This is the round-up from the Q&A session we had last weekend with Paul, Dave and Alex from The Casual Collective. Hopefully you all enjoy this series, and if you’ve missed any in the past you can also find them here:

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All About Casual Collective

Game Design & Development

Micro-Transactions, Mochi Coins and more

The Business & Industry of Flash Games

All About Casual Collective

If you had to change the name of the Casual collective what would you rename it? <Eagames>

Dave: I can’t remember the names we rejected, and I am not sure how important a name is to be honest, we probably spent way too long debating it. We would like a shorter domain name but the.cc was taken and is not for sale.

About how many messages do u get on cc everyday ? <mochi_user______>

Dave: Depends on what we are doing, it can range from as little as 10 to over 100, we do read them all but can’t replay to all of them of course.

would you ever employ any one to just go into chat rooms on the net and get people to join the CC and pay the person in your employ with Ccredits? (bats eyes) <Eagames>

Dave: Quite simply, no. There are far more efficient ways such as advertising.

Both of you (Paul Preece & David Scott) are from England. Has that influenced the games you have created? <Comedian>

Dave: Probably, but not at a conscious level. People tell us our sense of humour in the games is very British, but I am not sure what that means :)

What are some advantages you got from teaming up, any downsides <NPGames>

Dave: Advantages: Someone to chat to about games full time, helping each other with code and testing, not competing ;) Disadvantages: Having to look at Pauls face accross the desk every damn day! ;) And I guess you lose a little freedom in the decision making, but not much. We still work on our own games, there is very little cross coding. It’s a little hard (we find) for more than 1 person to work on the code for flash game at the same time. And Paul and I have 2 completely different styles of coding which don’t mix well :)

what do they see themselves doing games wise in 5 , 10 years time will it still be PC based <mochi_user____>

Dave: I don’t think anyone can see that far into the future in this industry. Who would have thought people would be paying to buy virtual items in flash games 2 years ago? In a years time we would like to have some more games under our belt and a reasonably big team of talented flash devs.

Have you thought of selling CC merchandise, such as hats, t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc… and if so, when are we going to see it happen? <thebigone>

Dave: Members have asked for it, maybe one day.

Have you ever been stalked/recognised in public by a member of the site? – Lol69 <mochi_user______>

Dave: Sadly no, I would love to be recognised. We have been to several ‘CC Meets’ in San Francisco, Canada and New York, they have been great fun.

Alex, anything on the todo list to make the site more iPhone compatible? Currently we’re unable to shout or post using Mobile Safari. – And well, Minions doesnt work either, but that isnt your fault. <mochi_user____>

Alex: Sure, I will add that to my to-do list.

When did you (Dave) and Paul decide to start a partnership and why? <Eagames>

Dave: We had success with our TD’s which gave us enough courage to quit our jobs at around the same time, it made sense to join forces. We had known each other for around 3 years prior (we met at a LAN party). The CC was born in May 07.

Anyone: What is a lesson you have learned that you wish you knew a few years ago? <CptRootbeer>

Dave: If I could send an email to myself back when we were in Pauls kitchen trying to think of a name for the company it would contain the following: <info on advertising been replaced by virtual goods> <link to wiki about minimum viable product> <link to wiki about lean startups> <lottery numbers for the next 10 draws>. And maybe ‘cut back on the chocolate’ ;)

Why are you moving to the USA, we UK’ers will miss you? <Eagames>

Dave: To be closer to the action, there are a lot of flash devs and companies doing similar things to us in SF. A lot of the people we talk with daily are in SF so it would be nice to do it face-to-face, and the weather is nice.

When and why did CC-Alex join the team?  <Eagames>

Alex: I joined in April 2008, up until then Dave had been coding the site, and he wanted more time to spend creating games, so I was brought in to take over the site and help with many, many other bits and pieces :) Dave: Plus we knew the site would not be able to grow written in ASP, and I don’t want to learn PHP. Plus we get a fallguy for whenever anything goes wrong ;)

You must work long hours, what do your wives think of this? <mochi_user__>

Dave: I suspect ‘mochi_user___’ is my wife :) They are flash game widows and have come to accept it.

