October 12, 2009

Hive7's Max Skibinsky Takes on the World of Social Network Gaming
By Louis Bedigian

“Traditional gaming has two dinosaur-like weaknesses: their distribution model and their content model.”

Ten years ago, few would have predicted that cell phones – one of many tools of communication – would one day be touted for their game-playing capabilities. When social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook first launched, it's likely that people viewed them the same way: they, not unlike cell phones, are a tool for communication. But here we are at the birth of another type of gaming.

Max Skibinsky, CEO of Hive7, believes this new type has a strong future ahead, partially because it eliminates some of the problems he says exist with current game development models. "Traditional gaming has two dinosaur-like weaknesses: their distribution model and their content model," he says. "Let’s first talk about content.

"I think part of the problem of many 'traditional' games is making the player care about game content and becoming emotionally engaged. What players are accustomed to is abstract NPCs uttering things like, 'The land of Azertoff needs your help defeating the evil minions of Dagragar'… and you just get a Rhett Butler moment, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a da**.' Licensing great books or movies with prebuilt engagement, or creating once-in-a-lifetime masterpieces like 'Fallout' are options, yet most games in the traditional marketplace are largely irrelevant to the player and strive hard to make themselves relevant.

"Social games are the complete opposite. Most game actors are users on the same social network. Furthermore, the initial interactions within a game take place with friends who are already playing. Instead of being greeted by irrelevant NPCs, social gamers are immediately helped by their friends, recruited into doing specific tasks, etc. Later, they meet new people who they’re able to form lasting real life connections and friendships with, leveraging the full capabilities of the social network.

"In short, the traditional model is asking players to put their life on hold while they are exploring a new game, while social games naturally integrate gameplay with a person’s regular social activity extending it into new dimensions. This has interesting ramifications in the approachability of social games for women, who make up a much larger percent of the player base than they do in traditional computer games."

Start by telling us about yourself and your company, Hive7.

Max Skibinsky: [I'm a] theoretical physicist by education, gamer and web developer by vocation.

When did Hive7 begin?

MS: I started Hive7 in 2005. Back then web gaming was in its infancy, and the web 2.0 juggernaut was just getting started. We believed that we could harness the emerging rich web technologies to deliver gaming experiences without the shackles of a traditional game company model (publishers, retail sales etc). We started experimenting with AJAX gaming technologies and it worked out terrifically in long term.

What are some of the games you've created? What are you working on right now?

MS: We found our biggest success on Facebook after trying about five different games. Our top game is the social MMO Knighthood, which has grown to six million players. Now we are introducing new games to cover as many diverse genres as we can. Recently we introduced another hit with the soccer (football to non-Americans) MMO “Kick-Off” and are just about to launch a zombie apocalypse game. We have a couple more secret projects in development.

How do you promote your games? I would imagine the marketing campaign - and targeted advertising - is significantly different from a standard video game campaign.

MS: In our case market promotion is simply non existent. Our games spread by word of mouth only. If players like your games they will go to great lengths to engage their friends.

What is the typical budget for a social networking video game? If you can't give a specific number, then at least compare the development budget to that of handheld games (DS, PSP or iPhone) or console games.

MS: One of the most successful early games on Facebook was created by one brilliant hacker in about two weeks. That game went to a couple million installs within a few months. The budget of such projects is so small that [it's not even] worth counting. On the other hand there are big social gaming projects which are budgeted in the millions.

It’s a gradual scale from almost zero to millions where each participant can pick his choice of time-frame, investment, game quality level and staying power and have at it. At every level of the social gaming ecology, it’s intriguing that both small and big companies thrive and make revenue. The traditional gaming model, with inherent inefficiencies of retail distribution, publishing and marketing expense, eliminates 80% of this scale, driving small companies who typically have some of the most innovative individuals and teams out of the marketplace.

There is a huge difference between developing for Wii and Xbox 360, or even Xbox 360 and PS3. What are the differences between developing games for Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, etc?

MS: The differences are all over the map. It’s hard to say where to begin categorizing all of them. On the technical side you certainly develop a web site with a game experience, not a game with web distribution. On a strategic level it’s all about speed and flexibility. For us, the average game is around a three-month project to game launch. Once launched, we start to mutate it based upon user feedback and enjoyment. Web technologies by design are very modular, stateless, and easily adjustable. The whole model of a long multi-year slog implementing huge game/level/art design documents goes out of the window. The idea is to release as little as possible as soon as possible, and then react as millions of social network users start to bang your creation. They always surprise you (in a good way). The old tired development model formed around top down monolithic design is fully replaced by a bottom up adaptive web development model.

