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IndustryGamers - Your Games Are Our Business
James Brightman, Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder
David Radd, Senior Editor
Have news tips, comments or questions? E-mail us.
IndustryGamers - Your Games Are Our Business
James Brightman, Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder
David Radd, Senior Editor
Have news tips, comments or questions? E-mail us.
The social games space, driven in large part by Facebook, is quickly becoming big business in the $45 billion global games industry. Next year, it's expected that the social games market will eclipse $1 billion. More and more game developers and small studios are looking to the casual and social fields to make their mark in a games industry where it's increasingly difficult to even profit on a traditional console video game.
Setting aside a budget anywhere between $40-$100 million and expecting to recoup costs, let alone profit on the project, is just not very realistic. Only juggernauts like Activision Blizzard can seem to pull it off these days, and it's one of the reasons rival Electronic Arts just purchased Playfish.
The industry is clearly at a crossroads and needs to prepare for the future. We'd expect other big game companies to step up their efforts in social gaming as well. It's a hot field right now, and it's one of several avenues the industry will take as it transitions away from expensive boxed product to games as services. We were thinking about companies that could really benefit from entering the social gaming sector, and we believe Nintendo would be a perfect fit.
Here's our list of reasons for why Mario and crew need to get social right now...
3 Comments
3 months ago
This is an excellent article which presents a logical expansion plan for Nintendo. Unfortunately, I think the odds are low that Nintendo will actually implement something like this. While Nintendo has not been afraid to innovate in hardware or game design, traditionally they have avoided business model innovation like the plague. Given their druthers I think they'd still be making cartridges. They have a deep aversion to piracy and any technology they feel isn't sufficently locked down. Moving in the directions suggested in the article would require a wrenching revision of how they develop, market, and profit from games, and I don't see Nintendo embarking on such a course unless they were desperate to save their business. Which is not at all where they're at right now.
Perhaps someone could persuade them to create a whole new division to exploit their IP in the ways suggested, but this would inevitably bump into the existing company's operations, and the result would be a mess.
Sony, on the other hand, seems to be more aware of the possibilities in social gaming, as does Microsoft. The next year promises to be interesting to see how market share changes amongst the three of them...
3 months ago
Thanks Steve. I agree; although I'd love to see Nintendo pursue the social stuff, MS or Sony are much more likely to do so first.
3 months ago
Friend codes does not equal social. Also, lol@that "it prints money" picture.
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