By Andy Reynolds, Executive Director, OMD International.
The $400m acquisition of social gaming firm Playfish by EA Games at the end of last year certainly got everyone talking. Social gaming has seen huge growth since 2007 when Facebook opened its platform to developers.
The combination of iPhone and people seeking cheap, escapist gaming fixes during the downturn has seen social gaming reach hundreds of millions of consumers globally. No surprise then that social gaming was named by Brandweek as one of the Top 10 digital trends to watch in 2010.
People who had never played video games before have grown to love the sociability, competition and simple fun of social games, which are low-tech, free and quick to download.
The same player who plays Scrabble or Tetris against a colleague in her lunch break may well be running her Caf?World virtual restaurant that evening or spending hours raising her fish at the weekend.
Back to nature
Games are now the biggest applications on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and Hi5. Zynga, with over 230m active users across social networks each month, is the number one developer on Facebook, which has become the biggest destination for social gaming.
Zynga’s FarmVille is the most popular social game, played by over 20% of Facebook’s 400m users. Millions of people are spending their valuable real time sowing virtual seeds, tending to virtual crops and buying virtual tractors (of which there were many more sold in the US last year than real ones!).
Players speak of a real sense of achievement and progress at seeing their virtual crops grow as they sell them at the market for a profit. Other popular games encompass everything from running your own restaurant to battling vampires and creating your own mafia family.
Games that feature animals and fish are also hugely popular, with Zoo World, Happy
Aquarium, Foo Pets and Pet Society all having millions of users.
Getting mobile
Not all social games involve sitting at a desk; mobile social gaming has also started to have a real impact. The UK National Gamers Survey report revealed in January that 8m of the 31.2m video gamers in the UK play games on their mobiles, and that 47% of them are women.
A social game should work for a consumer regardless of the device they use, whether they’re on their laptop or mobile. It should always be easy for them to pass on to their friends.
MySpace or your space?
Social gaming has certainly become more than a poor relation of the global computer games industry. It continues to bring people from all demographics, nationalities and ages into gaming.
The viral nature of most social games, whereby users invite friends to join the game (often in return for virtual currency), means numbers can grow rapidly. FarmVille, thought to be the fastest-growing social game ever, launched on 19 June, 2009, had 354 players on day two and six months later had over 70m users.
Big-name brands are also taking tentative steps into branded virtual goods and video and display advertising within social games. The right advert served at the right time (usually between levels in games) or the right virtual branded product (a desirable, limited-edition version that users will want to give or receive) could bring huge benefits to a brand.
Contrary to popular belief, all brands can find a space within the social gaming sphere. The question is not whether a brand is suitable, but rather what gaming experience can a brand provide and to what audience.
A brand doesn’t have to be the centre of a social game, but by providing something of value to game play, whether it’s an item, currency or a new environment, it is still possible to participate with consumers in a meaningful and relevant way.
Let me entertain you
But what are the benefits for brands? Social gaming provides entertainment, which is a means of creating emotional connections with many consumers simultaneously. It also provides the opportunity to reach a wider audience because if your brand offers the right approach to gaming, with competition and reward, its gamers will naturally want to share and play with others, making the brand an object of social interaction.
However, like all marketing efforts, it’s important that social gaming is integrated within a campaign and presents a consistent brand message. Beyond this, the ‘how’ of a social game with a campaign will vary by brand and campaign objectives.
For example,social gaming can activate a campaign, seeding out a new message or brand and generating initial interest and engagement. It can also be used as a form of CRM, as seen with location based mobile games like Foursquare, which offers an effective means of loyalty and reward.
Getting to know you
The two big differences social games have over console-based games are their shorter development lead-time and the almost instant consumer feedback. Similar to movies and music, social gaming is a hits-driven industry, and responding rapidly to evolving consumer tastes is vital.
Users of social game Sorority Life, for example, told developers they wanted to be able to drive cars around the campus.
The developer created a limited-edition pink VW Beetle to add into the game and sold $200,000 worth of the car in two days.
Money, money, money
Most developers of social games are currently making money through the sale of virtual goods for real money and through serving adverts, most of which are ‘offers’ requiring people to take action to earn virtual currency.
Two companies, Offer Pal and Super Rewards, have so far dominated an offers market that enables players to earn virtual currency on games by answering questionnaires for example.
However, as with all forms of new marketing methods, brands should proceed with caution and ensure it is the right environment for them.
Bloggers have waged a huge campaign against Offer Pal, and Zynga has faced a class action lawsuit, with claims that many of the virtual currency ‘offers’ are simply scams.
As more marketers start watching and wanting to get involved with the space, however, it is likely that branding and marketing opportunities within social games will develop and improve at a rapid pace.
Although there is currently no regulatory body for social gaming advertising, developers are already cleaning up their act, and Facebook has recently changed some of its settings and attempted to clamp down on scam advertising, realising it was not creating the right environment for legitimate brand advertising.
Little steps
A brand has to start slowly in the social space: first listen and understand what your consumers are looking for from your brand. Getting it wrong with an offer perceived to be a scam could be a disaster. Dipping a toe in the water rather than plunging right in would probably be wise for now.
As with any marketing effort, test first, have a measurement strategy in place, determine benchmarks, and optimise continually.
For social gaming, add to this test phase an evaluation of the viral potential and an estimation for the time-frame of continual play and retention – this will help you understand how often a game will need to be upgraded. It will also help you develop an iterative development strategy in order to continually provide a fresh experience for consumers.
For marketers who are looking to fish where the fish are though, they are in Happy Aquarium, FishWorld and My FishTank. It’s just a question of which bait to use to land the best catch.
The Rules
1. Listen and understand what your consumers are looking for from your brand
2. Be true to your brand values
3. Don’t try to be something you aren’t
4. Be transparent and honest
5. Know in advance how you might respond to negativity
6. Don’t abuse privacy
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