The whole deal with the Kahoots name thing is a bizarre story – essentially two different teams in two parts of the world, developing at the exact same time with no knowledge of each other. And with modeling clay, to boot. Insane. And by the time one of us discovered a conflict, both teams were too deep into production to do anything about it.

One thing i will say, though, is that the word “Kahoots” is far more integral to our game about conspiring criminals than it is to a game about adorable creatures. Creatures can safely be called “fuzzwubbits” or “nonny ding-dongs” or whatever. While HoneySlug has produced a fun, unique-looking game, there’s no real *thematic* reason why it has to use that title.

PS How do you get past the bird in Windowsill? Do you have to pay 25 cents? ;)

With regard to AIR or regular ‘ol Flash Projector downloads you should still be able to use the Mochi Coins API or whatever else in order to facilitate both browser and download. Sometimes people like the download version better, because the performance is improved (Windosill does this[1]).

Somehow we already have a game using the name Kahoots[2], which confused me a bit until I looked at your link :)

FWIW we don’t use the word “microtransactions” to talk about MochiCoins, usually we just say virtual currency.

[1] http://www.mochimedia.com/games/windosill_v4/
[2] http://www.mochimedia.com/games/kahoots_v1/

1. There’s an extra plug-in download. i haven’t looked up the AIR penetration rates, but i doubt they’ve made a dent.
2. If my purchase is tied to my site membership, i know i can log in from any computer and access my game progress. AIR apps are tied to one computer. (This need not be the case, but it’s the default behaviour) i don’t know if this is appealing to anyone else, but i flit from machine to machine very often.
3. If the player is playing a game in the browser, you can incent him to play other stuff using shiny objects and offers. Again, you can also do this with your AIR app, but it’s not as straightforward.
4. i’m going out on a limb with this one, but i imagine that AIR apps may lead to more customer service woes. What happens when the player uninstalls the game and wants to install it again? Where can they re-download? If there are problems installing/uninstalling the AIR framework itself, are you going to hear about the complaints? For some reason, i get the sense that people are more likely to gripe at you about something sitting on their desktop over something sitting in the browser. The player’s perception may be that the cloud belongs to you, but the desktop – the computer – belongs to the player. And ain’t nothin’ gonna mess up my desktop.

But mebbe ima crazypants?

Countdown to Big Fish offering its own microstransaction system …

I really like what you said, Helene, as well. Paolo was talking about AIR games over on his blog today, and I agree that getting a standalone version of a game would work as an incentive to buy, in some cases.

Well executed example time:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/urbansquall/battalion-arena
Just released in public beta; it’s a great tactics game using the Kongregate ‘kreds’ microtransaction currency. They let you buy silly stuff like hats for 50c, booster packs of special items for $1-3, and premium/elite accounts for $10/$20.
Forget the ‘micro’ – it’s all about the ‘transactions’!

As always, love reading your blabber, Ryan. I always laugh out loud. With you. Really.

Whoa! I had this epiphany yesterday! Why can’t the in-game microtransaction be the game itself?! Like the first 3 levels? Great! Play the rest for… $$$. Some of the feedback I received (I think it was from you, Jos :)) really made me consider the following however…

Is $4.99/$9.99/$14.99 considered “micro”?

My impression is that $4.99 is on the high-end of micropayments. Thus, I can imagine that this will initially be met with some resistance. If we don’t push back, we end up (as you mention) in an App Store basement of sorts, selling off our titles for 99 cents. Building quality products is a given but I can’t help but think there’s some element of trust that needs to be constructed so models like you’re proposing simply “are”. Maybe it’s just a matter of time and effort. Or branding. Building your reputation with the consumers.

Another thing I’d like to mention is how I see this having a positive affect on game design. It’s one thing to start work on a game knowing you’ll be selling features piecemeal but quite another to be freed from such restrictions to focus on creating something _fun_. Not that you can’t achieve both but I gather from my own limited experience that it’s much easier and liberating to think in terms of restricting game content via a “demo mode” than chopping everything up into items to sell on a rack. Game balance and tweaking the fun-factor is hard enough.

However this shakes out, I’m with you. It’s been exciting watching this money business unfold.

i just dropped $10 on Fantastic Contraption, sight unseen, because of all the amazing press it’s been getting (and because Colin dropped by yesterday. It’s all about that personal connection, right?) i didn’t *get* anything but a receipt. But i know that i can log in at the site from any computer and play with the features i paid money for.

One of the more interesting insights to come out of Casual Connect was during Mike Peronto’s talk (Mike is with WildTangent). He said we’re seeing the end of an era where customers need to “have the box”. At WildTangent, they have a virtual wallet system. Customers can choose to spend their currency either buying a game, or just renting it. Which one do you think is more popular?

The answer: on WildTangent’s site, customers prefer to rent games instead of buying them at a ratio of 3:1.