ICO Partners

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has released a draft of standard guidelines for in-game advertising. This is a very good move for the medium, as keeping network-specific standards made the medium inapproachable for the vast majority of marketers and media buyers, used to be able to compare and optimize campaigns across different media and networks. The guidelines are dedicated to measuring impressions on dynamic billboard ads, and the draft shows a lot of challenges in defining what counts as a valid standard impression (eg how to rule out impressions from bots,  player or developer-induced impression manipulations, etc), but still it should be encouraged as a step in a good direction, and every developer or publisher planning to offer in-game advertising should have a look.

The guidelines are accessible here and the IAB is collecting feedback from  industry actors until the 17th of July.

The author of the excellent “PlayNoEvil” blog has published a few months ago a very good book relating to games and security. Although the book is not specifically dedicated to online games security challenges, it does contain a mountain of information and basically acts as a giant checklist with proposed solutions for any online project. After many years and a lot of security issues happening in online games, it is very frustrating to see the same mistakes being done again, so we would recommend it to anyone working on an online project.

Steven’s take on security is very common sense- and business-driven, at the exact opposite of solution vendors trying to sell you a silver bullet. His recommendations are generally simple and easy to implement, providing that relevant stakeholders in the development and operations of the game are committed to security from early on in the project : just like service design or marketing, it is not the problem of the specificly assigned department, and it can’t be added as an afterthought. The book is not limited to technical risks, but also covers business and game design issues. Overall, it’s a very enjoyable read about the security game - the one played by your company, against an infinite horde of opponents armed with a lot of time, wits and resources.

Steven will also be teaching at Paris Masters Classes next week!

When you promote a service model, well,  fans become disappointed if you stray away from that model. Splitting the community and support is the real issue here, not refusing to pay for additional content. It’s true for any multiplayer game, and it’s why sequels are such a problem in MMOs, where many sequels have struggled to surpass their predecessor. Generally you just divide and weaken when you think you’ll bring new blood.

Graphical updates, like Runescape or EVE Online did, or Ankama is preparing for Dofus, seem  much wiser to make a game look younger. Whatever is done, the persistent elements are crucial - database and communityhave more value to the players than improved graphics, new maps, or new features, and if you branch in a separate sequel, you’ll have to rebuild all that from scratch, no easy task even with the strength of the IP you’ve built.

EA Phenomic announced last week that their collectible online RTS Battleforge now had a free version, available to anyone intrigued by the game’s concept. The core revenue model of the game will remain the same, centered around a virtual currency you can purchase online (or by redeeming codes in the game boxes, transorfming all those Battleforge dvd case into prepaid cards) and then use to buy booster packs à la Magic the Gathering containing new units for you to choose from for your battles.

A really nice move, but why wait so late? (more…)