SingStar franchise being rebooted as free-to-play later this year
Sony's London Studio director Dave Ranyard will reveal the SingStar franchise's reboot as a free-to-play series at next month's F2P Summit in London.
"Phase one was to launch SingStar as an app pinned to the PS3's cross media bar last October. Phase two is a complete redesign and overhaul of the whole game structure and UI for the digital and F2P age, which is due for release later this year," said Ranyard.
Remember, the first person to mention "Total Eclipse of the Heart" has to buy the songs for the rest of the night!
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16 September 2013
SONY TO REVEAL FREE TO PLAY SINGSTAR REBOOT AT F2P SUMMIT
10 October, RichMix, London - www.f2p-summit.com; Early bird ends 18 September
Sony's London Studio director Dave Ranyard will reveal at next month's F2P Summit how the iconic SingStar franchise is being rebooted thanks to a new free to play focus.
Dave's talk 'Rebooting SingStar as a Free to Play Game' will focus on how the brand has been reimagined from the ground up for the digital age. He will highlight the studio's learnings from releasing singstar as a f2p app on PS3 last year and discus how these have informed plans to reboot the SingStar franchise, streamlined for F2P commerce, with the aim of retaining existing users and attracting many more.
He explained: "Many of the best F2P experiences are built and designed from the ground up with F2P in mind from the start. Game and app stores are littered with the ghosts of games where f2p is a bolt-on. But what do you do if you have a strong game experience which you truly believe could become a great F2P game?
"In my session at the F2P Summit, I'm going to talk about what we have done to move SingStar from a traditional disc based game to a digital F2P game on PS3. Phase 1 was to launch SingStar as an app pinned to the PS3's cross media bar last October. Phase 2 is a complete redesign and overhaul of the whole game structure and UI for the digital and F2P age, which is due for release later this year."
Graham McAllister, founder of Player Research, is also confirmed for the fourth F2P Summit (www.f2p-summit.com), which takes place on 10 October at RichMix in Shoreditch, London, as is games journalist Guy Cocker who will chair a powerful end of conference roundtable debate alongside UKIE chairman Andy Payne and Osborne Clarke partner Paul Gardner.
In Graham McAllister's session - Free-to-Play Monetisation: A Player Psychology Perspective - delegates will learn practical tips for creating a successful F2P experience from the perspective of an expert in player psychology and behaviour. Graham will reveal how to avoid the design mistakes of games that fail to monetise as well as learn from the successes of the best in the business. During his talk, he will also share Player Research's internal model for understanding and structuring the player experience and how it can be used to explore players' journeys from first launch to their first IAP and beyond; identifying common sticking points, barriers to monetisation, best practices and actionable guidance at every stage.
Games journalist Guy Cocker will be joined by Andy Payne, chairman, UKIE; Paul Gardner, Osborne Clarke; and Andrew Lim, CMA Megacorp to debate the highly emotive and contentious issue of marketing apps to children in the end of conference roundtable session: How Should You Monetise Children's Apps? The panel will debate the ethical and legal challenges and ask whether the industry needs a system that's vetted and targeted at children, or whether clear standards and self-policing will suffice.
Dave, Graham and Guy join cyberpsychologist Berni Good, author and games consultant Nicholas Lovell, Game Analytics' Mark Robinson for the event, which is framed around three themes - player behaviour, monetisation and design. The final two sessions will be announced shortly.
