Social Gaming Beyond the Platform

Social Gaming Beyond the Platform

One the greatest challenges for online game developers is acquiring and monetizing new customers. While Facebook has proven to be a powerful game platform, social gaming on the open Web continues to provide significant opportunities for game publishers to acquire and monetize new users.  Increasingly, social game publishers need to seize these opportunities to remain competitive.  It’s time for developers to broaden their horizons by taking advantage of some proven ways to grow their user base – the Open Web. 

At the All Facebook Conference earlier this week, we announced the launch of SOCIAL2WEB™, the first viral game monetization solution that enables game developers to extend their reach by creating standalone versions of their Facebook games.  We are excited about this product because it supports our central belief that developers need to reduce their dependence on any platform by utilizing multiple sources for user acquisition and monetization. 

Over the past few years, we’ve worked with thousands of developers and have seen a consistent thread -- developing for any single platform is dangerous and risky.   Already, we’ve seen the pitfalls associated with developing for any single platform – (Tapjoy; Twitter).

By developing for a single platform, developers yield all control.  So what happens when developers lose control? 

  • Profit margins decrease
  • Innovation and creativity declines
  • Financial stability of the business becomes unclear due to changing landscape

 

So what’s the solution? 

We believe developers need to take control of their own games by setting their own rules.  Here’s what we recommend to our publishers: 

1)      Extend your reach beyond social networks and develop on the Open Web

2)      Forge direct relationships with your customers – especially your whales

3)      Diversify your monetization portfolio by partnering with payment providers that cater to your whale users

4)      Fuel organic application growth via proven viral channels

5)      Tap into multiple sources of traffic.  By using multiple sources of customers (including Facebook as one of them), you reduce the leverage of any one source.

 

Developing on the Open Web is not a new idea.  It’s taking a tried and true concept and introducing it to a new group of publishers – social developers. 

The key to success is for developers to diversify their sources of traffic; to stop thinking about Facebook as a gaming platform and instead as one place to acquire users; and to reduce their dependency on any platform.  By following these simple concepts, developers can stay in the game and build long-term, sustainable businesses.

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