Comments on: Mistakes Social Game Developers are Making http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2008/07/21/mistakes-developers-are-making/ Tracking Innovation at the Convergence of Games and Social Platforms Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:17:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Ankur Nagpal http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2008/07/21/mistakes-developers-are-making/comment-page-1/#comment-257 Ankur Nagpal Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:31:22 +0000 http://www.insidesocialgames.com/?p=260#comment-257 Well thought out post and you do make a few really good points. However, what you seem to be discounting is the first-mover advantage that arises out of the "one-trick flash game" - I think it's evident that launching a basic application and iterating repeatedly is probably the best way to go. Secondly (and importantly) - the "one-trick flash games" still work - and often enough, better than the deep, social games. On Crazy Taxi and Pacman 2.0 - both stereotypical examples of the "one-trick flash games" -there's still a significant percentage of users that return every single day and as a result over 100k DAU's between the two applications despite a "Friends Ranking" page being about as social as the game gets. I'm not doubting that a more social experience may result in even higher metrics, but ultimately it's a time-reward tradeoff and often an engaging Flash game can often suffice in building a successful application (Jetman anyone?). Well thought out post and you do make a few really good points. However, what you seem to be discounting is the first-mover advantage that arises out of the “one-trick flash game” – I think it’s evident that launching a basic application and iterating repeatedly is probably the best way to go.

Secondly (and importantly) – the “one-trick flash games” still work – and often enough, better than the deep, social games. On Crazy Taxi and Pacman 2.0 – both stereotypical examples of the “one-trick flash games” -there’s still a significant percentage of users that return every single day and as a result over 100k DAU’s between the two applications despite a “Friends Ranking” page being about as social as the game gets.

I’m not doubting that a more social experience may result in even higher metrics, but ultimately it’s a time-reward tradeoff and often an engaging Flash game can often suffice in building a successful application (Jetman anyone?).

]]>