Brands have always been important in video games. When forced to make a selection between a number of titles in a similar category in retail (digital or physical), consumers tend to choose something they recognize and trust. Brands have also helped by providing more marketing channels for the game launch and sometimes even allowed publishers to get away with second rate products and still be financially successful. Ownership of brands has also played a key role in entrenching the market shares of the big publishers of video games.

But this all could be quite different for social games.

For our first title “Who Has The Biggest Brain?” – currently the #6 Facebook game with 250,000+ daily unique players – 90%+ of distribution is viral. That means that the vast majority of our new players don’t choose the game from a catalogue – a friend sends it to them. So assuming you trust your friend it’s not clear whether you need a brand or any further marketing help in order to distribute your title. After all your friend either decides to invite you to play or not, and you either trust that invitation or not. So it’s unclear as to what difference it makes if the product is “branded” – only whether it’s fun enough to invite your friend to play.

The great thing about the official Scrabble launch is that we’ll have two direct comparables on facebook. This should provide some clues as to the kind of companies are likely be successful in the social games market in the future. I will follow this with interest…

Brands have always been important in video games. When forced to make a selection between a number of titles in a similar category in retail (digital or physical), consumers tend to choose something they recognize and trust. Brands have also helped by providing more marketing channels for the game launch and sometimes even allowed publishers to get away with second rate products and still be financially successful. Ownership of brands has also played a key role in entrenching the market shares of the big publishers of video games.

But this all could be quite different for social games.

For our first title “Who Has The Biggest Brain?” – currently the #6 Facebook game with 250,000+ daily unique players – 90%+ of distribution is viral. That means that the vast majority of our new players don’t choose the game from a catalogue – a friend sends it to them. So assuming you trust your friend it’s not clear whether you need a brand or any further marketing help in order to distribute your title. After all your friend either decides to invite you to play or not, and you either trust that invitation or not. So it’s unclear as to what difference it makes if the product is “branded” – only whether it’s fun enough to invite your friend to play.

The great thing about the official Scrabble launch is that we’ll have two direct comparables on facebook. This should provide some clues as to the kind of companies are likely be successful in the social games market in the future. I will follow this with interest…