All I see is the many different variations of candy crush, farm heroes, bubble witch, etc and other cellphone games being advertised on television now. And I have to wonder why so few mmos other than wow had television commercials.
I find it hard to believe these sort of games are making more cash than an mmo. Especially since most of them are rehashes of classic games that are 100% complete and free to play.
So what say we cover up this garbage with a television ad for City of Titans or Valiance Online when the time comes. I don't expect it to be cheap but I think it could be a worthwhile investment and an mmo could and certainly should be able to afford it over app store game.
Quote from: Noyjitat on January 20, 2015, 03:45:01 AM
I find it hard to believe these sort of games are making more cash than an mmo.
Believe it.
King, the makers of Candy Crush, are worth almost 10 billion (10,000,000,000). I think somewhere in the 7.5 or 8b range.
It's absofuckinglutely insane how much money they make off mobile gaming suckers.
They have a hundred different game names, but they're almost all exactly the same (a Bejeweled clone and/or expansion; e.g. Candy Crush itself) with different graphics tacked on. It costs them next to nothing to put out a new game (they're all the same damn game!).
Quote from: Aggelakis on January 20, 2015, 06:37:17 AM
They have a hundred different game names, but they're almost all exactly the same (a Bejeweled clone and/or expansion; e.g. Candy Crush itself) with different graphics tacked on. It costs them next to nothing to put out a new game (they're all the same damn game!).
That's what I was thinking watching all of these commercials. Nearly all of them are exactly alike; Tetris/Dr Mario clones, Caesar/Simcity Clones... Nearly identical games can be played completely free!
It's guess it always annoyed me playing so many mmos that only had "word of mouth" and no commercials and now we're seeing garbage like this!
Quote from: Noyjitat on January 20, 2015, 07:06:13 AMNearly identical games can be played completely free!
Sure, but for a very small real money transaction, you can buy in-game currency that allows you to speed up your progress. Why wait 8 days for your clan castle to finish construction when you can spend a few bucks and have it finish immediately? Instant gratification for the win!
Honestly, I think the South Park episode they did (relatively) recently on mobile free-to-play gaming pretty much nailed it.
-> Clash of Clans daily revenue estimate (http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/1/clash-of-clans/)
Quote from: eabrace on January 20, 2015, 07:10:15 AM
Sure, but for a very small real money transaction, you can buy in-game currency that allows you to speed up your progress. Why wait 8 days for your clan castle to finish construction when you can spend a few bucks and have it finish immediately? Instant gratification for the win!
Honestly, I think the South Park episode they did (relatively) recently on mobile free-to-play gaming pretty much nailed it.
-> Clash of Clans daily revenue estimate (http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/1/clash-of-clans/)
Yeah I know how these ridiculous games run. Boogie2988 on Youtube is pretty good at making fun of them all the time... and ofcourse himself heh.
Quote from: eabrace on January 20, 2015, 07:10:15 AM
Honestly, I think the South Park episode they did (relatively) recently on mobile free-to-play gaming pretty much nailed it.
That was a good episode. I agree that they pretty much nailed it.
Too bad Stan gave all of Randy's "Lorde" money to the Canadian devil! :roll:
It seems that almost every commercial break contains some type of mobile game advertisement these days. Amazing how much money they can make by "re-skinning" the same type of game content/concept.
Wait wait wait...what's a commercial?
Done correctly, it's an animated short that features a vain wizard, a barbarian riding a cannonball through the air, or a misbehaving skeleton. "Don't touch that, Larry."
I did enjoy the early clash of clans ad and was wishing CoH was still around so that every time someone asked for a healer I could reply "did someone say hog riders?"
Buddy of mine spotted this when he was in Boston and sent me a picture of it hanging in the subway.
(https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i205/J55TTC/22AEA9B0-EAB9-4C2A-8042-921DA20A5D8C.jpg)
Quote from: Noyjitat on January 20, 2015, 03:45:01 AM
All I see is the many different variations of candy crush, farm heroes, bubble witch, etc and other cellphone games being advertised on television now. And I have to wonder why so few mmos other than wow had television commercials.
I find it hard to believe these sort of games are making more cash than an mmo. Especially since most of them are rehashes of classic games that are 100% complete and free to play.
So what say we cover up this garbage with a television ad for City of Titans or Valiance Online when the time comes. I don't expect it to be cheap but I think it could be a worthwhile investment and an mmo could and certainly should be able to afford it over app store game.
Candy Crush was bringing in $1 million a day. Plus cable channel advertising is cheaper than broadcast network. The only time I've seen King and Clash of ... ads were the times I visited my folks who leave Fox News up as background. Haven't seen them either on Hulu or other network streaming sites.
Quote from: eabrace on January 20, 2015, 07:10:15 AM
Sure, but for a very small real money transaction, you can buy in-game currency that allows you to speed up your progress. Why wait 8 days for your clan castle to finish construction when you can spend a few bucks and have it finish immediately? Instant gratification for the win!
Honestly, I think the South Park episode they did (relatively) recently on mobile free-to-play gaming pretty much nailed it.
-> Clash of Clans daily revenue estimate (http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/1/clash-of-clans/)
Fuuuuuuuuuusshhhwhaaat?? That is a insane amount of daily revenue.
Quote from: FatherXmas on January 28, 2015, 08:24:31 PM
The only time I've seen King and Clash of ... ads were the times I visited my folks who leave Fox News up as background.
I haven't ever really given much thought to where I've seen the ads for Clash of Clans, but I want to say it's probably Cartoon Network or Fox most of the time. Pretty sure I saw one tonight during Gotham.
They have to be making good coin to afford angryneeson52......
The sudden flood of TV and print ads are because the in-app-purchase supported mobile games have reached a saturation point. New games simply cannot get the attention of players without a multi-million dollar advertising budget, and there's a lot of money at stake if they succeed. That's what we're seeing now, the competition between multiple million-dollar advertising budgets trying to get the same dollars from the same players.
The part I envy is how brand-new titles manage to get millions of dollars of investment money (excluding the ones made by already-profitable producers). I know the banks aren't giving it out!
Quote from: therain93 on February 03, 2015, 12:51:40 PM
They have to be making good coin to afford angryneeson52......
Not only can they afford angryneeson52.... they can afford to show him during the Super Bowl (OK well shortly after...). But that's still hugely expensive
He couldn't be on until after the super bowl. He was at the doctor, he has AIDS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKTh7zBIcrM
1.) Yes, these games really do make that kind of obscene money, particularly when you consider the games themselves cost very little money to produce (most are in fact just cut and paste), and are a nightmare of addictive programming tricks to get the money rolling in. If you think its bad here in the States, consider places like China where a smartphone game is the closest thing most people have to uncensored entertainment. Here's an article (http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html) to keep you up at night regarding that.
2.) Yes, advertising costs aggregate on TV are dropping. Firstly, there's a huge amount of competition on TV itself... remember the song about 57 channels and nothing's on? Now its more like 357 channels. So per-consumer view is down. Secondly there is the rapid decline in the last decade of the quality of programming. For every Big Bang Theory, Scandal, Game of Thrones, or Sunday Night Football, there's now seven or more cheaply produced reality or contest shows that frankly very few people want to watch; meaning that individual channels can no longer command the same sort of advertising dollar that they could in the era of Must See TV and TGIF programing blocks that could maintain viewership across an entire evening.
While you still have outliers like Scandal, or the Superbowl which can still command a premium ad placement rate; for the most part, between competition and viewer atrophy, prices have indeed gone down... or more accurately, they have remained flat while inflation has continued.