It’s time to realize that unless you want it to have an eight to ten year gestation like RSS did then we need to either have a “PBBG Council” like the Beef Council that can promote awareness and adoption of the game and the term to refer to them or we need to pick a name that’s just a wee bit more end user friendly for the category as a whole. And maybe this time it can be one that you can say aloud without sounding like an idiot (or maybe that’s just me).

Porting your game to Facebook, however, is not an easy job to do, especially if your game is deployed on multiple servers.

Browser Based Games found a solution for this. By using Browser Games Hub data and an OpenID provider, they provide players an easy way to play browser games with their Facebook or OpenSocial capable (Orkut, MySpace, Netlog, …) account.

OpenID?

This application requires OpenID support. OpenID is an open source system that enables users to use one identity across the web. Using one OpenID you can login to hundreds of websites without remembering all those passwords and logins.

Depending on how your game is written, OpenID is fairly simple to install. There are a lot of libraries in multiple languages and a rather extended quick guide can be found here.

On a sidenote, if your game supports OpenID, it will also support GalaxyNews ID, which is based on the OpenID technology.

Note: in order to add your game to the BBG application, your login script must receive the openid_url in GET, not in POST.

Adding your game
Next issue on the list is adding your game to BBG application. Since it uses the information provided by Browser Games Hub, you will have to add your game to the hub (see previous article). The most important section in your XML will be the servers element. If this section is invalid, your game will not appear in the application.

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<browsergameshub version="0.1">
	<servers>
		<server group="Pool A">
			<id>Server ID</id>
			<name>Server 2</name>
 
			<version>0.123</version>
			<game_url>http://link-to-your-game-server/</game_url>
			<openid_url>http://link-to-your-game-server/openid.php?openid_url=%s</openid_url>
			<players>2504</players>
 
			<status>open</status>
			<descriptions>
				<description lang="en">speed 1x</description>
			</descriptions>
 
		</server>
	</servers>
</browsergameshub>

Let’s take a closer look at the element openid_url:

			<openid_url>http://link-to-your-game-server/openid.php?openid_url=%s</openid_url>

This element should contain a direct link to the action of your OpenID login form. The GET variable declared in openid_url=%s will be populated with an OpenID. The Browser Games Hub will throw an error if it’s not working.

And next?

That’s it, really. Your game should now appear in the Hub with a lightning symbol, showing that your game supports OpenID. The application is only updated a few times a day, so it might take a while before all those facebook users start joining your game

When people ask me what the hardest part of browser game development is, I always answer the same thing: making people play your game. There are hundreds of so called browser games directories around and most of them are crappy. However, if you want to get your game known, you’ll have to add your game on various websites. Now, wouldn’t it be great if you wouldn’t have to do all that?

That’s why I came up with Browser Games Hub. Instead of putting your information on every bloody game directory, you force them to fetch your information themselves. In cooperation with a bunch of other developers, we developed an XML schema that holds all information about your game. This way, you can provide these websites with an accurate and up to date player count, a list of game servers, links to news, screenshots, logos, etc.

So, how does it work? You put a little XML file on your own server and put a link to this file on your game home page. Browser games hub will read this file once every day and update the information. The hub, in his turn, providers website owners the data of all registered games.

<browsergameshub version="0.1">
	<name>Dolumar</name>
	<site_url>http://dolumar.be/</site_url>
</browsergameshub>

This is, of course, only the first step; a name and a website are not very interesting to publish on a website. You can find way more information on browser games hub.

1) Develop your game and begin promoting it early. This means getting your domain name early too, esp. if you are registering a new domain name being introduced to the web for the first time.

2) When your game is ready for Alpha testing, instead wait until it is ready for Beta testing, then invite others to test it but call it “Alpha”. Members will be writing reviews of your game while still in Alpha so if you lack content, your game will get unfair premature reviews.

3) Make sure your game is free. Nothing will help your promotional efforts more than being free. One model suggest that you lock out non-paying players after they achieve a specific mile-stone, that mile-stone could be 2 weeks, or it could be level 20. But this means that your game must be incredibly deep and addictive in order to get those members to start paying after only a couple of weeks of game play. In this case it’s not really a free game, but a free preview of the game, there is a difference. Not including geographic zones, 90% of the game content should be available for free to everyone; your game, for sake of argument, must be free, not just feature a free preview.

4) Make sure that you communicate to your player base that the game will always include a 100% free version without level or advancement restriction. If you fail to communicate this then your existing free players will lack confidence thinking that eventually they will have to pay, as a result, they’ll bail early in order to avoid getting hooked.

