Game design that goes viral

Sana N ChoudarySocial Fest

October 24, 2009

To learn

what social hooks are about

get ideas for some quick fixes

So you can go back to what your enjoy and are good at focus on game design

What you think you are here for

But actually...

There are no silver bullets

Why?

Anything that worked in the past has diminishing returns over time because:

users get desensitized over timeFacebook changes technology rules

What do you have to do to succeed?

Build virality into game playProvide social media and marketing supportLook at analytics and constantly iterate and optimize (not covered in this presentation)

Who am I?Sana N Choudary aka traffichoney.

Work with traditional game developers

Help them use and optimize Facebook viral channels and social media marketing to build popular social apps

Curious?

How?

1) effective in game virality

2) social media and community marketing

What is virality?

Virality defined

techniques that use pre-existing social networks to increase customer acquisition to your application through self-replicating viral processes, enhanced by the network effects of the Internet--paraphrased Wikipedia

Why viral loops are important?Gets past Facebook allocations limitsExponentially increases number of users to monetizeViral factor discounts customer acquisition cost

Casestudy: Farmville

What is Farmville?Facebook farm game where you

grow, harvest, and sell fruits and vegetables

rear farm animals and sell them or their produce

buy other decorative farm items

Have your friends as farming neighbors

Top Facebook game since August

More than 51 million monthly active users (As of Oct 1st)

Keys to success

1) effective in game virality

2) social media and community marketing

Viral Channel 1: MinifeedPhotos

Viral Channel 1: MinifeedIn game acts

Rewards

Viral Channel 1: Minifeed

Status messagesViral Channel 1: Minifeed

Viral Channel 2: Newsfeed

Add and Remind neighbor

Viral Channel 3: Invite with a twist

Send giftsViral Channel 3: Invite with a twist

Cross promotion

Other support

Community marketingBlog

Application fan pageCommunity marketing

Social media marketing

CaveatsSpending millions upon millions of dollars on advertising. They're reportedly spending 50 million dollars a year buying up facebook's ad inventory. Good at viral growth, user engagement, etc. But also spending dollars

Intensive Cross promotion and leverage

Summary

Incorporate viral elements within game play--EARLY!

Dedicate resources to community and social media marketing--focus on small measurable goals and results for whatever time you can spend on this.

Q & A?

Think you have the next transformative game idea?

Consult for a very limited number games that I think are creative and have solid business potential.

Contact:Sana N Choudarywww.facebook.com/traffichoney@traffichoneytraffichoney@gmail.comDo keep in touch!

Blog:www.traffichoney.comweekly post dissecting virality elements and marketing of a top social game