MSN Games

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Developing Casual Games
for MSN Messenger
Benjamin Ellinger
MSN Messenger GDK Program Manager
Microsoft Casual Games
August 14-15 2006
MCG? What Do You Guys Do?
Microsoft Casual Games
MSN Messenger Games
MSN Games
Mobile Games
Xbox Live Arcade
Emerging Platforms
August 14-15 2006
Messenger Has Games?
Single-player games (shared score)
Bejeweled, Mozaki Blocks, Hexic, Zuma
Multiplayer games
Classic games: Chess, Checkers, Tic-Tac-Toe,
Backgammon, Reversi, Billiards
Original games: Quarto, Seven Hand Poker,
Wheel of Fortune, Minesweeper
Sponsored games: Name That Tune
Coming soon: UNO, Sudoku, Jigsaw, Luxor
August 14-15 2006
How Many Players?
Overall MSN Messenger users
250+ million
Growing very rapidly
Total MSN Messenger game players
15 million UUs per month
More than MSN Games
More than Xbox 360
Potential of 30 to 50 million players
August 14-15 2006
Who Are These People?
A very international crowd
Only 20% in the USA
Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia all
have large numbers
A typical user
Female
Teenager
With broadband
August 14-15 2006
Will They Give Me Money?
Subscription Games
$15 per year
$5 per month
Tends to be USA players
Ad Revenue
Ads are shown before every game
Usually high-end advertisers (car companies,
drug companies, movies, etc.)
One of the easiest ways to get a massive
international audience
August 14-15 2006
Can I Make a Messenger Game?
Business questions?
For questions about publishing on MSN
Messenger, email [email protected]
Technical requirements
Games are embedded in a Web page
Flash games
ActiveX controls
Sorry, no Java
August 14-15 2006
Will You Help Me?
MSN Messenger GDK
Full documentation
Sophisticated test page
Sample game (Tic-Tac-Toe)
How do I get it?
Access to GDK requires a distribution deal
Email [email protected]
August 14-15 2006
Hey, That’s Easy…
Things that can go wrong
The audience is super-casual
The user interface must be very slick
The games are in a social environment
Many players have very low-performance
machines and Internet connections
Localization is harder than you think
Flash is harder to master than you think
August 14-15 2006
How Could It Be Any Better?
Messenger growth
30% average yearly growth in users
Revenue share on subscriptions and ads
More localization
Long-term plans
More than two players
Larger Selection of Games
Live Anywhere
August 14-15 2006
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DirectX Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx
Game Development MSDN Forums
http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn
Xbox 360 Central
http://xds.xbox.com/
XNA Web site
http://www.microsoft.com/xna
© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.