I'm sorry I abandoned you for so long. Did you miss me? I missed you.
I blame tumblr for my absence, that stuff's addictive.
Anyway, I'm back for the foreseeable future.
Some updates? Zynga. It's everywhere. This isn't the hottest news, but it's a trend I want to put out in modern gaming -- monetization of free (or cheap) content. John Cheese touched on it briefly yesterday in a Cracked article, but one of my close friends noted that she was surprised to see Words With Friends under the Zynga browser/app game empire, and now I can't help but notice it everywhere.
Vampires, similarly, are not a new hot topic. But the theory behind most non-sparkly vampires is that they suck out your blood, the smart ones don't suck out all your blood, and, most importantly, they can't get into your house unless you invite them in (hence the whole dashing ladies'-man mythos behind most vampires -- most people wouldn't ask Nosferatu to come over and play XBox).
The company "recently" also purchased Draw Something, as evidenced by the fact that my iPhone now cuts to the game when I receive new drawings instead of allowing me to get to my next text messages that may be considerably more important than a picture of a taco one of my game-friends drew (that's a lie; I drew the taco, sorry friends who play Draw Something with me).
The theory behind this is, obviously, "Wow, Angry Birds has a theme park and knock-off merchandise sold in China Town; I want a cut of that sweet omnipresent popularity money pie." While it's decidedly more difficult to market "Phone Scrabble" and "Phone Pictionary" in a way that doesn't break existing copyrights, especially absent "likable" mascots, the company has all available information app makers are privy to even with a free app and no ad space sold in-app, so the joke's on you.
Oh, did I forget to mention ad space in-app? Yeah, they have that too. While I've only ever clicked on an in-app ad twice because of gorilla hands, ad dollars are huge. You're seen in a Zynga game, after all, and everyone on earth with a phone that doesn't still have an antenna plays those. It worked for Google, and while Facebook is sort of flailing right now, it worked and may work again for them.
What's the takeaway? In-game advertising adds value for the game maker. While it may be white noise to you, the gamer, it's a new stream of revenue for an industry that is frequently stolen from or that even gives away its products. And we're still buying games (or downloading them for free).
If you clicked the above link to Cracked, you'll note that the static may start getting louder and louder with these ads. Just remember, we started saying it was okay with increasing frequency around this time. And I mean we -- I'm just as guilty of helping generate more revenue for their company as any other person. We let the vampires in; I don't know how much blood you have to spare, but hopefully they're smart about draining it.
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