2004 Web and Downloadable Games White Paper 

IGDA Online Games SIG 

Most would be surprised by such an apparently confusing European pricing strategy, in particular 

when  contrasted  with  the  US  model.  Nonetheless,  there  appear  to  be  incremental  revenue 

streams  both  for  publishers  and  developers  that  make  the  retail  arena  a  sound  marketing 

strategy. One way for US developers to enjoy revenues from a larger number of channels and 

distribution platforms might be by producing multiple versions of their titles at different price points. 

As  in  many  other  consumer  product  industries,  different  price sensitive  market  segments  are 

addressed  with  a  variety  of  product  and  price  variations.  The  goal  is  to  compensate  additional 

investment in time and resources with increased revenues and broader market penetration that 

leads to a more effective revenue skimming. Certainly, this train of thought creates a lot of new 

questions. One of them is, whether potential distribution partners in the US are as willing to try the 

diversified pricing and product strategy that we see in Europe. Only time will tell. 

D. 

Popular Sites 

In the West, the popular web based gaming portals have remained stable over the past year. Each of 

these offers portals to several independent web based games. 

Electronic Arts 

 Pogo.com (http://www.pogo.com) remains a huge presence as well as AOL Games 

whose content is provided by EA/Pogo. Pogo has recently begun to offer Pogo To Go games which are 

essentially downloadable games, some based on Pogo intellectual property ("IP") and the rest provided 

by 3

rd

 party downloadable game developers. 

Yahoo! Games (http://games.yahoo.com) offers portal and integrated community and matchmaking with 

the rest of Yahoo! They have also been offering downloadable games for most of 2003 although none of 

the games are based on their own IP. 

AOL Games (Games Channel on the AOL Service) offers game content for the casual online game player 

and editorial and programming content for the PC/Video game player. In the casual space, AOL Games 

aggregates popular web and downloadable game content from third party game developers. Their 

content strategy is to focus on quality over quantity of games.   

Shockwave.com (http://www.shockwave.com) used to focus on web based games developed in 

Macromedia's Shockwave format; however, as of 2001 they pronounced themselves technology agnostic 

and now offer web and downloadable games developed in Java, Flash, Shockwave, WildTangent, and 

C++. They also market a subscription offering consisting of exclusive online games as well as most 

popular downloadable titles. 

RealOneArcade (http://www.realonearcade.com) provides a game manager that the user downloads. 

They have been one of the most aggressive providers of downloadable games   launching up to 4 new 

games per week. 

Microsoft 

s The Zone provides both web based games and online services for its published PC games 

(http://www.zone.msn.com). Although the pace of their downloadable game launches is slower than most 

sites, their significant traffic makes them a serious player in the space. 

WorldWinner (www.worldwinner.com) and Game Universe (http://skill.skilljam.com) are two leading 

companies in the casual web skill based gaming space. Even though they both operate their own 

independent sites, they rely on exclusive distribution deals with portals and online gaming sites to grow 

overall traffic and money players. 

In Korea's web based game sites, SayClub (http://www.sayclub.com) games are comparable to Yahoo 

s 

portal and community. SayClub is a huge community and portal that also offers customized avatars to its 

users. Other popular sites include HanGame (http://www.hangame.com), NetMarble 

(http://www.netmarble.com), and NCSoft 

s Gameting (http://gameting.com).  

Over the past couple of years there has been a Renaissance in light downloadable games in Korea. 

CCR's 

Fortress 2 Blue

 (http://fortress2.x2game.com), an artillery game with homage to 

Worms

, was one 

of the most popular downloadable games and is still a contender with several thousands of simultaneous 

players. In 2001, Nexon 

s 

QuizQuiz

 (http://www.quizquiz.com), a multiplayer quiz show and casual game 

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