Had to leave a little early, so only caught the first 2/3rds of this. Like most notes I take of panel sessions, it's probably impossible to tell who is saying what.

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Panel on Browser Based MMOs
Moderator - Toontown MMO / Pixie Hollow MMO
Phil Reisburger – Bigpoint (German browser MMO game)
Dave ?? – Gaia Online / ZOMG
Samuel Lorétan - Dofus

How are browser MMOs fundamentally different? Up to now technical limitations just prevent the client size (300-500 MB). Retail box, buying creates initial investment, they will play through first hour no matter what. Browser, have to capture them in the first 35 seconds!

What’s an acceptable size? Zero. Not bigger than 5-7 MB? Indonesia, even that is an issue. Korea, 100 MB client is OK though. Kids playing at school literally can’t download anything – click and you’re in, free to play. Flash client itself though is a size. Load times have to be fast.

Flash = can’t go fullscreen (no text entry). Seemed like a negative but actually it’s cool, people can be doing other things while they play your game.

Emphasis on casual over hardcore in gameplay, because of the browser accessibility.

Bigpoint, F2P with transaction, very different from Dofus subscription “can’t buy power” model. Extolling the virtues of F2P because it gets all people on spectrum of having time vs having money, no flat fee. Players choose for themselves how much they want to pay. Dofus adding virtual money to use for paying sub or cosmetic services. Want to keep commercial and game design elements separate. Gaia Online = money for time via g-cash. Marketplaces, reverse auctions, people really like those elements. 10% of your people are paying, but you need the 90% of non-payers to show off to. If you can’t brag about it, you won’t buy it.

Microtransactions == like the metric system, never going to catch on in the US? Also really no games like that in France (Dofus guy). Games as skill based. In the US, CC only really, no SMS payments. Bigpoint, for lower transactions they are increasing but really by revenue it is all still CC. Some people making 100+ euro charges. So by volume, text message but not by revenue.

Less about who has the money, more about who goes over the psychological hurdle. Tangible purchase versus “just pixel”. People will flip when they realize they are paying for entertainment, not pixels. But why is that adoption slower in the US?

Toontown won MMO over the year but had never even been reviewed! Performance based marketing, buying keywords. 40 people marketing at Bigpoint, also a big bizdev dept. Partnerships with ISPs and portals, integrated into lots of different portals like a content provider, this is a main success vector for distribution. Gaia Online the reverse, organic growth and minor marketing spend. When they launch ZOMG expects to leverage their existing community strongly for viral marketing.

Bigpoint has 80 million people in community so every new game gets 100,000s of people in the first few days reliably. Shifting from developer to publisher, so goal is to establish Bigpoint as a brand. Dofus, using fans as both revenue source and marketing, so have secondary purchases like animation, stuffed animals, books that allow them to spend more for their engagement. Fans love merchandising on Gaia as well.

Competition increasing, Bigpoint launching their own portal to leverage 3rd parties. Lots of the new browser MMOs are garbage though, so in some ways not a lot of competition. No download, free flash games, not really a lot of competition on that angle. Not the same games you would get out of a boxed product, more about bite sized entertainment.

In a year or two the browser MMOs will start interconnecting communities. That will really change the space. Costs going up, from < 100k to > 1M.