The Business of Games: Interview with VG Market’s Michael Gluck – Charlene Weisler

Michael Gluck Founder of VG Market always wanted to be in the video game industry and has been preparing for this career for many years Gluck started his own researchoriented company to serve the video game industry by recruiting gamers to give first hand feedback for new and established games In this interview Gluck talks about the gaming industry what makes the perfect game how his company measures game satisfaction and success game monetization and landscape and global implications He also looks ahead to predict how the media landscape will look in the gaming sector in the next few yearsThere are six videos that can be viewed at WeislerMediaSubject Length in minutesBackground and VG Market 513 Start Up and Gaming Market 648Game Truisms and Platforms 510Demos and the Perfect game 434Monetization and Global Gaming 628Predictions and Connected TV 333Below is a short excerpt of the interviewCW Games probably differ by platform but are there any truisms for gaming success across any platformMG Fun game play is important regardless of the platform The game has to be fun The graphics donamp8217t necessarily have to be great depending on the platform You can have a lower graphics quality game or even a menu text based game that can do quite well depending on the country depending on the target audience It can make more money than a game that took years to produce with the highest level of graphics just a simple game on your phone with lower graphics Graphics is certainly not a truism but fun game play is amp8211 a hook that grabs you and makes you want to come back Something that has a mechanic in it that compels you to play again and again That is true regardless of the platformReplayability is also important So once I have gone through the experience is it fun to come back and repeat the process Is it new fun and different each time I come back Does it have a life span User interface is also something that is important regardless of the platform If it is not intuitive to play on your phone if it is not intuitive to play on your play station or your computer chances are someone is going to drop out earlyAudio is something that depends on the platform You can have a simple loop on a phone game that isnamp8217t much to listen to in the background but it can still be successful versus on a higher production game where they are looking for audio recorded by full orchestra and it has to be published on a soundtrack Thatamp8217s a whole different level of audioCW How have you seen the gaming market evolve since you first startedMG I started my company in 2007 and at that point in time 90 of my business was console gaming There was PlayStation Xbox or a computer So we tested box products Moving into 2008 we started to test on the mobile phone for the first time We were one of the first research companies to start in on that It was a new field and we were in the position as a video game research company to start the testing for mobile phone games At that point in time the mobile phone games we were testing were all pay for download You would go to the app store you would pay 499 or 799 or 999 and you would get your game and play it until it was over The sequel would come out and you would buy the sequel So what started as console gaming only moved into console and paybyapp phone gamesThe following year we started to get into Facebook games and more mobile game testing Then we started to see a new freetoplay model In fact we were in the room doing the research on one of the first freetoplay games in app purchases and people were terrified They were thinking amp8220We just made this game We are not going to charge for it We are going to give it away and hope that people buy itamp8221 We were in the room having these conversations when these executives were asking amp8220Is this something we really want to try What if no one buys anything in the game We just spent all this money building it and giving it away for freeamp8221 There was a lot of fear around thatBut then we dipped a toe in and it was successful and then over the next year or two everything started to go that way I saw my business change from console to prepaid app and then free app with inapp purchases and then Facebook gaming and then mobile gaming Everything became free to play and today more than half of my business is mobile gamingInterview conducted by Charlene Weisler Weisler Media LLC She can be reached through her research blog wwwWeislerMediablogspotcom or at WeislerMediayahoocom Full disclosure Charlene hosts a street art blog on The Starry Eye blog communityRead all Charlene39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media Insights QampampACheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates at MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers 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The Business of Games: Interview with VG Market’s Michael Gluck – Charlene Weisler

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