting product to customers. And despite what Haggerty and the Autodesk crew believe, it looks as if this continued shifting of finite resources in industry will mean less chance to add another zero to the polygon count of characters in games.
iPhone, PSP, DS, Social Networks and PopCap style try-and-buy quick style games are the way of the future. At least that is what the Delegates at GCAP08 were being fed. Joe Public, at least the Joe Public with the deepest wallet doesn’t have the time or inclination to spend on a steep learning curve, sophisticated storylines, deep play mechanics or character development.
Though the finance figures look good in the industry – despite the rest of the financial world crashing around them – it seems thatl the people in the know are staring into their respective crystal balls and arriving at a gaming future that involves consolidation, simplification and instant gratification as the way forward.
So next time you fire up that game of Far Cry 2, Gears of War 2, BioShock, Resistance 2 or even Red Alert 3, saviour all there is to offer. Marvel at the sophistication of the AI and the detail of the graphical affects, because chances are, next time around you might be one-clicking your way to victory within five minutes of installing the game.
David Bass
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