If you where a minion what one would you be? <Eagames>

Paul: Shouty for obvious reasons

Back in December you guys took some seed funding, can you share your experience in working with VC investors and what that capital injection has allowed you to do? <Chris___> and will you ever , EVER sell the Cc ? if so WHY! ? :) <Eagames>

Dave: Our VC (Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed) is very hands-off and so there is little change to the way we work, and I think our decisions have also been uninfluenced. No, we have no plans to sell but who knows, it’s a valid exit.

Have you got plans for the time when the CC grows too big for you to manage/maintain? <thebigone>

Dave: We plan to employ people when we move to the US and take more of a creative director roll as we grow. It scales quite well as you can have quite small teams all working on different projects.

What is the typical day at the CC like? <Eagames>

Dave: I stand over paul, fighting back the fail….. We get in around 10, check emails/twitter/FB, open our game projects and get to it. Lunch at 12/1 and then back to work. We tend to have calls to people in the US around 5/6 and we end on a skype call with alex to plan out the next days goals. We have just started using sprints / agile to plan our weeks.

Ada: Just so you guys know what the hat looks like — http://img39.yfrog.com/i/rw8v.jpg/

Paul: The tin foil hats do not work as well as advertsied.

Yeah that’s what we’ve found, the business can really scale as quickly as you can manage given we all create our own workload :) How many full-time equivalent people in your team now?<Chris_>

Dave: Full time people now = 4 (Paul, Me, Alex and Ian)

You guys are old hands in the business and have seen lots of change. Where do you see the industry going in the next 12-18 months? <Chris_>

Dave: I hope, now the money is in virtual goods, that people will start making higher quality flash games to justify asking people to pay and the portals are less about the latest and more about the greatest content. It is such a shame when you spend a couple of months making a game, put it on protal X and it is gone from their homepage in a week. As game quality goes up people will be more accustomed to paying for casual games, which is good for everyone in the industry. But who would have thought 2 years ago that people would actualy pay for content in flash games?! Who saw that coming? So who knows where we will be in 12-18 months :)

Game Design & Development

Do you think keeping the editor to your site hindered the games ability to spread? <NPGames>

Dave: I assume you are talking about Splitter2 / Push? I don’t think so, we did not A/B test it so can’t say for sure. We asked people to come back to our site to create levels and that got us a whole bunch of new accounts.

David: The one thing you want is a better IDE for a flash competitor? Do you see Silverlight (with visual studio) as a competitor now? <CptRootbeer>

Paul: I am a huge fan of Visual Studio, coding in it is a dream (MS are very good at making dev enviroments) however Silverlight does not have the user base to even think of considering it for our next game titles.

Your games have a very strong emphasis on multiplayer. What platform are you running on and how do you scale up and down as new games enjoy an initial surge in popularity before stabilizing. <5minutesoff forums>

Paul: We use SmartFox for our backend multiplayer communication. Sadly we are having some problems with it scaling, we are investigating alternatives like Electoserver. We use Amazon EC2 so can add servers when needed and remove them when done.

How did you come to realize the idea behind Tower Defense games? Was it inspired by another game you have played before? <mike950f>

Dave: We first played TD games in Warcraft III Frozen Throne. I say ‘first played’ I mean we played them pretty much every night for months :) FETD and DTD are inspired by TD mods in WC3. I wanted a TD fix at work but couldn’t find one built in flash, so I thought ‘how card could it be?’ and set to work. I was sending Paul tech demos as I created the game, Paul was also play testing it for me. Once I launched and it became popular Paul thought ‘If Dave can do it how hard could it be?’ and started work on DTD.

