 |
| CNN WEB SITES: |
|
| TIME INC. SITES: |
| MORE SERVICES: |
| video on demand |
| video archive |
| audio on demand |
| news email services |
| free email accounts |
| desktop headlines |
| pointcast |
| pagenet |
| DISCUSSION: |
| message boards |
| chat |
| feedback |
| SITE GUIDES: |
| help |
| contents |
| search |
| FASTER ACCESS: |
| europe |
| japan |
| WEB SERVICES: |
From...
Online games prove a nontrivial business
October 13, 1998
Web posted at: 4:45 PM EDT
by Lessley Anderson
(IDG) -- The splashy relaunch of Sony Online Entertainment's the Station game site late last month was proof that online gaming is big business - especially when it comes to trivia.
The Station unveiled multiplayer versions of its old standbys - online Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune - which let players select avatars, join teams and chat with each other in cartoonlike bubbles. The site has 1.5 million registered users, and hosts 1 million games a week, attracting support from advertisers that include AT&T, Procter & Gamble, American Express, Microsoft and IBM.
SOE President Lisa Simpson compares her strategy to a three-legged stool: TV game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, the Sony-owned cable station the Gameshow Network and the Station Web site work together to build an audience of game-show enthusiasts. This fall, eight-second promo spots on the TV shows will advertise the Station, and online tournament winners can compete on television. TV game show audiences are a plum demographic, and Sony hopes to attract advertisers to its online properties, which are mostly supported by ad revenue.
|
| ||
|---|---|---|
|
IDG.net home page | |
| Industry Standard home page | ||
| Industry Standard email newsletters | ||
| Industry Standard daily Media Grok | ||
| Industry Standard financial news | ||
| Industry Standard e-commerce stories | ||
| Computerworld "Emmerce" | ||
|
Fusion financial report Free registration required to access this site | ||
| InfoWorld Internet commerce section | ||
| Reviews & in-depth info at IDG.net | ||
| IDG.net's personal news page | ||
| Questions about computers? Let IDG.net's editors help you | ||
|
Search IDG.net in 12 languages | ||
| Subscribe to IDG.net's free daily newsletter for computer industry cognoscenti | ||
| News Radio | ||
|
Fusion audio primers | |
|
|
Computerworld Minute | |
"We want to build audience and brand first, then later we'll introduce some customer fee games," Simpson explains, referring to the Jeopardy and Wheel brands. (Sony has introduced three new sci-fi, pay-to-play games targeted at the traditional gamer audience.)
Trivia should attract large audiences. It's been a succesful formula in American pop culture: In the '20s, a game called Ask Me Another became such a craze that it inspired a popular song; in the '50s, television became the platform for trivia gameshows; the '80s saw the hit board game Trivial Pursuit. Today, "Pub Trivia" flourishes in U.S. dive bars, and Jeopardy remains a huge hit.
Sony's strong TV brands will undoubtedly help attract a Web audience, but so far the company is playing catch-up to a rival that has no TV card to play. Game site Uproar, is currently beating the Station on traffic. It's the seventh most visited game site on the Web, according to RelevantKnowledge, while the Station doesn't even make the top 10.
Uproar offers free multiuser trivia games and awards $5 checks to selected winners every hour. The site has also attracted major media advertisers, including Disney and CBS. The audience, like the Station's visitors, is skewed toward women between the ages of 18 and 44, many of whom are professionals with college degrees. This is a far cry from the adolescent boys who frequent most game sites.
Online trivia games might seem less flashy than many computer games. However, Uproar founder Mike Simon says the apparent simplicity doesn't make managing multiple-player trivia games a simple business. Software originally developed to keep fighter pilots from crashing into each other is used on the Uproar site to deliver multiuser game play that works regardless of the speed of each player's connection.
"Our backend is very sophisticated, but the user doesn't see that. We find that if people have to read any rules, the game is over," says Simon.
However, Uproar has yet to resolve a key technical hurdle: enabling office workers behind firewalls to play. Sony has mastered this problem - and derives much of its traffic from slacking cubicle dwellers.
| Site | Founded | In Charge | Business Model | Cool Prizes | Unique Monthly Customers |
| Uproar | 1997 | Mike Simon, CEO | Ad-supported. Owned by E-Pub, one of the few public Net companies in Europe (trades on Austria's Vienna stock exchange). | Every hour, a $5 prize is awarded to a winner; the winner of the special college tournament received $10,000. | 2,500,000 |
| The Station | 1997 | Lisa Simpson, President of SOE | Mostly ad-supported with a few subscription or pay-per-play model games. Part of Sony Online Entertainment, Sony's umbrella for Web properties. | Winners of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune get auditions for TV shows. The winner of the college tournament gets a dorm room full of Sony products. | Number of registered users: 1.5 million; unique visitors: N/A. |
| Riddler | 1994 | Scott Cohen, Senior VP of 24/7 and GM of Riddler | Owned by 24/7 Media, a public company. Ad-supported. | Hats, T-shirts, books, games. | 600,000 |
| MadTrivia | 1998 | Nat Goldhaber, CEO of Cybergold | A CyberGold property; ad-supported. | Daily winners (50) get $15 each. | 300,000 |