GamesCampus January 2009 Retreat

The USA team are at Monterey/ Pebble Beach and taking a day off to reflect on the successes we had last year and forecasting some exponential growth for 2009.   We are prepared to take on the giants and are ready to become a household brand name in internet entertainment not just in the USA but on a Global basis.  

GamesCampus USA Team ...Stay tuned for a candid interviews with each person in our staff in February's daily blogs:)

GamesCampus Takes On Major League Giants

myMMOshop.com acquired for $10,000,000 USA dollars

January 29, 2009 –SANTA MONICA, Calif., BUSINESS WIRE –

Web site MyMMOShop.com has been acquired by My MMO Inc. for $10 million. MyMMOShop.com sells in-game currency, for some of the most popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft Gold, Final Fantasy XI Gil and EverQuest II Platinum.

Considered the #3 Real Money Trading (RMT) site in overall sales, MyMMOShop.com is known for its focus on customer service. MyMMOShop.com’s Customer Support Department is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via Live Chat. The company has tenacious privacy and anti-fraud initiatives in place, requiring voice authorization for every new order.

‘MyMMOShop.com appealed to us because of its strong reputation for providing optimal customer service,’ says Hunter Crowell, My MMO Inc.’s Media Relations Agent. ‘That focus will continue with our purchase.’

RMT in online gaming had suspect beginnings. Purchasing virtual currency rather than earning it by playing the games successfully seemed, at first, unfair to those who put in the actual playing time to earn the currency themselves. Beginners could often have unfairly large accounts when compared to veteran gamers. But it caught on. People began spending thousands of dollars to fund and equip their gaming characters. Using real world money to purchase in-game money got a further boost in validity when Sony created its own RMT site, Station Cash in 2008. Now a $2 billion industry in the U.S., RMT is rapidly growing. In fact, gaming may well be a recession proof industry.

‘This is a risky time for any kind of traditional investing,’ says Crowell. ‘People are staying home more and choosing less expensive forms of entertainment, like playing video games.’

Applying money trading basics to virtual economies yields tremendous growth potential, even in a volatile time. In-game currency is a highly desirable product with a pandemic customer base that is increasing at viral rates.

My MMO Inc. was formed at the end of 2008 for the specific purpose of purchasing MyMMOShop.com, it is owned by a private equity firm. MyMMOShop.com has been in business since 2003 and has locations throughout the United States, Ireland, and Australia. 

source:http://internet.itbusinessnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=643621

Rebranding F2P Initiative - Essay of David Change, EVP of GamesCampus

David Chang, EVP of GamesCampus, took the initiative in rebranding F2P to MTS(Micro-Transaction Service)

RPG Vault Focus: The State of Free to Play - Part 1

As the category continues to explode, leading publisher GamesCampus offers us an insightful insider point of view

January 22, 2009 - During more than a decade covering primarily the RPG and massively multiplayer genres, we’ve been fortunate to meet legions of talented, creative developers. We’ve also had innumerable opportunities to listen in on and even to participate in thought-provoking conversations about a wide range of related topics. A lot of these occasions have been informal and spontaneous; they’ve often taken place at conferences and trade shows, frequently among small groups of two or three people. Although published articles can probably never hope to capture the ambience of such discussions, we felt it would be interesting to offer a form of them.

GamesCampus is the publishing portal operated by San Jose CA-based OnNet USA. It launched with the company’s popular online golf simulation, Shot Online, and has subsequently expanded its selection to include three other titles, Asda Story, Xiah Rebirth and Manga Fighter. All of these employ the free to play revenue model with optional micro-transaction item purchases. It would seem that they have been favorably received since their combined user base is said to number over two million, a total that will undoubtedly grow since two very interesting additions to the lineup have been announced, Concerto Gate and MLB Dugout Heroes.
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Re-Branding Free to Play

One thing I would like our industry and media to consider is a re-branding by changing how we refer to our category. In my personal opinion, “free to play” rings hollow, and in many cases is completely inaccurate. In referring to our games by this term, I think our industry generates a lot of unnecessary cynicism and calls our product quality into question.

Having the entire game playable - with no level or content caps for users who don’t pay - would address another bait and switch concern. In my opinion, releases that employ this model are really just trial versions.

Unless a game is completely monetized by advertising, then publishers are relying on a certain percentage of people who play it to find enough enjoyment that they are then willing to pay for enhanced features and items, and I feel from reading the commentary out there that there is a significant number of people who feel like this is a bait and switch.

I’d like them to begin looking at our business model more along the Google line of business. Although it is not a perfect comparison, I do believe there are similarities; for example:

Google doesn’t charge most consumers anything for consuming its most popular service - search. In our game model, almost all content is completely without charge. In fact, we actually rely on most people not paying as the communities would be really small without them! Likewise, Google relies on all of the free traffic and searches to power its moneymaking services - paid search and value-added services.

In terms of a solution, I propose calling our games Micro-Transaction Service or MTS. The titles that fall within this category would:
1. require no purchase to play,
2. not have a level cap or content cap beyond which you need to pay.
3. be monetized by sales of in-game goods.

By calling our games MTS, I would hope to separate them games from the cynicism associated with the free to play label. I think the definition above also addresses the bait and switch concerns as well since there would be no requirement to purchase anything in order to play. In my opinion, a lot of the dissatisfaction about micro-transactions stems from the fact that some publishers require users to buy a title at retail (or via download) and then charge them again to experience additional content.

I feel this strategy is actually the most consumer-antagonistic as it first involves an upfront fee, then charges people again when they want more. At least with an MTS game, people could play it without any fees, and if they don’t like it, they can walk away without having spent a single dollar.

Having the entire game playable - with no level or content caps for users who don’t pay - would address another bait and switch concern. In my opinion, releases that employ this model are really just trial versions, and can really end up upsetting a lot of people - especially if the publishers are less than clear about what they are doing.

People end up investing time and emotionally connecting with a game, only to find out that if they want to continue, they need to pay an admission fee - and that is really counter-productive. Not only will you lose most players at the pay gate, the community on the other side (the paying one) will also suffer because of the lack of others to interact with - who wants to pay a cover charge for a club if there isn’t a huge party going on inside?

In RPG Vault’s Focus format, we invite a small number of industry insiders to discuss a topic of mutual interest so you can compare and contrast how their respective points of view overlap and diverge. In the future, we will continue look into other aspects of and issues related to the genres we cover as appropriate opportunities arise. - Ed.

Nexon Shuts Vancouver Based Development Studio

Thanks to numerous tips, Kotaku has now confirmed with staff at Nexon America that the company’s Vancouver-based development studio has shuttered its doors yesterday, leaving upwards of 90 employees looking for jobs as the studio was now closed.  

As much as we want to beat the competition our hearts go out to those who were laid off.  The MMO gaming industry is one that is currently experiencing explosive growth during these hard times so when something like this happens to a publishing competitor it makes everyone wonder just how messed up does management have to be in order to not be successful during these hot times for gaming.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5140572/nexon-shutters-vancouver-development-studio