Last night was another of the incredible game-biz gatherings known as the Minna Mingle.  Jessica Tams and the Casual Games Association do a terrific job putting these events together, and bringing together people who love games.  It is nice to hang out and chat casually, without the overhead of powerpoint presentations, invoices, or term sheets.  I do have a criticism of the lecture content from the panel of experts.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE!
This Mingle started with an hour lecture on Social and Community Games billed as The world as I see it: five minutes from ten social gaming virtuosos. It featured comments from such proven, venerable game authorities as Zynga, SGN, Gaia, “Bret”, MySpace, and Ooga.  Added together, those companies have almost 10 years in the games business.  Each company rep got to speak extemporaneously for 5 minutes on social games.  Most talked about the waves of VC cash, how the sector was set to explode, tricking users into playing, how this is just like -but Bigger than- the Dot-Com days, and how important it is to make horrible games that cater to the lowest common denominator.  In 60 minutes, the panel of game experts NEVER USED THE F WORD!!!

WHAT THE F#&%?!?
Once again, in 60 minutes, a panel of ten experts on how to make great social and community games never used the word FUN.  The lone outlier was Sean Clark of EA/Pogo, who did stress the importance of quality gameplay for building social networks.  One big diff is that Pogo actually owns their community, rather than piggybacking on others.  His heresy was countered by several others who said the best way to make a social game is to rip off Mob/Mafia/Gang Wars and reskin it with a different theme.

So the takeaway is that the game companies that have sprung up to capitalize on the popularity of Facebook and MySpace are not really game companies.  They are marketing companies that are building/buying/borrowing an audience to flip before the buzz fades.  They (notable exceptions are Kongregate and Pogo) use off the shelf web tools to borrow a segment of another company’s userbase.  Where is the long term value in IP, infastructure, and subscriber community?  Where is the FUN?

I read the mobile content news site moconews.net every day and finally had a chance to contribute.  The T-mobile Google Android phone launch party was in SF on Tues, and I was around to take pics and write a report for Moconews.  Check it out: http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-hundreds-form-line-in-san-francisco-for-t-mobile-g1-event/ 

Emoticons^TM won a NAPPA award for being a family friendly game with appeal for parents and kids.  Our mobile publisher Konami submitted Emoticons to NAPPA and we were selected for an award.  It is pretty cool that folks dig the game.  We must have done something right, as our sales are growing month over month.  We knew going in that good puzzle games will have evergreen shelf-life and a long tail.

Here is a quote about the award: “The National Parenting Publications Awards is the most comprehensive awards program for children’s products and parenting resources. NAPPA’s independent panel of judges evaluate hundreds of submissions to select the most appealing, fun, safe, educational, age-appropriate and enduring products.”

iQ212 is excited about the award, the great work Konami has done to publish the mobile game, and the future of our Emoticons franchise.

Friend of iQ212, and Mayor of Mobile John Szeder provided a sound bite for an ABC7 TV story on Google’s Android from CTIA yesterday.  The mobile space is fortunate to have such a knowledgable and eloquent ambassador as Mayor Szeder, and one that commands the attention of the media.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&id=6383640 

Though, I like Leon Atkinson’s take on Android as pure posturing by Google to disrupt the mobile market.

In 1990, sociologist Ray Oldenburg put forth the notion of the “Third Place”.  Places are the anchors of a person’s life and socialization.  The first place is Home, the second is Work, and the Third Place is a neutral, social setting for friends, community, and interaction.  Examples of third places are Pubs, Malls, and Starbucks.

It is now commonly accepted that online communities can be someone’s Third Place.  Facebook, chatrooms, Second Life, and Pogo.com all offer real-time, social, friendship, connections of Cheers or Central Perk.

For balance, people need all three Places.  But what about people who don’t have a second place?  There are people have Home, and a social Third Place (real or online), but lack the escape and reward of the Second Place.  Many of these people turn to Casual Games as their Second Place.

Housewives, telecommuters, retirees and the unemployed all miss out on the Second Place.  It is no coincidence that these groups also account for the majority of Casual Game players.   Casual Games are the ultimate Second Place.  If the activities in the games were real, they would be the best jobs on earth:  Bright, cheery, repetitive, rewarding, encouraging, and strong advancement potential.  Globe trotting in Jewel Quest; running a restaurant in Diner Dash; setting trends in Jojo’s Fashion Show; finding clues and solving mysteries in Hidden Object games.  All these games offer an escape from the isolations and frustrations of being at home all day. 

There is no badge for doing laundry, or level up for paying bills.  No trophy for watching Oprah.  The Second Place usually has timecards, measurable objectives, and rewards for a job well done.  Casual games offer their players the clock, meter, focus, reward, and advancement that are missing from their daily lives. 

