A Bit Lucky: Supply is Trailing Demand in Social Game Industry
Small social game developer A Bit Lucky is quickly becoming known as one of the more optimistic voices in the industry. Since launching their first game, Lucky Train, in late July, co-founders Frederic Descamps and Jordan Maynard have publicly stated their confidence in Facebook as a platform several times.
“People say oh, there’s too much competition, the market is too saturated,” Descamps told us recently. “I think it’s the opposite. Yeah, Zynga has brand recognition, and people say we have to break their chokehold. I say, what chokehold? I want Zynga to do even better. Others can still do well by innovating.”
Descamp’s theory is that social gaming is becoming, if anything, less of a winner-take-all industry, with more options attracting more new users and more experienced users branching out to new options. He compares this to other industries. “In the entertainment industry, there are weeks that three good movies come out. Do people say, no, I can only see one movie? Blizzard has three games coming out,” he says. “We did an informal survey: would you buy them all? Everyone ended up saying, yeah, I would.”
The theory has been borne out to some degree. An Inside Social Games analysis recently found that users were moving away from the biggest games into smaller titles; Lucky Train, for its part, has drawn in 1.6 million monthly active users, and continues to grow. “The supply is lagging behind the demand,” says Descamps.
Another thing that cencerns other developers is the cost of operating on Facebook. Again, Descamps seems unworried. “We released the core game with no wall posts. The only way to propagate the game was to invite your friends. It worked, and, and to this day we spend very little on advertising,” he says.
“People also say social gaming is going to be like other gaming. They’re worried about the curse of studios -– running out of money, and being dependent on publishers,” Descamps continues. “For now, you can go direct. That’s changing, accessing users will require advertising. But I always ask, in which industries do you not need marketing? It’s still way less than launching on a PC or console.”
For now, A Bit Lucky is continuing work on Lucky Train, which Descamps says is showing some interesting metrics. The average user session is 39 minutes, for example, far higher than the average, and there are spikes of activity on the weekends. Both stats run contrary to the theory that Facebook gamers only want short-session gameplay while at work or looking after children.
One key challenge is improving retention. Lucky Train players show 35 percent month-over-month retention, which the company is happy with, but it’s also working on a major addition: resource trading between players. The core mechanic of receiving and sending trains is suited perfectly to creating an in-game economy, in which players only have access to some resources and must trade for others.
Long-term, Descamps says he’s interested in “trans-gaming”, a concept much like multi-platform gaming but using different versions of the game suited to each platform it’s on, rather than having the same game on each platform. He’s not alone; Ubisoft recently announced that it would be pursuing the same strategy, although in the opposite direction, creating specialized Facebook versions of its console games.
One more thing that A Bit Lucky hasn’t previously disclosed its its list of investors. The company’s seed round of $2.6 million attracted over a dozen investors, including SV Angel, Founder Collective, Felicis Ventures, IGN CEO Mark Jung, and Google head of M&A David Lawee.
October 20th, 2010 at 1:29 am
I would like to know from YOU people
what is the cost of operating on Facebook?
I thought all you did was you got a flash game done got your server got your monetization and thats it apart from needing more servers if your players base enlarges?
October 20th, 2010 at 1:36 am
How do you contact Frederic Descamps and Jordan Maynard?
THere is no email contat on the website
October 20th, 2010 at 6:13 am
Hey Mike,
In the simplest terms your right mate!
The great thing about facebook is there is still the opportunity for a “one man band” to code up a game, get hosting/monetisation, share it with your friends and off you go at minimal cost! be darned hard work but can still be done.
In fact, would be interesting to see how little it could be done for, what do you reckon? a few hundered dollars?
October 20th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Paul. its more like in the thousands if you do it RIGHT. Or you can end up being one of the latest victims right next to Farmtown, Mobwars and Warlords. Simply making a game ain’t enough. You need to take the time to protect your IP. Trademarks, copyrights and even patents if you can manage them. If you don’t, its very easy for any of these Zingbat or Playtard companies to rip you off with their big budgets.
As for production costs, yea for the most part it takes your time and maybe some bucks here and there for contract work (whether its artists etc).
But please.. for goodness sake, put aside some resources to protect your games!
October 21st, 2010 at 12:53 am
Have you done one Paul Gilbert?
(Your not the great Paul Gilbert guitarist by the way are you?:))
Bart – I think you will find six figure quotes for custom games from the larger companies and thats not even advertising it, anyway and who has that cash being the single working man?
How would you licence a game not in coded digital format for social publishing?
Mike
October 21st, 2010 at 7:32 am
Of course yes, if your talking about doing it RIGHT rather RIGHT NOW then yeah we start getting into sizeable budgets and how much RIGHT can you afford?
yeah, did a few in the mid 80′s in the great days of the ZX Spectrum, only sold a few thousand copies each but still made a years salary in about 6 weeks each time. (happy days)
Now have the “day job” coding for a big corporate, it’s just not the same as those heady days.
You know, Wouldn’t mind doing it again even if only just to see how far it gets, protection or not got to be worth a couple hundred bucks even if just for the “social experiment”
and btw, i’m NOT the guitarist one, sorry
October 21st, 2010 at 1:22 pm
This article brought a smile to my face. We often get caught up in watching the big players that we forget about the abundance of opportunities in the market. As a social game player I try out dozens of games each week and the ones I like I put some money towards. As a professional game developer I am comfortable with the old-school philosophy of making a compelling experience, giving people value for money and knowing that there are many other people like me who are happy to check out something new and give it a shot.
More feel good, positive articles I say!
October 24th, 2010 at 7:01 am
[...] A Bit Lucky: Supply is Trailing Demand in Social Game Industry [...]
March 21st, 2011 at 6:06 pm
[...] shared a bit more about the developer’s “trans-gaming” strategy when we spoke with him last October. At that time, he was relatively unworried by the growing need for advertising as Facebook [...]