How many servers is CC run on? <thil13>

Dave: We have some on Amazon’s cloud, 1 at Rackspace and a coupld somewhere else, we keep moving things around to see what works best. Amazon EC2 is pretty cool, I would recomend it for people starting out, or use mochi to host your swf for free :)

How important is the name of a flash game, and how do you come up with them? <Happyfat>

Dave: With names like ‘The Space Game’ they are clearly not important to us :) With hindsight DTD would have been called something with more unique words than ‘Desktop’ and ‘Tower’ but the name and theme are the last things we think of. Names & themes & graphics all come second to how the game plays. We get the game working first and then think about names etc. Tho ‘The Space Game’ was the working title, it just stuck :) Paul and others want me to rename ‘Desktop Creatures’ to something to do with Gnomes :/

If you could change anything about one of your games, what would it be? <thil13>

Paul: Our multiplayer server reliability =) Dave: The dev time of Minions ;o) I think in all honesty it would be to add some sort of virtual good / upgrade to all games we have made that don’t have anything you can pay for.

Where did the idea of the games involving the buggle characters come from and will there be more? <JamboHarv>

Dave: It was a simple shape to make, no arms, no legs :) And it sorta looked like it should be called a ‘Buggle’

Where do you come up with the ideas for your games? <Zodiac1233>

Dave: DTD + FETD were based on playing mods in WC3.  DA was a simple multiplayer test and Minions was a nod towards DotA (also a WC3 mod) so a lot of our games are inspired by gameplay we see in other less casual games I guess.

how long did it take to make minions?<zarato>

Paul: It went through 3 rewrites and took probably 8 months on and off. It changed shape so many times, it started out as a turn based game where you controlled a squad!

For Dave, after having the desktopcreatures domain name for so long, what made you want to finally start work on the game and what influenced the type of game it would be <JamboHarv>

Dave: I think the original title was ‘Desktop Wars’ and DTC sounded better and it was handy I had the name. As for what influenced it, playing games like Travian and Evony, spending a week+ working on the base, and then feeling VERY let down by the attacking (send army, get text report) also the base building was very static and limited. It was not the game I wanted to play. So work began on DTC.

How important do you think is to make a level editor for your games? How many percentage of the players will actually make levels? Do players really play the levels made by other players? <coollavagames> and Related to that, how well does level sharing (like splitter2) help you. and do you have any advice on making a system people will use <NPGames>

Dave: When we last counted we had 200k levels made in splitter 2, and they generated around 8m plays. So we would do it again if it made sense in the game. But then you can also make levels in push and that has not done so well, so it may be that physics based puzzle games lend themselves to level making and showing off. We made it so you could only make a level on our site and with an account, so it gave us a lot of new users.

How popular are your multiplayer flash games compared to single player flash games? How do you see multiplayer flash games business in the future? <coollavagames>

Paul: Harder to make, harder to scale, harder to balance, harder to publish. But…. they are very sticky when done right and create great communities. Plus they monetize better. We have made synchronous games but now we are focusing on asynchronous as they are esier to make andscale

What type of socket server are you guys using for your multiplayer games, and if it’s custom made, what programming language did you use? Thanks <CC-KingEdward>

Dave: Smartfox, it uses Java or AS1 <- yes, AS1! It gives us a hard time though, there must be better ones out there.

Would asynchronous also avoid problems with cursor response? <mochi_user__>

Dave: Yes, as you are not waiting on the other player for anything, that is the point of asynchronous. Turn based is the most simple form.

What is the hard part about coding a game? <thil13>

Dave: UI work always takes WAY longer than  you think it will (or it should).  Time spent doing things people take for granted (scrolling, things been locked if you cant use them, etc)

Paul: Which why I make Dave do all my UI work.

You mention minions changed alot. was this because of restrictions with flash? was there a solid game doc? <Digital_Vizions>

Dave: We don’t use design docs :) We work on an idea until it is fun. Minions took 3 attempts because it wasn’t fun. But most games come together over time. You have to trust your gut and work on the game until it is fun for you

How much time do you spent on the level design compared to the rest of the developement process? Especially in games like Splitter 2? <Taleph>

Dave: Level design always takes longer than you think, if possible, don’t do levels :) We now prefer to build sandbox type games that have a single level with some good rules and high replayability. Or make the level editor public :) About 40% of the time spent making buggle stars was spent making levels, and it took the fun out of making the game. Plus, and this is important, if you make a game with levels people finish it, and then stop playing.

