Turing Festival 2011All Change To Social Gaming

Developing, Publishing and Monetizing Games on Facebook

Introduction to Dynamo Games

• Founded 2004, based in Dundee, Scotland• Brian McNicoll, MD, co-founder• Developer of mobile and online social games– Championship Manager(13 versions)– Football Tycoon– The Crystal Maze– Countdown– Soccer Tycoon– Beauty Town

Social Gaming• What is Social Gaming?• How do social games work?• Why did we move into this space?• How do you make money (FB credits)?• Why this was a challenge for us• Top 25 Facebook games chart

Top 25 Facebook Games – Monthly Active Users

Facebook Games• Who has all played a Facebook game before?• Five Key Social Gaming Rules:– Free-to-play games with micro-transactions– Limitless game-play– Daily game-play hook - timing– Social and viral– Accessible and easy to use by anyone

Soccer Tycoon - Facebook

• Our first Facebook game• ‘Soccer’ not ‘Football’ for worldwide market• Tycoon game with timing mechanics• A whole range of items to buy• Fun friend mechanics for virality• Large % of female players• Weekly update cycle• Soccer Tycoon 2

Soccer Tycoon - Facebook

In-game Avatars – Facebook games have to look very fun and welcoming, a good way to do this is to have friendly in-game characters within your in-game environment.

Main Game Screen/Theme – Isometric view good for city building games. Many important social game GUI components and easy to understand HUD.

Beauty Town• A Channel 4/Creative Scotland commissioned project• Online Social game for Facebook to promote positive body

image for females• Educational Values – 18 different body shapes• Completely different from anything we had developed before• Design research consisted of: Field Research, Identifying

Demographic, Focus Groups, Eye Tracking, Surveys, Beta Feedback and much more.

• A very exciting and enjoyable challenge• www.facebook.com/beautytown - Play Now!

Beauty Town - Facebook

Avatar Creation Screen – Lay-out is very important for social games to attract a wide as possible player-base.

Shop Screen – Colours, navigation and a lot of information to communicate with the player. Oblique perspective.

Analytics

• Very important for social games – in-house analytics dashboard

• Allows 99% of ‘gut feeling’ design decisions to be removed

• A-B Testing• ARM - Acquisition (with Engagement), Retention &

Monetisation• KASE – Killers, Achievers, Socialisers & Explorers• Your users are your game – find out what the majority

of them are doing – don’t go on one single review

Some Useful Tips• Psychology is very important in the design

process of Social Games – Credits Examples:

Some More TipsLocalisation – Localise by demand:

Bottom Bars – Important info and links:

Useful Links

• developers.facebook.com• www.appdata.com• www.insidesocialgames.com• www.insidefacebook.com• www.gamezebo.com/facebook• www.kontagent.com

Contact & Questions?

• www.dynamogames.com

• brian@dynamogames.com

• @dynamogames

• www.facebook.com/dynamogames