Trip Hawkins, who resigned on Sunday as CEO of Digital Chocolate, was trying to form an alliance dubbed FreeGameLeaders to generate free traffic for browser-based games. This alliance was a cross-promotion network aimed at helping smaller independent developers in an age where Zynga and Electronic Arts dominate on mobile and Facebook.
“Indie developers today need a durable and predictable place to plant their flag, and the open browser is such a place. Indie developers are surrounded by platform titans and enormous corporate rivals, but if we all collaborate and cooperate in methods like this, we can share some of the market power of the big guys,” wrote Hawkins. “The purpose of the site is to provide traffic to open browser virtual goods games that can be played instantly and conveniently in the browser without requiring payment, downloads, plug-ins, non-standard technology or memberships in something other than the game itself. The site’s goal is to become a brand that stands for this level of instant convenience for high-quality, high-value virtual goods games that can cross-promote with each other with high effectiveness.”
“Apps and social games have other ways of acquiring free traffic but our industry needs more methods for open browser games, where the marketing CPA today is high. By sharing traffic, partners with this type of open browser game can reduce their effective cost of acquisition with new sources of free traffic. The site will include partners that specialize in providing traffic, games or game review editorial,” he continued. “The entire commercial model is based on transparent click trades, with no money changing hands among members. While the site will offer an optional Facebook Login, the site is not intended to become a destination, social network, storefront or payment system. The concept is that traffic partners would bring traffic in and then it would link off to qualifying games that are hosted on their own websites, which would also run a cross-promotion bar inside the games that further cross-links the games in the network. There will be modest dues and fees to support the site’s overhead and governance.”
This offer speaks to the problem mobile and social developers have with trying to stand out compared to dominant publishers such as Zynga. However, this movement is suspended for the moment.
Source: VentureBeat
