14 DAY TRIAL // Can an Internet portal which is aimed at hardcore gamers really be successful? Most people will tell you that a hardcore player will stay in his house, surrounded by his Xbox 360 and his PlayStation 3 and play high-end shooters, while the casual gamers have embraced the online portal world and the Nintendo Wii. But is this perception real? Josh Williams, Chief Executive Officer of GG Networks, and general manager Andy Yang beg to differ. They think that the latest concept they launched, called InstantAction, is just what a dedicated gamer needs on the Internet.
The concept is that you get to play all the games on offer directly in the browser, without any kind of installation. It's a concept that works very well with casual games. It keeps costs down, games are interesting and innovative, small developers can make money through royalties and everyone is happy as the content is free. There are technical limitations, mostly bandwidth and processor power issues, but the two managers that spoke about their project to Develop seem very pleased with its potential.
Josh Williams says that InstantAction is now trying to please a category of gamers that did not get a lot of love online, the hardcore gamers. As he sees it, "Right now we're mostly going after core gamers, and the reason for that is that if you look at web games, they're pretty much all casual games that appeal to a wide audience - which is good - but this kind of middle-aged woman demographic". Virtual worlds that cater to a more mature and adrenaline craving gamer are also few and very far between, so InstantAction also tries to approach that segment of the market.
Yang also puts the emphasis on the hardcore gamer, saying "they've not been served. But even when they were served before, innovation has declined rapidly in the industry over recent years, and budgets are so large now that you can't really take risks, so we're seeing the same games over and over again".
InstantAction is developing nicely at this point. It offers 20 games, of which 4 are internally developed and the rest are third parties. More games are being added as you're reading this and the developers aim to make them playable on all systems that can get Internet access. The instant feedback from users allows the developers to create new games modes and generally morph their games according to the wishes of the player base.
As William puts it, "But that's one of the cool things about this site - we can just focus on making the games look sweet and play sweet. If the game's good enough, we can just get it out there without having to go through the usual route. We can start getting player feedback straight away, rather than work on something for three years and then ship it to a box and then cross your fingers".