Paul LaFontaine, then CEO of Habbo developer Sulake, discusses keeping players engaged in a game world as they move across platforms in this free video lecture from GDC 2012, courtesy of the GDC Vault.
He shares that one problem Sulake has is the split attention span of its core, teen players that is frequently diverted by several devices. To recapture their attention, while allowing them to move across platforms, the studio created two mobile adventure games to complement Habbo's online world.
Niko awarded badges that displayed in Habbo player profiles, and Lost Monkey awarded players a pet they could bring back to the Habbo world. One game was downloaded twice as many times as the other. Find out which and why in this free lecture.
Session Name: Moving Audiences Across Platforms
Speaker(s): Paul LaFontaine
Company Name(s): Sulake Oy
Track / Format: Social and Online Games Summit
Overview:It used to be said that getting a new customer was harder than keeping an existing one. Not so with closed online social networks, mobile platforms and competing devices. Now the harder task is keeping the attention and loyalty of a customer whose interests span Facebook, smartphones, and open web. This session is for game designers faced with difficult platform marketing challenges and aims to share practical field lessons on techniques that work.
The session is broken into sections that cover the ecosystem, the marketing problem, techniques that tie games together and ways of adapting gameplay. Data will be shared regarding techniques that worked, and those that did not.