5) If you launched Alpha accounts when your game was ready for Beta, then you open Beta accounts when your game is complete. Your game should remain in Beta for at least 6 to 8 months, certainly no longer than a year. During this phase you will perform what is generally known as the first year balancing tweaks and minor improvements. But for the most part, you will be using this time to build content for future paying customers. This “gold” content must not overpower free players or else you will drive them away. The content should give the players an edge and more geography to explore but should in no way enable a new paying customer to overpower a veteran that still has a free account.

By doing this you give your players a “choice” in keeping their free account or upgrading to a gold account. If you restrict game play or remove elements previously made available to all players to paying members only, you will quickly drive away your large base of free players. This is important because all of your members that enjoy the game at no cost, will help to promote your game. The concept is incredibly simple, use the free players to advertise your game to draw in more paying customers.

6) Treat all players as “customers” long before you offer premium memberships, treat them fairly and without bias beginning with the Alpha release of your PBBG. Unconditional terms are common in amateur PBBG’s, essentially developers say “it’s my game so I can do whatever I want”, but this does not instill the level of trust needed for conversion. Develop a conditional TOS that stipulates that you can only act against a player if s/he breaks a rule, then clearly list those rules. As a developer, you may not be equipped to handle customer service. Don’t assume that because you are skilled in programming that you are also skilled in customer service, both are equally important. You may wish to consider letting a partner manage the customer service end.

7) If you opened Beta accounts when your game was ready to go live, then you go live when your gold content is ready. This means that your veterans have been enjoying the game for nearly a year now… they’re hooked and ready for new content. This is the perfect time to go Gold. Be sure to offer an incentive for those that sign up within a month of the launch of Gold, call these players trail-blazers and credit them with something truly unique that will only become available during the first month of going gold. Be sure to hype up the Gold content before it’s ready to launch, you want those Beta veterans virtually lining up with money in hand. Offer several payment options including PayPal and let members gift other players with premium memberships. Be sure to hand out a few free premium memberships to those that offered outstanding feedback during Alpha and Beta.

Don’t charge too much, you’re not Blizzard, and you don’t own the most popular MMORPG in the world, and you don’t own a 30 story building in Irvine to match it. You own an independently developed PBBG, your fees should reflect this. Under $5 a month will net you sign-ups, more than this will result in a low conversion rate. Consider that it’s better to have 200 players paying $2.95 per month ($590) than to have 20 players paying $6.95 per month ($139). Lower fees will make it easier for your members to sign up for gold content resulting in more income. Make sure your account holders can pay in advanced and with a discount for 3,6,9, or 12 months of advanced payments.

This is a solid plan and I’ve seen it work with several successful PBBG’s. With some careful planning you can make it work for you too.

Developers are often motivated by the challenge associated with developing a fun PBBG, not necessarily the financial success it could lead to. Vanity is a core component not only in gaming, but in game development too. In fact you can easily monetize a visual PBBG by selling in-game items that simply look cool, even if they offer little or no stat improvements at all.

But there are other motivations too, primarily the lure of going Indie and actually earning some cash for your efforts. If this is your motivation then eventually you will need a solid plan so that you can afford servers to provide greater bandwidth to satisfy more players. This of course translates to more money. The transition of a site viewer from a visitor to a paying customer is known as “conversion” and is a common business term.

Yikes! Did I just use a business term? Yes, and don’t fool yourself, developing a PBBG requires time, effort, professional skills, and overhead. This is a business, the only question is whether or not your business succeeds or fails.

Two Pillars

There are two pillars that lead to conversion. 1) A fun game and 2) Promotional efforts. If you lack any one of these two then your game will fail. You must consistently promote your game in order to get sign-ups. But in order to retain members, you must provide a fun game that leads to membership longevity. Retention often has little to do with eye-candy and everything to do with content. Eye-candy may be a good way to hook a new player, but without deep content they’ll drift off. Eventually this happens to all players, so then the question becomes, how long can I expect the average member to play my PBBG. These are just some of the things you must consider when coming up with a conversion plan.

Conversion Types

There are two popular conversion Types, direct and indirect. Direct conversion is simple, your members pay you directly using PayPal, credit card, or check, etc… Indirect conversions involve a 3^rd party. Examples include placing Google ads on your site, this works only after you have a large pool of members and it’s a mistake to put those ads up too soon. Fallen Sword uses both methods, you can pay directly for “Fallen Sword Points” (FSP) or you can sign up for free offers that will also net you some FSP. Additionally you can invite new members and earn FSP. So don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can only choose one method. Be creative and think from a gamers perspective; what would you tolerate, what would you not tolerate.

Conversion Methods

There are several possible conversion methods and variations, they include but are not limited to:

• Selling ad space to advertisers.
• Selling subscriptions to your player base.
• Selling special in-game gear and other items to your player base.
• Offering special equipment for 3^rd party sign-ups.
• Collecting and selling demographic information about your visitors.

My next article will focus in on the best conversion plan known.