Rich Reagan: Insight Into Social Games

                I would like to start off by thanking Rich Reagan for taking time to present his presentation to my class.

                Social games are not a fad and have changed the way people experience games. As a “hardcore” gamer who want to get into the video game industry, it is important for me to get used to that fact. This is important because it is important to be able to make games for everyone, not just me.

                Change in the gaming space is not a new phenomenon. Similar changes also happened to the music industry. Music went from the radio to records to cassettes/CDs to digital. Throughout those changes music still came out and was successful, but the way people wanted to experience music has changed. Content was and will always be king. The same goes for video games; video games are now mainly available portably through digital means. For example, the Ios store has more games available then all the games that have been released on console.

                A road-map to creating an engaging and successful game is: customer engagement, simple choice, potential & existing users, add value, and learn & evaluate.  In simple choice, do not make the game too hard. The player has not yet paid any money to they are not deeply invested yet. But constantly reward the play to keep them engaged. Every once in so often give the player a hard stop. The player could only continue through in-app purchases, waiting, or friend gate. The friend gate will allow the player to invite potential and existing players to also come play the game. Through playing the game the player must learn how the game structure works. This way the player could properly evaluate their purchase.

                At the end of the day what I am really after is a great business upon a great game!