As casual game creators, we can tap into the notion of our games as a Second Place to make them even more appealing, sticky, and fun.  Whether the game is about delivering pizza or sorting flowers, it should play and feel like the greatest job on earth.  Playfirst has tapped into this.  From the thousand foot level, Flo has a crappy job, dealing with grumpy customers and bussing dirty dishes.  But, the game plays out like a Dream job, with objectives, success, recognition, reward and advancement on every turn.  As you sit in your cubicle reading this (much like the pre-Diner frustrated Flo), wouldn’t you want YOUR second place to be Flo’s in DinerDash?

As casual game business people, we can really learn from this, and Pogo (and Facebook, and Yahoo).  The Holy Grail is to merge the Second and Third Places.  Merging fun, rewarding and repetitive yet engaging games with friends and communication is what Pogo started 10 years ago.  Pogo even kicks it up a notch by offering real rewards like cash and prizes, on top of the virtual and psychological rewards.  Facebook is a terrific online Third Place, but keep an eye on the casual games there, and the folks who play them.  Those lacking a traditional second place will come to check notifications, but stay for hours to play.  As facebook skews older, more people will rely on it for their Second and Third Places.

This logic applies to bricks and mortar as well.  By extending the scope and services of an establishment from Third Place into Second, by blurring those lines, a business can become more vital, and more profitable.  Customers come for a sip and a chat, and then stay (and spend) for hours.  In these cases, playing games makes customers feel productive and less idle, as they relax and lounge.  For ages, bars and pubs have had pinball, arcade and casino machines. Starbucks offers wifi connections, ostensibly for professionals to work while they sip.  But with the increase in portable networked devices, my money is on Starbuck’s casual gamers overtaking the telecommuters.  Nolan Bushnell (of Atari fame) has mastered the concept of extending the Third Place.  First for families with Chuck E. Cheese’s, (working really hard to earn prize tickets that are not worth much; welcome to Second Place, kids!) and now updates it with his uWink Bistros, which are pub/restaurants with networked game terminals at every seat.

While mass-market games are for everybody, Casual games have come to be defined by a single demographic (Women 35-54).   They play up to 40 hours a week.  They put in overtime to reach a goal or badge.   They appreciate the reward and accomplishments bestowed on them in-game.  They take their games seriously.   For most of our casual game players, it is their career, and we need to recognize and reward that to keep them from finding a new Second Place.

Microsoft is the new IBM. Google is the new Microsoft. Facebook is the new Google.

In the 80s, it was said that no one was fired for picking IBM. Microsoft was the hot new innovator in the 80s. In the 90s, got stagnant and then beloved for embracing open source. Microsoft turned into a villian. Five years ago Google was the new innovator that everyone loved. Now they are playing the kind of tricks we used to expect from Microsoft, while Microsoft is earning new love, probably coming from new leadership from Ray Ozzie.

It might feel early to some, but I think it’s time to say that no one will be fired for picking Google for their IT services. Search engine and adwords aside, Google’s office suite (especially email) is strong enough for the enterprise. But while Google has awesome products–products that are more exciting than Windows and Office ever were–it’s also playing games in the market.

Case 1: Android. Is Google serious? Yeah, it’s a move against Apple and the iPhone, but where’s the beef? Android phones should have been here by now. It’s not too late for Android to make a mark, but it does seem like Google announced early to scare off competitors. Fortunately, it hasn’t worked. Nokia/Symbian going open source is a strong move. And Motorola had news recently about their Linux phones, which actually are coming out. The more people at the party, the better for us users.

Case 2: Knol. A lot of people have noticed over the past few years that the top link on many searches at Google point to Wikipedia. For whatever reason, Wikipedia does not use Google adsense. They don’t have any ads. I remember Jason Calacanis begging them to put ads there, but they didn’t listen. Google can’t have so much traffic going off into non-monetized land. Their solution is to clone wikipedia and put ads on it. And just to make sure the traffic is going there, they seem to have juiced their search results. Techcrunch reported last week that Google Knol entries are appearing high in search results much faster than should be expected. That’s the kind of behavior that inspires Justice Department types. But worse, it erodes confidence in Google search results.

Case 3: Friend Connect. Google has clearly blown it in the social space. I don’t count them out entirely, but they have not been winning. Orkut is insigificant. They’ve been sneaking social features into Gmail and Reader, which depending on your perspective either treads close to or steps over the social contract with users. With Friend Connect, they seem to be pushing Facebook towards being more open and letting users keep hold of their data. This is a net positive for users because Facebook didn’t blink. They accelerated their own Connect strategy. Still, Google comes out looking like a bully in this.

