1. Tiny Teams, Big Potential Creating Free-to-Play games for the mobile Internet SF IGDA - April 21st, 2010 Matthew Roberts - Producer James Marr - Engineer
2. Founded Summer 2008 “Next generation mobile” Developer and Publisher First games: mix of small, medium and large puzzle, adventure, action titles $0.99 -> $9.99 Today: mix of small, medium and large puzzle, adventure and action titles Free-to-Play
3. Why Mobile Games? Forget about what used to be unpleasant about mobile games Small Screens Arcane technical architectures Closed platforms, difficult carrier relationships Lo-fi audience expectations Costly network data plans Restrictions in general
4. Source: Morgan Stanley / Mary Meeker http://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/
5. New Mobile is not about phones, but rather Mobile Internet Devices Innovative hardware meets unprecedented connectivity Audience is growing quickly Estimate: 80 million total iPhone OS devices Mobile Safari: 64% of mobile browser traffic iPhone users - 5x data usage of Blackberry users 27% of apps on App Store are Games or Entertainment Viable, exciting audience for making fun, connected games! http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10362544-17.html http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/?mpage=catcount http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/20/apple-by-the-numbers-iphone-sales-more-than-double-mac-holds-up/ http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/articles/mobile-web-browser-usage-statistics.php
6. Behold, the rise of the Microstudio! HandCircus (Rolando + Rolando2) Stumptown Game Machine (Touch Pets Dogs) Miraphonic (Epic Pet Wars) Wonderland (Godfinger) Newtoy (We Rule) Ngmoco internal (Eliminate)
7. What is an ngmoco project team? Internal Teams or Partner studio teams Internal ngmoco resources attach to external studio teams for key competencies Production, engineering, design Shared groups across projects QA, IT / operations, Plus+ Challenge is sharing resources and time Small – 4 to 5 people in core team, max
8. The Art of the Small Team Cross functional roles Quick iteration Work in software Simple pipelines FOSS Outsourcing Direct relationship with players No egos, Minimal bullshit
9. Use the Correct Tool Schedules are too short to reinvent wheel Build only what is necessary FOSS, licensed technology Need exceptional generalists to quickly evaluate options and select best tech Our engines and tools use: Cocos2D, Box2D, Quake3, Flash, Lua, Python, WebKit, PHP, etc
10. Game Engines No unified, company wide game engine Every game engine is “one off” Shared, isolated libraries like Fonts and Sounds External teams… Often bring their own tech Would have long spinup on unified engine Want to do things we haven’t thought of yet Disparate game types, developed in parallel, would require a large shared tech team
14. Fun Prototypes More focus on “Feel” than on other platforms Sprint to first prototype to validate concept Iterate around the fun Start over if it sucks Schedule is short, so will ship prototype Pile on the hacks to make deadline Cleanup in patches to facilitate new features
15. Why Free, why Online? Why Free to play? Cast a wide net Reduce marketing expenses Combat Piracy “Premium” priced titles difficult to sustain popularity
17. Free to play essentials Retaining an audience Need a durable core design with broad appeal Making money... Virtual goods Virtual “currency” or regulating statistic Try, then buy Advertising User to user referrals Reduce friction for users to tell others
18. Building the Servers Servers are as hard, if not harder, than client Engineers evenly divided Building a infrastructure to scale is hard, expensive and will break your heart Load testing tools are essential Well known FOOS platforms are a win Apache, Nginx, Munin, RoR, PHP, XMPP, etc. The cloud is your friend About 4X difference between peak and valley
22. Data Driven Platforms Small gameplay tweak = big usage change Price of items, recharge timers, etc. Long latency to update application binaries Everything configurable by the servers Build tools to manage the configuration
23. What we’ve learned about Free, Service-based Games Free to play games can be GOOD games Good monetization design requires exceptional creative thinking Cutting edge design thought is valuable, evolving specialty Live, free games change designer responsibilities, required skills Can extend the life of your product Audience demands it Audience will pay with right design Audience is (often) forgiving
24. Thanks! Matt Roberts matt@ngmoco.com @matthewjroberts James Marr jmarr@ngmoco.com
