Making The Case: Business Models in Online Gaming Greg Costikyan Chief Design Officer, Unplugged Games Jessica Mulligan

Who We Are Greg Costikyan Chief Design Officer, Unplugged Games MadMaze, Fantasy War, 25 others “The Future of Online Games Jessica Mulligan Rim Worlds War GEnie Game Manager Engage Origin Consultant

The Agenda Today’s Markets: What are they and who are the customers for each? Current Models In-Test: Evolving Models Likely Future Models Rules of the Road Q&A: 10 to 15 minutes

Today’s Market Segments Mass Market –70% of all game players Casual –15-20% of the group Hard Core –10-15% of the group

The “Online Gamer” Pyramid

Current Models Advertising/Sponsorship –Classic card (Spades, Poker) and board (Chess, Backgammon) games, trivia, “gameshow” games, often prize-driven. Players play for free, but view ads and/or sponsor notices. Buy at Retail, Play Online for Free –Quake, Unreal, Starcraft, Diablo II. Retail Purchase + Monthly sub –Buy the SKU, pay a monthly fee; e.g. Ultima Online, Everquest.

Emerging Models Episodic –Charge by episode or for the game engine. Console –ISP; charge for add-ons and ancillary services. Free client, monthly sub

Models We Know Don’t Work Licensing to ISPs Ad-Supported Hard-Core Games Virtual Collective Card-Game Model Micropayments (but PayPal may change equation)

What’s Coming? Creative Divergence –The proper technology to appeal to the proper market and customer. Owning The Customer –Large publishers and content owners should seek to control access to their subscriber base, not aggregators. Reach Out and Touch Someone –Combining electronic entries into player’s daily lives to send and receive game content.

Tomorrow’s Models Ad & Sponsorship: Shift from ‘click-throughs’ to ‘online branding’ make games more appealing (highly sticky). Persistent Worlds Remain Big Revenue earners. Capturing the Middle Ground: The big middle that will pay a little but not a lot. Episodic Content

Tomorrow’s Models II Consoles: ISP + pay for components Multiple platforms & revenue streams

Rules of the Road This is not TV. Understand the difference between participation and observation. Customer service rules. Understand that only about 5% of the world population is currently connected. Those who prepare now will reap the riches five, ten and twenty years from now.

Some Definitions Casual Gamer: Enjoys computer and video games, buys maybe 4 to 6 a year, enjoys competition against other human players, may have tried one or two persistent worlds. Prime candidate to move into the Hard Core ranks. Mass Market: Enjoys well-known and easy to play games such as card games, Trivia and board games. Use these as a short social event. Least likely to spend money on a subscription or for-pay basis. Online Game: Any game that allows two or more players to interact via the Internet, Web or online service. Persistent World: Also referred to as ‘massively multiplayer online games’ or MMOGs. Major features include persistent terrain, objects and non-player characters, player characters/avatars that grow in power, possessions and/or game score and a continually growing and evolving backstory. Retail Hybrid: A home-play SKU that includes Internet connectivity for 2 to 64 players per online session. Online sessions are short in duration, generally less than one hour and often 15 to 20 minutes. Generally features no persistence. Examples include Diablo II, Unreal Tournament and Quake III.

Presentation may be downloaded from: Questions & Queries to: Greg Costikyan Jessica Mulligan