Ubisoft CEO: Smurfs & Co. gained 4.2 million players with no marketing

And now, The Smurfs Co. is sitting pretty with over 9 million monthly players since its launch just over a month ago. During an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot revealed, “Smurfs went from zero to 4.2 million without marketing in two weeks.”

While these might not be The Sims Social numbers, it speaks volumes to the power social games with strong brands behind them have on Facebook. This is especially considering Ubisoft conducted zero advertising (the main method of growth for Facebook games these days) for The Smurfs Co. in that time period. That’s the power of The Smurfs for ya, I guess.

Guillemont continued,” So it’s amazing how fast, when the content is adapted, those products can grow. So it really shows that people are very interested by new content in games. So we will continue to develop and make sure the quality of the game experience is adapted to what people are looking for.”

In other words, the best way to for a Facebook game to grow is the keep it current, according to Guillemont. (So, that’s why Zynga updates its games incessantly!) The Ubisoft boss went on to reveal to GamesIndustry.biz just why it’s in on the rapidly growing free-to-play and social games movement: “In the long term there’s no reason why the casual would not overcome the hardcore business because there are more people that are interested in buying casual.”

So, if you ask Guillemont, casual (and free-to-play) are the way to go, which already accounted for 40 percent of the company’s revenue in 2010. And Ubisoft is certainly not alone–EA has already spent over $1 billion on Facebook and mobile games, which is looking to already be paying off. Other traditional companies are slowly dipping their feet, while a legion of originally hardcore game designers have Facebook Credits twinkling in their eyes.

Does this mean no more Assassin’s Creed or Ghost Recon for the hardcore crowd? Of course not, but I’m willing to bet that it does mean far more blue creatures in white hats in a not-so-little place called Facebook.

Do you agree that casual games could overtake hardcore games in the future? What do you think of The Smurfs Co. so far, what brands do you hope Ubisoft brings to Facebook next? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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How Google+ will Change Search.

How Google+ will Change Search.
By Alicia Whalen
Friday, 9th September 2011

Since the launch of Google+, Google search results have omitted Tweets and Facebook ‘Likability’ in its search results – but the question is will the consumer adapt to a new type of social network or are we too comfortable where we are?.

My guess is that Google will leave us no choice but to adapt, but usage will not be the same as Facebook and Twitter.  Some recent usage stats show that although Google+ launched strong that users and time on site is declining instead of growing.

I predict that Google+ will not be the either/or social network replacing Facebook, but will become a social search engine.

Google+ will most likely change search completely because the web as a whole has become socially integrated, with friend recommendations driving consumer engagement in content and thus high rankings in search and overall online visibility.

Google+ will give the search engine what has been missing, something that algorithms alone could not provide – aggregated data on consumer preferences, habits and interests as an indicator of relevancy.

Google is trying to do what they have done with content on the web from the start – organize content based on user preference. By aggregating the social web, Google is able to understand consumer behaviour like never before, and own the data – which is what makes Facebook so powerful.   Marketers have the ability to target their marketing messages based not only on user activity, but by circle of user’s activity, interests, social buzz – along with all of the other demographic information they have only been guessing about until now.

The number of Google+ likes that content has will affect ranking in both the paid and non-paid organic search results. If Google+ is adopted in the way the Google hopes, a Google+ “like” (for lack of a better term) will be an important indicator for ranking content as relevant.

If users adopt, Google+ will have access to consumer preferences, demographics and psychographics (much like facebook has gathered over the past few years) like never before. More than that, they will be able to tie that knowledge in to Google Adwords making it a marketing vehicle that will be able to serve almost personalized ads based on what Google knows we like.

So the question is, will Google+ take over as the social engine of choice?

Of course Google is hoping for that – but Facebook is not going anywhere. Facebook has been so widely adopted by consumers that I predict it will maintain and continue to grow its user base.  It will be interesting to see though how Facebook will evolve from here. Perhaps Facebook should add a search engine? (back at ya Google!)

Will users adapt?  Google+ needs to focus on integration into all their products and educating users about how to use their +’s.  My guess is that consumers will adapt, but not as a replacement to social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Times are certainly changing in search. It will be interesting to see if Google+ has enough mass appeal to bring Google to the next level…whatever that may be.  Make sure you Google+ this post, Tweet it and Like it on Facebook – now that’s alot of love to give – and I thank you for it!

Alicia Whalen is the co-founder of “A Couple of Chicks.Com” an Internet Marketing, Distribution Revenue Measurement Company. After 8 years developing search engine strategies and measuring online return on investment for large branded hotels, resorts and destination portal websites in Niagara Falls Canada, Alicia partnered with Patricia Brusha to develop an integrated, non-intimidating approach to Internet Marketing and Web strategy. 

www.ideahatching.com

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