If there were to be a technology platform to replace flash, what would it need? Is there anything on radar currently that could replace flash? <t2t2>

Dave: A good IDE, the one in flash sucks big time. It would also need equal or better uptake. We use ‘Flash Develop’ to code in, and it is great, but the error reporting in flash is mostly useless :(… mostly. ‘A variable is undefined in function X’ It would not be asking too much for a line number :)

Micro-Transactions, Mochi Coins and more

Any advice for pricing items? <NPGames>

Dave: In our new store we are going to very prices and find out the ideal price point on a per item basis. If we were real smart we would do this on a per country basis also as people in Japan may spend more on visual items compared to people in America who may spend more on functional items.

Most games with microtx seem to be generating a tiny % of sales while your success has led you to ditch conventional forms of revenue in favor of your own store / microtx system. What can you share with us about your experiences, what are you doing right, what is everyone else doing wrong? <5minutesoff-forums>

Dave: Multiplayer games seem to do much better than single player games, so I guess that’s what we are doing right. We also have a site with a good sized fan base which of course helps. I think it will just take a bit more time for people to be more comfortable parting with their money for content in flash games, we (the devs) just have to keep producing good content

It would be nice to get some stats on their microtransactions, and any general advice about it. <npgames forums>

Dave: In Minions on Ice we see an ARPU of $0.40. That is to say if you took all the money it made and divided it by all the people who played it you would end up with 40c. We believe this is quite good but it would be higher if we had un-capped spending (spending on items which expire or can be used up) right now once you have paid for everything there is no reason to spend any more money.

How successful have your virtual goods done, and what tips would you give to someone trying to sell in game items <NPGames>

Dave: They have done OK, there is always room for improvement, our best ARPU (money / players) is $0.40 for Minions on Ice. A top tip from us would be to not put a cap on how much people can spend, we have always made this mistake (you run out of things to spend BPs on in MoI) and it is a mistake we are trying not to repeat with future games.  Make the game fun, get the player familiar with using the shop, have items at many different price points, use bundles

You’ve had a chance to work with your own microtransaction model and mochi coins. Can you share thoughts on your experiences with both? <Chris___>

Dave: Advantage of ours is we can use it outside of flash games, and get 100% of the revenue (minus paypal and SR fees). But you can not use ours outside of our site ATM. Rolling your own is complicated of course (compared to working with someones API) and in the long term if your payment system has a low up-take then you may be hurting your sales compared to using a popular system where people are funding their wallets for other games and spending their change on yours.

You talk a lot about the importance of micro payments, but you hide that stuff in your games and on your portal very well. Why don’t you “advertise” the micro-payments more on your games and on your portal? <coollavagames>

Dave: Because we are learning. We have added a lot more advertising of purchasables on our site now. We have an ad running under Minions if you haven’t upgraded :) It is something we are working on, we are game devs so this is all quite new to us, but we are learning :) MochiCoins handles a lot of the heavy lifting so it makes sense for a Flash dev to use a 3rd party such as MochiCoins rather than code their own and then maintain it

What are the pros and cons in making your own systems (micro-payments, file hosting/distribution) compared to using something like Mochi Media? <coollavagames>

Paul: Like every API it has it’s quirks but they are expanding out and listening to feedback. Control & better rev share. If i was a lone flash dev and didnt have my own credit system, I would use mochi. Home grown payment systems are not an easy system to put in place though

Has Super rewards been a welcome addition to your site, from a business point of view, what are your thoughts on it in general? <JamboHarv>

Dave: It has increasd our income no doubt but it brings its own problems such as quality control. SR accounts for about 40% of spending on CCs (our currency) so it is a welcome addition. The more payment options you can give someone the better, I think habbo hotel have 500 ways to pay. We also have removed a lot of offers from SR that are not appropriate for our site, so be prepared to devote some time to it each week.

