So, i have posted a few things about Game Room, but i decided to look at what i would want if i could afford to subsidize and relaunch Game Room (i would have made the offer if i had sufficient money - guaranteed 333,333/yr unit sales). What would i do similar, what would i do different? i am not sure what to do about achievements. i can dream...
1) The Interface: What i would prefer would be a more menu driven experience. My views on this changed a little after playing Pinball FX2. Of course the same interface would be a little more problematic on Game Room (since it has more than 13 games) - i guess you could go to a multi-page setup with filtering. The personal arcade interface was a cool concept for the first one, but it may be more trouble than it is worth. Ultimately, a choice between the two would be preferable.
2) Compatibility: the ability to play Game Room games is essential
3) Universal Challenges: this is one of the concepts i picked up from Pinball FX2 (though they are rarely done). There should be a monthly (at least) universal challenge for a game. This would partially accomplish two things: a stronger sense of community and a spotlight for the game in the challenge. Maybe someone might see the challenge and buy a game they were on the fence for. When i say a universal challenge - it would essentially be setting up a timed leaderboard for a specific game, there would be no prizes (outside of a sense of pride for the winner).
4) Communication: if i ran Game Room, i would want to have a blog and a Facebook presence (not Twitter). The Facebook site would be more for announcing packs/weekly releases. The blog would have weekly releases, future content teasers, but also random information like: Weekly Top 10 Sales and periodic challenge winners. It might also occasionally have retro themed posts.
5) Price: this is one thing i would change. i know that the publishers have to be paid, but i would like to see prices reduced to 200 points ($2.50 instead of $3, $2.75 max). If a Game had 30,000 leaderboard entries (i don't think any do), the revenue difference would be about $15,000. The big question here is how price sensitive that Game Room users are (and potential users). So, the difference would be mitigated to a certain extent (if a lower price would result in 6,000 more sales, it would break even with the 240 price point in that scenario). Most likely, a reduced price would have greater impact in lower leaderboard games.
6) Dealing with Publishers: i am not exactly sure how MSFT deals with publishers in Game Room. What i would try to do is give the publishers a guaranteed minimum unit sales number in the contract (after years 2 or so on the service). This would probably vary depending on what games were licensed. For some lesser games, it might be worth it to just buy the rights/IP from the publisher in a package deal.
7) Sub-Company: If i had the money i would set up a separate company to acquire rights to old games and/or act as a sub-licensor so smaller companies could get their games on Game Room. If publishers like Taito, Midway, Sega, etc. won't license certain games, it might be worth it to just purchase some of the b-level (or lower) IPs using Game Room sales as a sweetener/funding method.
8) Dynamic Leaderboards: increase accuracy (to 1,000s if over 10K, 100s if over 1K). Also take away loading of gamerpics by a person's score.
9) Leveling: maybe add a platinum medal (6 or 7 points). Other than that, remove level cap
10) Tokens, Visiting Friend's Arcade, Showcase Arcade: exclude all of these "features".
11) Pay for Play: reduce cost for pay for play to 20 points ($.25), allow pay for play to see leaderboard and play for score (so a person could do pay for play as a challenge). Disable medals from pay for play sessions.
12) Replays: reduce replays to only the top 5 leaderboard positions. Or, i guess, you could just get rid of them entirely.
13) Releases: i would prefer games being released outside of game packs for individual release (there might actually be a financial reason for game packs though). i would target 15-20 games a month (12 minimum) - that works out to 180-240 games a year (144 minimum). Games would all release on the last day of the month.
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