Applied Media Research - Onteca

This week we had our second question from a company in the media industry - Onteca.
On their website Onteca describe themselves thus:
'Onteca is an independent games development studio based in Liverpool that was established in 2001. We produce innovative top-tier Casual games and applications for Nintendo Wii, iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, Android, Facebook and IPTV.'
Jon Wetherall from the company came in to speak to us about the question that he had for the class. Firstly, he discussed the development of computer games through the ages.

I found a diagram that illustrates pretty much what we were talking about in the first half of the lecture:

Digital Fiction Factory had a long presentation to show about themselves and about our questions; but Onteca was more of a talk through of the information.

What Onteca specialise in are apps and app based media. They have recently created the game 'Monsteca' for WiiWare. They also created the 'Big Quiz' range that people can download to their iPhone or Android phone. Their strategies for enticing customers is allowing the game to be free but then having content that can be payed for to make the games for exciting. This gets the people in, but then persuades them to spend money on various items to get further in the games.

The questions that we were given today from Onteca were:

What new models are there for selling media? When people download so much media freely, what are people willing to pay for and how? What are and what can we learn from the best monetization mechanics for Freemium games on mobile?

My Reflection

Personally I didn't really like this question because the pitch didn't really grab me. I didn't feel like I could get interested because Jon himself was not very enthusiastic about the subject himself until towards the end; however by that point I had lost interest and was frankly bored. Yes I have said I don't really like the over use of PowerPoint presentations; but I would have liked some more substance to his pitch so that I could get a feel for what he wanted from our research.

You Lean Something New Everyday

Less isn't always more guys!

Speak Soon!

Image courtesy of www.onlineeducation.net