Interview with Sanrio Digital’s Robert FerrariRobert Ferrari, Vice President of Publishing and Business Development at Sanrio Digital, discusses his new role at the online game development enterprise best known for its Hello Kitty intellectual property, the emergence of social gaming and his participation in the panel exploring this important phenomenon in community-driven online gaming.
How is Sanrio Digital, as a company, embracing game development involving the convergence of social games, virtual worlds and traditional MMO game concepts?
How do you feel MMO games will need to evolve in the near future to keep up with the evolution of communities, which are arguably becoming more viral and even more reliant on the influence of friends? Although the acronym MMO implies “massive”, this doesn’t necessarily guarantee a great social gaming experience. Often the more massive the game is, it just means more players end up feeling alone or ganged up on. Rather than having a positive social experience the players go play solo, or even worse they leave the game. Sanrio Digital has taken the lead to understand players crave an environment which is fun, easy, engaging, and allows players to socialize in a highly positive manner. The social functionality of the Hello Kitty Online experience compels the viral nature of the community to take advantage of what social gaming can offer so players can spread the word to their friends….both online and within their real life communities. How is social gaming represented differently in various regions of the world, and why should companies in the business of making games care about these differences? The most dramatic impact has been successful influence of games from the east and their recent influence on the western markets in terms of business models and game mechanics. Asian games have been free-to-play for many years, and now recently found their success here in North America and Europe. How does the diversification of revenue models in online games tie in to the rise of social gaming? Diversifying and evolving the business models will be critical in driving social gaming. For instance when MMOs charge a subscription, they kill the nature of socializing. Why force a player to pay in order to play with a friend or make a new friend? Games that are solely subscription based are in my mind counter-social. Free-to-play games/virtual worlds are more enticing and encourage friends and communities to come together. The commonality (friendships, IP interests, etc) attracts and brings the players together into a truly the social gaming environment. With a free-to-play game you will attract the masses and find many ways to monetize the player. A company can offer items in game for sale, access to premium content, serve advertising, feature sponsors, and perhaps offer optional subscriptions. The more flexible the model, the more willing the communities will be to engage and participate. How might this convergence in online game development that we’ve touched on affect, or include, the mobile and casual gaming space? We have already seen many MMOs become more casual in nature. Like their casual cousins, these new breeds of MMOs are more becoming more appealing to a wider audience, especially when the game play is free, there is no client to buy, and the game specs are low. Of course where most casual online games were ad based, the new breed of free-to-play MMOs will be more diversified in terms of revenue models versus just ads. As for mobile, I think we will see more and more social games on mobile platforms, especially on the I-Phone. These may or may not be fully featured MMOs but certainly versions which will allow access to your favorite social game while away from your PC. I think mobile is a complimentary way of staying engaged in your favorite online game. I also think consoles offer a great opportunity to leverage social gaming, and we will see some very cool introductions over the coming years on console. What do you hope to contribute to your panel, “As virtual worlds, MMOs, and Social Networks Merge as Social Gaming” at the LOGIN Conference? What do you hope attendees will learn from listening to this discussion? As for my upcoming panel, I look forward to serving alongside my esteemed industry colleagues who will be sharing the stage with me. We will all offer varying perspectives given our varied backgrounds and experiences. My goal is to share my views and learned experiences on a global basis so other developers, publishers, and content providers can prepare for their future business models and partnerships. I also look forward to meeting some new faces and catching up with industry friends. I hope attendees will leverage the great networking opportunity that LOGIN offers. |
PAUL PHILLEO: Robert, thank you for offering your time and insight for this issue of LOGIN Beat. Recently, you made a career transition to Sanrio Digital. What attracted you to this new business opportunity and what will your new role entail?
Many MMO companies claim to be driving social gaming, based on the massive number of players attracted into their game worlds and the external community forums associated with their games. Reality is only a small sample of the game community is actually posting on the forums and active at all. Sanrio Digital has accomplished the true convergence of virtual world, MMO and social networking into one integrated social gaming offering. When you are within the world of Hello Kitty Online you have the ability to group, collect, farm, craft, check your Hello Kitty email, view your friend’s hello kitty blog or video, and even send an e-card…..connected to www.sanriotown.com.... That’s social gaming at its best. 
Many western-based MMOs that only offer subscriptions have not been as successful when launched in Asia. Other positive influences from the east have been user-friendly interfaces, smaller sized clients or even flashed based, and lower game specifications. Unfortunately many western based MMOs have not followed this pattern and when launched in the east have failed due to restrictive subscription only models, extremely high specifications, and not truly treating international partners as true partners. To succeed outside of the North America game developers/publishers need to adapt their games for the targeted regions and establish valued partnerships or embed local staff to better understand the region’s needs.