The Golden Cache Cow!
October 20, 2010
The Golden Cache Cow!
There are many software development companies out there. I’ll be speaking about the gaming industry. I’ve been studying this industry for a long time. I study this industry because it’s one of the hardest and most competitive. If I can understand this one, I can understand other markets as well. The title pun aside, many companies are trying to make money via the golden cow via the subscription fee called Massively Multiplayer Online game or MMO.
As a development company, you make a product, than sell the product. You have a lot of options and various degrees of success. I mean your imaginations the limit, well it should be but it’s not. You’re limited by your budget, your overhead down to the shareholders. Taking the decision making from a few key people down the line to as much as 10,000 people trying to think for you isn’t exactly a successful business model.
As a fine example of this, I’ll use the worst the development company in the industry, Electronic Arts [EA]. They have a very long history and one of the oldest companies in that market. Their recent practices from about 1991 on have been questionable. While from a business standpoint, they are doing great, but they will never obtain the golden cow.
To start off, they have been acquiring and stomping out the competition by unethical practices when it comes to the employees and treatment of staff. They have acquired the companies like Distinctive Software, Origin Systems, DROsoft, Bullfrog, Kingsoft, Manley, Maxis, Tiburon, Vision, ABC, Westwood, PlayNation, Kesmai, Dreamworks, Pogo, Black Box, Studio 33, NuFX, Criterion, Hypnotx, JAMDAT, Mythic, Phenomic, Digital Illusions, Headgate, Singshot, Super Computer International, VG Holding, Hands-On Mobile, ThreeSF, J2MSoft, J2Play, and Playfish to name a few, there are more. Now out of all of those, can you think of one memorable game out of the 28 years of publishing that you could call a classic? I can only think of one. Compare that to any other company that has been around for at least 10 years. Just like the employees of EA, you have fun with them for a while, than throw them away as useless garbage.
Why are they so successful though? As a business company they can pump out more quality products faster, and cheaper then competitors. But it’s exactly this practice that causes a lot of short comings to their products. For an off the shelf product, it works great, but there is no large fan following, and the playability only goes as far as you make extensions for it. EA has attempted many MMO games, each has failed horribly.
But the Cash Cow is the goal of any serious company these days. Let’s break down the elements shall we? Before we can do that we need to go into the technology that people put into a game in the first place. Well you have a product you want to make interesting, right? Well that’s the initial sell and works for traditional games. But for a Cash Cow, you need to keep people’s continual interest. This will lead into further sales of traditional games. It comes down to how many times you can use the product. This is the mark of a successful product in this industry.
Achievement systems activate! It’s a simple concept, but it works. The idea is to have goals for people to reach. This adds an addicting layer to anything you have. Let’s say a basketball simulator. With an achievement system in basketball you can have a 4th quarter shutout award for keeping the opposing team from scoring. You could have a Hail Mary award for making a 3 point shot at the last second. The list goes on. These systems work with little more coding on your part, greatly extending the work. The player has a goal to go through the story and also explore your achievements. Close to that is a leveling system, where you have a goal of getting and advancement in abilities. All of these add depth and extended playability, or in other words enhances the shelf life of your product.
Well that’s a sample of things that go into typical products in this industry. The Golden Cow has to have a lot more; it has to be so polished, entertaining that people willingly give their lives and freedom to enjoy just moments of your product. This is the epitome of the Cash Cow.
Like a good boyfriend or girlfriend, every relationship is required to have some basic things. A Cash cow product is no exception. You need stability, reliability and quality in every aspect of the product. You cannot cut corners here and you cannot rush this process. However, there is a way around this. I’m surprised not a lot of companies do this.
It’s called Beta testing! People are willing to give you brilliant market research that’s worth millions of dollars for free, how? Beta testing! People are willing to sign up for a free game before the release date and give you feed back (ask for more features and ones they don’t like). You can refine a game to exactly what the people want and need. You have a price tag down the line that will always be there to let people know what they are getting into. If you have success here, guess what? You have a successful product! How can that go wrong?
Yes things can go wrong it’s called management. I’m still shocked on how management effects on how food tastes. I eat out at a few of my favorite restaurants frequently. I never bother to check why, but these restaurants are successful, but keep changing management and ownership. The employees, the ones that actually make the food never change. But the quality of food changes with every manager that comes in! I make friends with some of them and get kickbacks, but that’s only because I’m frequent, and for good reason. I only frequently visit the places that are well managed. I can taste it in the food!
In short, open up your development to the public and get some real managers in your team. I know I’d be very successful if I was ever given the chance to make a Cash Cow, the color of gold.
