"Draw something" this burst of red guessing word games behind, is a brutal entrepreneurial logic.
Reporter _ Wang Hongyu Beijing report
"Sell this lump of excrement, have the proof, turn back again with the bad guys nonsense." ”
, the 45-year-old CEO of Omgpop, Dan Potter, a loyal fan of the TV series, wrote the lines of the heavy-tasting gangster play to the door of every room in the company-for example, the above sentence.
March 22, a bit like "house Doctor" Dan, Sullenly pushed away the "dung", "nonsense" glass door, walked into a conference room, and the people of Zynga to interview. Behind the door slammed closed a word: "I was not born to play your son." ”
in fact, Dan Potter no reason not happy. Just a few hours ago, he sold the company, which had only dozens of employees, 210 million dollars to a giant Zynga, which has a market capitalisation of more than 20 billion dollars, a global monthly active subscriber 235 million, and its hottest game, Words with Friends. Has more than 8.6 million daily active users and is a small game champion on Facebook.
but this is nothing compared to the Draw something (you draw my guess). February 6 After the online, the game quickly jump red, a short 6 weeks download on the breakthrough 30 million times, active users more than 10 million, March 17 replace the "Words with Friends" Become a new king.
now, on the Apple and Androping stage, the Draw something sits on a charge and a free four download championships. This is the madness that app never had.
4 days later, the Zygna has bought the aggressive challenger.
old thing
"You draw me guess" is not a new game. The prototype of the game, even 30 years ago, is a variant of what Westerners like to "Guess the word" (charades) and is popular with many TV variety shows.
Even on the Internet, this kind of play is not new. As far as Google 2010 Android application selection won the runner-up "What the Doodle", near the "Mixel" and "Hangman", and even the domestic Baidu's small game platform, there have been similar ideas, some of them exquisite, some simple, but most tepid. For example, the Lithuanian game maker On5 produced "Charadium 2", the play and "Draw something" is the same, but the game listed for several months, active users on Facebook only 1000 people a day, but the latter one out of 10,000.
even for Omgpop, "Draw something" is not the first attempt to enter the field of graffiti guessing words. More than 1 years ago, Omgpop on his own website launched a "Draw mything" game, it and you draw I guess the biggest difference is that with many similar games, in order to increase the competitive and game, the time limit the painter can not be more than a minute.
"Fragmentation" and "non-gaming" is a key element of Draw something. Dan Potter said that part of the game's creativity comes from the passing games that his son plays with his friends, and Potter buys ice cream for them if they are able to kick the ball 100 times in succession. This inspired his creativity to do a hilarious, completely without winning concept and "can let high school boys use it to provoke girls" game.
So, a no rankings, no continuous checkpoints, no cooperative experience, more like social applications of the "game" was born. But owning them is far from enough.
Miracle
in the numerous media reports on "Draw something", the most talked about is Omgpop founder Charles Forman on the eve of mergers and acquisitions bank deposits only 1700 U.S. dollars of the bridge segment. In these descriptions, Charles gave the impression of a retired deserter, a 5 million jackpot winner.
but before leaving, the "deserter" has raised more than 17 million dollars for the company, which has produced 35 games but has yet to pick up, from Spark Capital and Betaworks, Rho Capital and SoftBank, And some of the most prestigious independent investors, such as Digg founder Kevin Rose, the legendary Ron Conway, who has invested in Google and Groupon, have "saved omgpop many times in distress."
before Foreman left, he also found a competent CEO Dan Potter for the company. Dan Potter was an active entrepreneur when he was a student, and when he joined Omgpop, he had a magazine called Inside Startups, which focused on entrepreneurs, and a socialflow investor who "managed the tuba" on Twitter. Company for a social gaming company, the significance of the extraordinary. Dan· Porter's understanding of social games was demonstrated by his advice during the media coverage of the MySpace crisis: "Reducing the proportion of entertainment content, adding social gaming platforms, and enriching the various applications of mobile clients".
of course, Omgpop is not obscure, the 2009 times of the 50 best websites, there is its figure. This magnificent, experience excellent, the home page has a large number of flash games site, loading speed is ranked in the top 8% of the world. Website "Play games, make friends, date!" "The thrust also attracts a large number of younger generations that are not coincident with Zynga.
all factors add together to create the "Draw somthing" miracle: AOL took 9 years to reach millions of users, Facebook spent 9 months, and "Draw somthing" only 9 days.
