Online Game Disruption: We don't need your stinking portal.
Since in and around 2001* big portals (AOL, MSN, Yahoo etc.) have been where a game developer needed to be in order to sell and make money in the downloadable game world. They needed the eyeballs and had no other way to sell their games. The portals held all the cards and extracted heavy, heavy margins - up to 40%.
Times however they are a changing! In the last 2 years the price of downloadable games have dropped (iPhone is a big reason for that) and the developers have taken back control of their products. Companies like Popcap and BigFish Games are becoming portals in their own right and creating verticle businesses where they create, produce and publish their own games on their own sites. They are able to sustain the lower price points because they never were getting that much money in the first place! Throw in the fact that there are more arenas to buy games (Steam and Amazon) and you've got a revolt. Big portals are a relic and we don't hold a big stick anymore. If there is not a new way to make big money on downloadable games there is no way to sustain the size of the portals. The bigger question becomes? Why should I come to Yahoo Games? AOL Games or MSN Zone? *In 2001 the online ad market crashed and it looked like the online game business was in trouble. The download try before you buy model came in and sustained the online games industry for many years.You got an answer? Let me know.
