Q&A: Kongregate's Jim Greer Talks FaceBook Challenge Platform
Following Kongregate's announcement last week that it had secured $3 million from Bezos Expeditions, Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos' personal investment arm, for its social Flash gaming portal, the company revealed a new project designed to extend its presence on the web, the Facebook Challenge Platform.
Launched in 2006, Kongregate's site invites users to not only play and rate over 4,000 Flash games for free, but to create and share them using a "video games meets YouTube" model. Members who've registered at the site can also setup profiles, friends lists, and chat with others.
Points and badges are rewarded for completing specific challenges (achievements) in the different games, and users can even invite their friends to games they've played and send challenges. That social strategy has worked out well for Kongregate, as its users spend, on average, up to an hour, playing games at the site, compared to users visiting Facebook and ESPN, who on average stay at the respective sites for 21 and 12 minutes. Kongregate intends to add this communal aspect of its Flash game network to Facebook, integrating its games and features onto the social site. Due for a public release later this month, the Challenge Platform hopes to attract Facebook's huge user base to the Kongregate experience.
Worlds in Motion spoke to Kongregate CEO and co-founder Jim Greer about the platform's seamless integration with Facebook: "Anyone with a Facebook profile will be able to start playing our games immediately. They won't need to set up a Kongregate account beforehand. It will all be available through Facebook's application directory, just like a regular game." Even users who have no interest in the platform's social features will be able to enjoy the games with a casual, single-player "Play" mode.
Though the site already attracts over three million monthly unique visitors -- with that number expected to reach 10 million by 2009 -- Kongregate will be entering a market where several gaming networks have already established themselves. "We're not going head-to-head with people like Zynga who also do games on Facebook [with an advertisement-based model]. We can make a little money on ads, but our goal is to increase Kongregate's overall audience and presence."
Kongregate is also hoping to diversify its audience. A recent survey showed that 93% of visitors to Kongregate's site are male, with few of its available titles catering to women. Said Greer: "It's kind of an indie scene. Developers aren't necessarily making something like word games. Getting onto places like Facebook will help us reach a broader audience."
Titles like Dolphin Olympics 2 and Jumpcat, both of which will debut with the platform's launch, should appeal to that broader audience. Kongregate also plans to offer those two and seven other popular games from its network (Filler, Particles, Ragdoll Avalanche, MAD, Winged Bullet, and Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2). More titles will be released in the months afterwards, following the release of its Challenge APIs.
While any game from Kongregate's current network could be added to the Facebook Challenge Platform with only a day's worth of work, Greer assures us that there will be an approval process: "We don't want to just open it up because we don't want to flood Facebook with games that we don't think are appropriate."
Offering Facebook users more than just a chance to play its games, users will be able to compare high scores with friends and other people on Facebook, send challenges to friends, and earn badges to display on their profiles, much like they would be able to on Kongregate's site. Also, existing Kongregate users will also be able to pick up points and complete achievements on Facebook that will apply to their Kongregate account, and vice versa.
Kongregate doesn't see a need, however, to bring over the site's more hardcore features, such as in-game chatting and its Kongai collectible card game, which Greer feels is geared towards more "committed gamers."