Select
danger still exists. Like all hit social games, "Draw somthing" began to show its decline after 10 days of being bought by Zygna. Although Omgpop has added vocabulary to the update, plans to increase the game's chat, color, image preservation and other functions, and through the implantation of more brand words to gain some of the advertising revenue, and even plan to participate in a television entertainment, but this is not enough to continue the current growth.
and for Zynga, the Silicon Valley's "Tencent", "data-driven product decisions" is a long-standing principle. As the only Omgpop former employee Shay Pierce, who did not take refuge in Zygna, said, "its purpose is not to create value, but to create money." It is not interested in developing games, but is interested in the stock market game. They see the player as a brain remnant and a developer as a tool. It's not the only way to do it, but it does fit my definition of evil. ”
It is hard to judge whether Omgpop's choice is right or wrong. This year, Rivio, the Angry Bird, rejected a zygna of about 2.25 billion dollars, and PopCap, the plant War Zombie, didn't sell itself at 950 million dollars. But read the vicissitudes of the Dan Potter uncle, made his own judgment.
as the "line of Fire" in the stark reality and the end of no suspense is known for the police gangster play, the most like to use the "peaceful" way to solve the problem of the drug dealer "proposal Joe" said: "This lump of dung is called business, a dollar to buy, two dollars to sell. ”
"Draw something" how to play
game using a double turn system model, a person responsible for drawing a person responsible for guessing what, whether guessed right or wrong, the identity of both sides of the next round will change. The player can find an opponent by random, designated username or email, because it takes a lot of time to draw a guess, so the game supports a few more games so that you can communicate with other opponents every moment.
game begins, the system will automatically give three difficult (simple, medium, difficult) nouns, players pick one, with their own impression as far as possible on the artboard described clearly. After the other guessed, both sides can get the corresponding gold coins as a reward. Once you find these nouns too difficult, use the built-in prop bombs to replace the new words.
when you finish painting, the other person receives a video of the whole process from the moment you start painting to the end. After the other guessed, will also feedback his guessing the whole process, from his spelling and guessing speed, you can determine whether the player is a master.
if the other person is too complicated and the word is very long, the player can also use the bomb to eliminate the extra English letters. Once you meet those who express not clear, pick the most difficult, do not know how to draw the player, you can be next to his ID, from right to left to pull, you can resolve with his cooperation.
Why this fire
you draw my guess overnight fame, there are too many stories behind it, such as simple game concept, perfect social integration and free value-added business model. What is the attraction of this game? May we look at the product design Lab? Bonobo's analysis of the 7 design concepts, perhaps more inspiration:
1. It's fun to see a friend's embarrassment
This is a very clever design idea. The game will sync and not synchronized together, synchronization, you can see the other side of the operation process, especially can feel they can't draw or guess when the kind of dilemma.
2. There is no Back button, once entered you must complete the game
a lot of people play games like playing when they go back and see if there are other more fun games. "Draw Something" does not design a fallback path, it forces you to focus on the game.
3. No fixed time is set
The time of the
game is entirely in its own hands. When you wait for a bus, you can choose a very simple option that takes only a few minutes or 10 seconds, and when you have enough time, you can choose more complex and challenging options. This is crucial for playing games that kill time on mobile devices such as cellphones.
4. Opening a new game is a natural motivator that builds a cycle
you just need a few moves to start waiting for other friends to respond, what can you do at this time? Of course is to open a new game. So it always inspires people to keep on opening up new games, especially when many friends are playing.
5. Score is not important, what is really interesting is the process of guessing
Many games spend a lot of time designing scoring systems, which is a big drawback for a collaborative game. In fact, most people play games just hoping to enjoy the process. Once scores play a large proportion of the game, they hinder those who are not good at the game because they do not want others to see their disadvantage. "Draw Something" only wants the player to enjoy the guessing wait process.
6. You can play games with other strangers
Although the perfect integration with society is a factor in its success, in fact it has broken the current social relationship, and two people who don't know each other may be having a great time. It has no chat function, so it forces people to communicate by drawing and guessing the process.
7. The content of the play is easy to understand, not boring things
relatively, "Draw something" inside the choice of words are relatively easy to understand, which greatly reduced the user threshold. This is one reason why it is a pure English game, but it can be popular in more than 80 countries around the world.
Baffled Chinese user TOP10 word
(query for the highest growth of TOP10 words)
Hanks
Hambone
Hamwich
Paperbag
drumset
Paintcan
kneepads
Icepop
Toga
Oversold
data Source: Youdao dictionary
