Playground Antics

That's right. We also have retail components for all of our games, like payment cards - but also a trading card game that's directly related to the online world. So parents and grandparents know the property, they give it to the kid as a present. The kids know what to do with it - the parent doesn't know to go online, scratch a card, fill in codes... so the retail model is still the same. Once the kid is playing and the parent knows it, it's easier to create a subscription or allowance.

And because it's a television series - Disney HD is broadcasting Galactik Football - we're going to integrate the game entrance into the broadcaster's portals. That way we get the user in through a trusted brand, which is for us the most important marketing you can get.

So for parents the most we can do for trust is to create a safe environment, give parents controls - but other than that we don't claim to be educational. We make entertainment.

We really do focus on safety in the world - we go a little step further, it's not just that it's safe, but the parents can also control the behaviour of their kid. They can dictate how long they play per day, they can buy credits and get a daily or weekly allowance, we have a fully automated moderation system - CrispThinking, which Sony Online Entertainment is using, and it's really important - the parents don't even know it's there.

The most important aspect, though, is that the kid likes the game. If he likes it, likes playing it, then he'll play as long as his parents allow him to play.

I think one of the threats for the browser-based industry is that it's still a bit of a Wild West. There are a lot of products that I don't think give a lot of value to the players - they're basically out there to take you for all your money as quickly as possible.

There was the whole social gaming thing, with the Zynga scam - you run a risk at this point that the whole segment of the industry is perceived as a little bit dodgy, full of cowboys.

I think you shouldn't underestimate the ability of kids - content shouldn't be childish. It's aimed at kids, but kids aspire to being older. For example, our avatars looked pretty young - our designers made them the same age as the kids, about 12 or so - but we found that the kids who were playing didn't want to look like that.. but you can't make it too sexy, so it's a very fine balance.

You also need to create a quality product, and something that will challenge them - even if they're eight or ten. What I've noticed is that if you challenge kids they'll be hungry for more, and that way you get them in, let them keep playing, and have different stages in your product. Hopefully it'll be engaging enough that you've made a grown-up game with a children's theme. That's rare - mostly people just make something young.

It's a challenge for the industry to not let that segment be dominated by cynical, marketing-driven, cheaply-made stuff just to buy into a movie or series. Really high quality kids' entertainment is a challenge, because you don't have the marketing budget of a Transformers spin-off, or whatever.

For us, we're gamers - we want to see good quality products, so we've invested a lot of time and money, more perhaps then a lot of competitors. But I hope enough other people will do that as well.