With competitive multiplayer games, how do you go about creating in game shop items, without hindering the competitive spirit, is there a set of rules you define for items such as, the type of purchase cannot make someone invincible, or perhaps not let someone buy items that are instant kill, or items that give additional health that say can be purchased multiple times, what are the limits such as, if you buy additional health +100 , do u let them buy that 10 times… to make it unlimited scaling <Tripknotix>

Paul: Either give everyone the abililty to ‘earn’ the bonus items or make everything balanced so that the new items are not better just different. In head-to-head games like Minions you can only sell items that don’t given an advantage. On co-op games you could, in fact a player on my team with a bigger and better weapon is a good thing, we do better. Plus you can also sell things that have no function at all for people to stand out or show off (we could add gold minions to the game for example). Or ninja minions

What type of shop items are purchased the most? items that do more damage, have a special ability, or visual upgrades/changes? <Tripknotix>

Dave: I don’t think we have enough experience to answer that tripknotix. Ask again in 1 year :)

The Business & Industry of Flash Games

Did you think Desktop Tower Defense would be so successful before releasing it? <mike950f forums>

Paul: I saw the success of Dave’s TD so I knew it had a chance of doing well, I was very pleased with its growth and spent many a night F5ing my stats page.

Do you thing there is a market for 3D in flash games <Digital_Vizions>

Dave: Of course, but it is not something we are interested in, it is a lot less casual in our opinion.

For those that are just getting into sponsorships, do you think its wiser to make your first games Ad based with minor microtransactions for ingame ads, or try and sell your game as awhole, because its very hard to go with the first ones, with the amount of money possible in selling to sponsors <tripknotix>

Dave: Thanks to people like Flash Game License it is now possible to get a reasonable amount of money selling you game, probably a lot more than you would make from advertising. Just make sure you hold onto the source and the IP. I would seriously look into adding virtual goods to your game if you think it is good enough to justify it.

Did you have a moment when you just thought, “This game is going to be huge!”? <CptRootbeer>

Dave: FETD went to half a mill plays a day on it’s 3rd day, I had no idea it was going to be so viral. I think after day 1 I saw it going crazy so had a hint that it may become popular :)

You have made $100K off of Desktop Tower Defense, can you break that down? <Happyfat>

Paul: I have no idea how much DTD has made. But the breakdown would probably be around 1/3 in game ads, 1/3 on site ads, 1/3 sponsorship

For paul, do you think DTD or Minions is a bigger success. <JamboHarv>

Paul: DTD

Why did you remove ads from other sites from CC. Seems that you could make money from it? <thil13>

Paul: We like our members, maybe too much =)

Now that you have your own portal, how important is the traffic that comes from other portals like Kongregate? Do you advertise your portal any other way than just with your Flash games on other portals? <coollavagames>

Paul: A great idea does not make a great game, great mechanics do.

Dave: The Space Game was no fun till the last couple of weeks, till then it was joining circles with lines :) We do get a lot of users from other portals, about 3/4 of our game plays come from the games off-site. The games are the only ads we have. As in the classic ‘Play more games’ which links back to us, or the level editor in splitter 2 only working on our site.

Do you plan to make changes/improvements to older games to attract more players/old players that have stopped playing. <JamboHarv>

Dave: We are focused on new titles right now, we do plan to add extra things to MoI but we don’t plan to touch old games like FETD / TSG / DA

Do you get alot of international play? i ask this because i notice the asian market has diffrent taste in flash games <Digital_Vizions>

Dave: We have quite a few from Norway ATM :) And a good following from Japan. I think it is 40-50% US

Whats your cpm for your site and for your games for the year 2009? on average. <Happyfat>

Dave: Sorry happyfat, we can’t answer that. We can say advertising CPM is WAY down on 2008, to the point where we removed ads from our site as they were not worth it.