2004 Web and Downloadable Games White Paper 

IGDA Online Games SIG 

video card. We made sure the game was playable in software only mode, but we estimate the 

hardware accelerated support benefits at least 50% of our audience. 

Before the product launch, PopCap made 

Rocket Mania

 available to the PopCap Beta Board to 

further fine tune gameplay. The members of this beta program are made up of a few hundred 

dedicated PopCap fans of all ages and from all walks of life, but each very much a casual game 

enthusiast.  The  beta  testers  go  through  various  builds  of  the  game  and  provide  invaluable 

feedback and bug reports. This is usually our first indication as to how well a game will do, and 

often the beta process uncovers game balance and interface issues that we had not discovered, 

and results in very polished and well balanced games. The beta process took a couple of months 

to complete, but it was well worth it. 

Finally,  PopCap  was  able  to  leverage  its  long standing  relationships  with  the  major  gaming 

portals to distribute and promote 

Rocket Mania

 across the Internet. We launched the free Java 

version and the `Deluxe' downloadable version simultaneously. 

Rocket Mania

 was nominated by 

Computer Gaming World magazine for Puzzle Game of the Year 2003 (another PopCap game, 

Bookworm, won the award.) 

The close working relationship between PopCap and Nuclide ensured that 

Rocket Mania

 became 

a top selling game.  

c) 

Direct Distribution 

Selling direct to consumers has a number of advantages over working through a partner who 

distributes the product. By cutting out the middle man, developers earn very high margins on every 

sale, and control every aspect of the distribution, allowing them to position and merchandise their 

games exactly as they see fit, and they don't have to compete with any other products in the channel. 

Finally, direct distribution allows developers to build a close relationship with their customers.  

There are also a few large hurdles: It's hard, expensive, time consuming and it is a difficult balance to 

maintain with other partners. 

To maintain a direct distribution, developers have to think about hosting and bandwidth costs, uptime, 

e commerce security, Digital Rights Management, compression, installers, protecting personal 

information, customer acquisition and service, scaling traffic, churn, and a whole host of other issues 

that would otherwise be handled by distribution partners. Do not underestimate the cost of raising 

awareness of one's web site and acquiring new customers. With millions of sites globally, consumers 

rarely  stumble  onto a web site. Successful developers need to spend on marketing and advertising 

to generate awareness or partner with large portals initially to raise awareness for their games with 

consumers and other online gaming sites and portals. Each of these issues listed above takes time, 

money, and dedication to address. Even more importantly, if this becomes a successful source of 

secondary revenue, the developer will begin to compete directly with their other distribution partners, 

and thus may begin to threaten their primary source of revenue. 

Direct distribution can be quite valuable, especially as a source of information for testing new games, 

staying aware of the pulse of customers, and as a safety net for the company to help insulate them 

from the ups and downs of external distribution sources. However, developers who depend on 

external distributors should be careful not to let their own distribution jeopardize their primary revenue 

streams.  

d) 

Technology Licensing  

In this format, business development cycles are measured in weeks, and time to market can be 

measured in days or even hours. Product success is predicated primarily on gameplay, fun factor, 

and accessibility, and rarely is it based on technological advancement. As such technological 

breakthroughs typically do not result in a large competitive edge. However, the time savings 

associated with licensing technology instead of building it from scratch can be a significant advantage 

for the licensor. The end result is a largely untapped market for licensing technologies to other 

Page 31 of 93