Laurent Courtines Free Online

Product manager for Oberon Media, Baseball Fan & Husband. A man with opinions on everything - but expertise in online products and online casual games.  
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online game disruption

 
March 5, 2010
 

Online Game Disruption: Be, you know - Disruptive!

Too often we think our ideas are disruptive but really they aren't.  We're all just riffing on the same 15-20 ideas (if there are that many) When we go down the road of disruptive thoughts think BIG!
When you bring up your ideas and people are say great let's do it! They probably aren't that disruptive.  When disruptive ideas come up people should look at you like you are wearing a turkey on your head or that they took a sip of rotten milk.
Make people feel uncomfotable - disruption should make people feel sick, worry about the business and consider changing jobs.
Its crucial to get out the comfort zone.  To use buzz words, you have to find your Black Swan, you have find your home run, you've got to be remarkable or be a purple cow! (Anymore business books I can quote)
Most of all stop thinking Meat, just pitch!

Filed under  //   disruption   online game disruption   think big  

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March 3, 2010
 

Online Game Disruption: Don't Get Too Big

There are always advantages to being big - speed is not one of them.  It's my view that if your games website is part of a larger whole, you need to get yourself freed from that relationship.
The bigger and more established your site is, the less likely you will be able to change or move.  The online games world is moving fast right now. There is a huge value in being able to survey the landscape of games and being able to move. 
Big sites and established players are in weak positions and there for the taking in so many ways.  Many are late to viral (social) gaming, disaggregated distrubution or microtransations.  Move fast, attack weakness and get out from under your overlords.
Your site can't change in months - it has to change in weeks or days.  The faster you can extract yourself from a corporate parent the better.  Speed, agility and mobility should be your mantra!

What do you think? Am I nuts? Let me know

Filed under  //   online game disruption   online games  

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February 22, 2010
 

Online Game Disruption: Take everything, everything? EVERYTHING!

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We've yet to see a big portal or game site take EVERYTHING.  None of the older sites, have taken the long tail approach and accepted every game that comes their way.

Sure,  Kongregate is trying with it's tag line "The YouTube of Games" but they are still more of a niche.  Sure, Mochi Media takes everything but they are in the distribution business rather than a portal.
I am talking about a site that has the AAA traditional casual games,  mixed with the weird and wacky of the wild west Flash game market.
Think, MSN Zone + Mochi Media's Library.  How big a site could that be?   How many eyeballs could you get?

It goes back to the saying (no I don't know where it came from) "Aggregate or be aggregated"  The site that has 20,000 games with the filters to match the content,  will be the winner of the online game space.
Screw the YouTube of games,  I want to be the ESPN of online games!

Filed under  //   flash games   online game disruption   online games  

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February 19, 2010
 

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.

Filed under  //   aol   download games   msn   online game disruption   online games   portals   steam   yahoo  

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February 18, 2010
 

Online Game Disruption: All download games now free!

Seeing as no one really listens to me at work or thinks I am crazy I thought I throw some little ideas I have that could be wildly disruptive to the online games/casual game business.


Disruption #1
What if all downloadable games from big publishers went free free?
If tomorrow BigfishGames (known for the Mystery Case Files series) and PopCap (known for Bejeweled and Plants Vs. Zombies) decided all their games were now available for the price of free.
No barrier of entry,  no nothing just all their games for free.  Would your business (if you are a portal or small download game developer) be ready?  I am not even thinking about what their business model would be yet.  Let's just start with the problem.

 Let me know your thoughts?  What would you do with your games or your online game portal?

Filed under  //   bigfish games   download games   downloads   flash games   online game disruption   popcap games  

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