twitter.com/largeanimal Surviving the Squeeze Wade Tinney CEO, Large Animal Games largeanimal.com twitter.com/largeanimal

Overview Whining and Complaining What to Do? (upgrade boat, buy bigger one) The Choices We Made Results The Future (open ocean)

Shrinking Shelf Space

Rising Production Values vs. Lower Budgets

Increasingly conservative catalog management (fewer genres = less interesting to us)

Outsourced developers. Kicking ass and charging less. A few years ago, the North American developers would say “yeah, they charge less, but they don’t really understand the US market. They won’t be able to make triple A hits.” Well, we shouldn’t have underestimated them. They figured it out. And publishers got better at working with them. Increased segmentation and focus on fewer and fewer genres didn’t hurt either.

Disconnected from players

Not innovating on the business model either.

Not enough flexibility

Portals not sharing ad revenue

Games not actually reaching a mass market demographic. Increased segmentation

Investors were telling us the same things. Investors interested in our company, but not the casual download model. Feedback from investors confirmed that the things we’d been complaining about were also turn-offs for them.

What to Do? Choices We Made Web Games Getting back to our roots. Built the company by making flash and shockwave games.

Widgets Long-abiding interest in user-created content.

Instant Messenger Games Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Social Network Games Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective. Self-publishing model. Closer connection to the audience.

Social Network Games Platform Toga was a way for us to attenuate the risk of over-reliance on a single network.

Service, not packaged goods. New development model. Service, not packaged goods. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Virtual Items Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Advertising Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Licensing Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Where are we now? Three games on the toga platform. All have virtual item economy. Connected to iPhone.

The Future: Open Ocean New platform partners New games with more social value We’re still learning and adapting. Social network ocean is reddening quickly. Looking for ways to differentiate and reduce cost.

The Future: Open Ocean Asynchronous to synchronous and back Worlds based on social graph data Mobile devices extending the network Geolocation Metagames Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Take-away Too much complaining is a sign. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Take-away Too much complaining is a sign. You always have choices. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Take-away Too much complaining is a sign. You always have choices. Not innovating is risky. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Take-away Too much complaining is a sign. You always have choices. Not innovating is risky. Articulate your fears. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Take-away Too much complaining is a sign. You always have choices. Not innovating is risky. Articulate your fears. Don’t stand still. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Take-away Too much complaining is a sign. You always have choices. Not innovating is risky. Articulate your fears. Don’t stand still. Partner relentlessly. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Take-away Too much complaining is a sign. You always have choices. Not innovating is risky. Articulate your fears. Don’t stand still. Partner relentlessly. Invest in yourself. Kaizen. Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.

Contact Me Wade Tinney CEO, Large Animal Games Follow me on twitter: @largeanimal Social networks turned out to be a perfect fit. Platform required innovation, from both a design and business model perspective.