At F8 last month, Zuckerberg talking about how the mission of this company is to bring people closer together, the enable better understanding of each other. That’s a big goal that sounds a lot like Bill Gates’ mission to have a computer on every desktop. Google’s do-no-evil motto seemed hip a few years ago, but their misteps sometimes make it seem like a joke. Their stated mission is to connect people to information. Boring. Give me the world-changing missing every time.

Lest there be confusion, I am in no way suggesting that Google itself is evil. It’s a corporation. Individuals are judged by morality, not abstractions. And I’ll be the last person to indict business and businessmen. If I could offer humble advice, I’d suggest to Google’s leadership that they not allow their teams to pull these tricks even if they seem to make sense in the short run.

Leon’s insightful writings regularly appear at www.leonatkinson.com

A Pew Internet and American Life Project report is forshadowing the near future where mobile is really the most personal computer.  In a recent report, when asked how hard it would be to give up a specific technology, folks are more likely to say the cellphone would be most difficult to do without, followed by the Internet, TV, and landline telephone.

Backing up the story that we Americans love us some cell phones.  This week whilst watching Celebrity Rehab on Vh1, one of the participants made an interesting statement.  Jessica Sierra, a former American Idol contestant, was presented with a stay at a clean living facility to continue her clean and sober success after graduating from the Pasadena Recovery Center.  Jessica was distraut over the prospect, worried that an extended stay in rehab would interfere with her ability to work, and to EARN MONEY TO PAY HER CELL BILLS.  Here is a cocaine addict who is more concerned with her cell phone than with sobriety OR crack!

Those jokes about the T-mobile SideCrack, and the RIM CrackBerry are not so far off after all.

The TV late night chat shows have returned this week.  David Letterman is back with his WGA writers after negotiating a seperate deal with the union.  Jay Leno is back without writers, and his show is better for it.  Jay may have stumbled out of the gates, and curiosity may have driven some viewers to the WGA-written Late Show on Wednesday, but as the strike goes on Jay will prevail.

Jay Leno is a funny guy who honed his comedy on the road for decades.  His style of comedy is observational, topical, and delivered on his feet to a live audience.  In a writer-less world, Jay is back to doing what he has done all his life, the same things he did to get the gig from Johnny Carson in the first place.  Shooting from the hip with live entertainment.  Letterman, on the otherhand, is back to the same old show with the same old writers, relying on scripts and lists and snarky setups to carry the show.

An added bonus for Jay is, that without a script, there is nothing for the NBC censors to edit.  Already the Tonight Show has a fresher, rawer, “I can’t beleive Jay said that” feel.  As the show springs from Jay’s head, all Standards and Practices can do is cringe.  NBC is just happy to have a host on the air, and will give Jay lots of room to improvise and wisecrack, even if it is a bit bluer than they are used to.  The writer’s strike will allow the Tonight Show to be less Jack Paar and more Howard Stern, but then again today our culture is more like Howard than Paar.

So as the Writer’s Guild strike wears on, David Letterman will sink back into the shelter of his standard writer’s room fare.  He will get better guests (as some actors will refuse to cross the picket line) and he will get a small pop in the rating.  Meanwhile Jay Leno is going to get less sleep at night as he worries out jokes, and he will drink more coffee before the show to keep himself on his toes.  Neccessarily, Jay will go places and say things that will keep the guests and audiences on their toes too.  The Tonight Show will look and feel fresh and current, while the Late Show looks like is has for 20 years.

What a blast form Christmas past! I saw this on FARK today.  Some guy digitized the Sears Christmas Wishbook from 1982 onto Flickr.  I looked through the toys section with my daughters and not much has changed.  They found most of the same toys and brands that they have on their 2007 Santa lists (Barbie, electric guitar, Legos, Breyer horses, etc.). 

But Wait, There’s More! The Bestest part are the old-school electronic games!  Here is a link to a Flickr slideshow for the games section.  Check it out! How many of these did you have?  What didn’t your mom get you? How many DO you still have? (I bet Chen has most of them, in original packaging, in his garage!) 

One thing I noticed is that prices from 1982 to 2007 are about the same.  The prices for Barbie, Lego, Playmobil, and other staples are the same as they are now at Walmart.  And even Intellivision  was $259, the same as a console today.  The major price shift is in small electronic games; back in the day they cost fifty bucks, and now they are disposable Happy Meal toys!

So, what was on my Wishlist in 1982? Dark Tower, Vectrex, Merlin, and a bunch of Atari games.