Now what made you and the developers at Hive7 want to tackle the world of social networking? Obviously there's huge potential there. But from a game development standpoint, how far can a developer really go?

MS: Let’s look at the marketplace. If we combine all of the social network populations in Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Orkut, Bebo, etc., we are talking about almost one billion users. Using even the most optimistic criteria we have about ten professional social gaming companies and about a hundred noteworthy games. These are incredibly small numbers considering the overall market size. The sky is still the limit for social gaming studios. We have just started to scratch the surface of what’s possible in the medium. Another sign of the tectonic shift is the recent exodus of many high level executives from traditional big game publishers into social gaming startups: they certainly are in best position to understand where the market is evolving.

If the time was right, are your games easily adaptable to the console or handheld gaming world? Or would you prefer to stick with social network development?

MS: That’s like asking [a] young Bill Gates [if he] would he backport his early software from the PC to mainframe computers. It’s possible, yet there is not much sense in spending time going backward from wide open billion-strong market into closed and smaller markets controlled by proprietary vendors. Social network games’ revenue models are built around micro-transactions, not the purchase of the game itself. And all of the user interactivity associated with the social network would be lost meaning that most games wouldn’t translate well even if it was a good idea for other reasons.

In Knighthood, players can "build up their kingdoms, go to war with other players, capture friends, and have fun raiding, pillaging, and conquering their foes." How does this work on Facebook and other social networking sites, which are typically known for simpler gameplay experiences?

MS: Knighthood was built around idea of medieval vassalage. The player’s main goal is to increase his or her kingdom’s power by obtaining powerful vassals. Vassals can be put to use in kingdom buildings or in attacking and defending armies. A successful series of attacks can result in capturing a vassal of an enemy kingdom – the more powerful that vassal is, the harder it is to capture him/her. There are myriad ways that groups of players can assist or confront each other in the dynamic universe of Knighthood kingdoms. For example, alliance gameplay becomes very important at high levels.

Knighthood has almost all elements of a MMO PvP game yet delivers it as a pure browser-based experience.

How compatible are the different versions? Can I play Knighthood on Facebook against a Bebo user?

MS: It’s pretty easy on the technical side, yet it’s a bad move for social design. Let’s look at an example: you rescue a pretty girl from an evil dungeon. On the same social network you can message her afterward, exchange photos, and become friends. Now imagine she is on a different social network. You are no part of it. You can’t access any of her information. Your communication channel is closed. It sounds like a feature, while in practice it will only cause irritation to users. That’s one of the many secrets of social game design: one has to consider all implications of how games interact within the social context.

Knighthood lets players fight each other, capture each other, and rebel against…well, who exactly? Tell us how each of these gameplay elements come together within the game.

MS: It all happens against/with other players. There is a big hierarchy of kingdoms and vassals. A starting player is just a lowly Knight. If he collects enough vassals his power will grow to Baron. Then Viscount, Count, etc. Since the power requirements are exponential, there will far fewer Counts then Knights. Players can use all sort of strategies to gain power. War is definitely a popular one. Diplomacy and persuasion of other players is another. Many players genuinely help and nurture their vassals making them more likely to stay and invite friends into the same kingdom. All these strategies vie with each other for success in Knighthood.

Knighthood will be launched on social networks other than Facebook and Bebo. Other than MySpace (and YouTube/Twitter, if you consider them to be social networks), what other significant platforms are out there?

MS: Facebook and MySpace are definitely in a category of their own. The second tier is smaller networks (hi5, Bebo). Finally, there are regional networks like Orkut, Tagged, and few more. The biggest revenues are in capturing the Facebook and MySpace crowds, and then assuming economics [provided that] developers can get incremental value from deploying the games for the smaller networks.

Is it even possible to make a game for YouTube?

MS: The first rudimentary games are actually already on YouTube. If YouTube opens a rich enough social API in the future, there is nothing stopping developers from creating rich games there. So far, Google has been lagging behind tapping the potential of social media, yet I think they are also slowly moving in right direction.

Thanks for letting us share the Hive7 and Knighthood stories with your readers. For more information, players can visit www.hive7.com.

Thank you for your time.

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