CEO Interview: Spil Games’ Peter Driessen

With over 130 million monthly active users across their online gaming platforms and approximately 300 employees worldwide, Spil Games is a prominent actor in the social gaming market. Recently, the company announced a partnership with another major platform holder, BigPoint. On the basis of my article on Spil games’ latest feature, the Activity Feed a News Feed like feature meant to social-fy Spil’s gaming platforms, I was invited to Spil’s headquarters in Hilversum (the Netherlands) for an interview with the company’s CEO. For an hour long, I listened and discussed with Peter Driessen about the company’s heritage, current position and envisioned future state. From generic domain names to business model innovation, what follows is a report from the interview. Continue reading…

How iSEN Enters the Game: Part four – creating legitimacy

The way to a successful innovative organization (4/4)

From an academic perspective, the added value of formal planning for strategic decisions remains ambiguous. Should you as a digital gaming company have an explicit process for determining the firm’s long-range objectives? I would say up to certain extent, yes; know where you want to go but remain contingent in your strategies until you are a dominant force within the digital games industry. For iSEN (the interactive Sports and Entertainment Network) we have agreed that we want to be successful in bringing to market relevant innovations in the form of sports community solutions that bridge the gap between real life events and digital entertainment. This raises the following question: How to create a successful innovative organization?

Continue reading…

How iSEN Enters the Game: Part three – strategic management style

The way to a successful innovative organization (3/4)

From an academic perspective, the added value of formal planning for strategic decisions remains ambiguous. Should you as a digital gaming company have an explicit process for determining the firm’s long-range objectives? I would say up to certain extent, yes; know where you want to go but remain contingent in your strategies until you are a dominant force within the digital games industry. For iSEN (the interactive Sports and Entertainment Network) we have agreed that we want to be successful in bringing to market relevant innovations in the form of sports community solutions that bridge the gap between real life events and digital entertainment. This raises the following question: How to create a successful innovative organization?

Continue reading…

How iSEN Enters the Game: Part two – resources, capabilities and knowledge assets

The way to a successful innovative organization (2/4)

From an academic perspective, the added value of formal planning for strategic decisions remains ambiguous. Should you as a digital gaming company have an explicit process for determining the firm’s long-range objectives? I would say up to certain extent, yes; know where you want to go but remain contingent in your strategies until you are a dominant force within the digital games industry. For iSEN (the interactive Sports and Entertainment Network) we have agreed that we want to be successful in bringing to market relevant innovations in the form of sports community solutions that bridge the gap between real life events and digital entertainment. This raises the following question: How to create a successful innovative organization?

Continue reading…

How iSEN Enters the Game: Part one – creating a network organization structure

The way to a successful innovative organization (1/4)

From an academic perspective, the added value of formal planning for strategic decisions remains ambiguous. Should you as a digital gaming company have an explicit process for determining the firm’s long-range objectives? I would say up to certain extent, yes; know where you want to go but remain contingent in your strategies until you are a dominant force within the digital games industry. For iSEN (the interactive Sports and Entertainment Network) we have agreed that we want to be successful in bringing to market relevant innovations in the form of sports community solutions that bridge the gap between real life events and digital entertainment. This raises the following question: How to create a successful innovative organization?

Continue reading…

Strategy Guide’s Top 3 Social Gaming trends for 2011

In similarity to the digital games industry, 2010 has been a rather dynamic year for me. Whereas the first half of the year for me was mainly about the console segment, the second half of the year was much more aimed at the social gaming segment. This is in large part due to my consultancy activities for MediaMonks UK, but just as much due to other interests, both businesswise as well as academic interests. Social gaming, both expanding and diversifying the gamer population, has been maturing at rapid pace resulting in heavy consolidation, while at the same time leaving room for innovation. Drawing in part on 2010’s social gaming summit, in this article I look at three broad social gaming trends for 2011. Continue reading…

Analysis: Why EA acquires iPhone publisher Chillingo?

Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and even the Dutch Toki Tori. All highly successful games published but not owned by iPhone/iPad publisher Chillingo. Recently, news came out that world leading publisher EA has acquired Chillingo for nearly $20 million in cash and ‘other undisclosed considerations’. As Chillingo hardly owns any intellectual property (IP) besides from its gaming metric technology Crystal, me and analysts alike have been wondering why EA made the acquisition. Is it a power move driven by other merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the field and perceived market threats to EA, or is it a strategically sophisticated move fueled by market opportunities to build and grow upon? Continue reading…

Games in Marketing: Use of games to achieve your marketing goals!

17^th of November B2B event Bashers in Business: Games in Marketing will take place. Every week, one of the speakers of the event will post an article with interesting insights and practical tips. The second article is by Bart Hufen, author of the book ‘Laat met je merk spelen’ and founder of BrandNewGame.

Are you kidding me? Do you really think games can improve my turnover!? Are you serious, could games also improve our consumer’s brand preference? Do you really think games can bring our brand values to life? Well surely this cannot be true!

However, it IS actually true. I am Bart Hufen and in 2010 I wrote a book (Laat met je merk spelen) that describes how games are being used to achieve a company’s marketing goals. The book will be released in English in 2011 under the name A Brand New Playground. While writing I became surprised by the vast amount and variety of game-applications already in existence within the organizational and marketing fields. Continue reading…

How Deutsche Telekom innovates through games portal Gamesload

This November, international games portal Gamesload celebrates its fifth year anniversary. Since its establishment in 2005 the portal has been rapidly growing and now covers 28 European countries. Gamesload offers both ‘traditional’ games to download such as the recently released Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light as well as ‘casual’ and free to play games. Both major publishers and local actors are represented on the portal. Gamesload, which is on equal grounds with portals such as Impulse Driven or GamersGate, is a daughter company of Deutsche Telekom (DT) who initially founded the portal as a means for strategic innovation. Continue reading…

Games in Marketing: The four keys to successful (adver)gaming

17^th of November B2B event Bashers in Business: Games in Marketing will take place. Every week, one of the speakers of the event will post an article with interesting insights and practical tips. The first article is by Peter van Kessel, Sticky Studios.

What is it that makes a game successful to a marketeer? Is it number of players? No, it’s not. The number of players for the main part is the result of the promotional activities around the game.

The main quality of an (adver)game is the ability to make visitors return. Over and over and over again. So the success of a game can be expressed in game play rate. The number of times a unique visitor returns to play the game. An effective game makes a player return at least four times but preferably much more. We like to say a successful game makes it’s player stick around.

Only a returning player will start to approach or challenge a substantial number of friends and that way contribute to the (so eagerly wanted) viral effect. Continue reading…