5 ms·

What was your plan and what proof did you have that it would work?

by bigdubs 14y ago

michaelochurch 14y ago
Well, step back to summer 2011, when Facebook was facing social network fatigue due to, among other things, quality problems in content. This was especially a problem as related to games. People hated the Zynga games and the spam. Facebook had actually solved its spam problem by then, but reputation is a lagging indicator and people were pissed at Facebook about all the shitty games. We needed to brand Google+ as a high-quality social network. That was well-understood to be the strategy, and it was intended as a long-term campaign. Start highbrow, dumb down harmlessly. This wouldn't be hard, because its early adopters were Googlers, who tend to be high-quality people. What makes "social" so difficult for Google is that it's ideologically different from Search. In Search, you win if people get in and get out quickly. The less time they spend in getting through, the better you are doing. If you're a Facebook, though, you want people to spend time in your site. That's an ideological discrepancy between Google's very successful Search ideology (get the user in and out so fast the service is invisible) and what you need to do to win in Social. You also need to generate comfort among your users, which is hard to do and can't be forced. Google+ has a lot of awesome tech in it (cf. Hangouts). It's a really neat piece of software. But people need to get into the product and get "comfortable" so they can start exploring. Early adopters explore right away. Most users want to be comfortable first. Facebook achieved "comfort" within an Ivy League college. It was just a silly thing your friends would see. It didn't start out as a general-purpose social network. Google+ lacked that luxury. It came into the social network space as a fully-fledged product and it's harder to establish social "comfort" that way. People are more comfortable with things that develop organically (cf. boiled frog). This makes Games a critical battlefield. Games are a great way to bring people into the site, to get them comfortable, and to get them using the other goodies (e.g. Hangouts). If the games are good, they'll use your product a lot. It was also an arena in which Facebook seriously fucked up by not curating quality. Zynga damaged Facebook's reputation (and community quality, et al) in a major way. Mid-2011 was the nadir of its weakness on that issue. We needed to make that our strength by having some really awesome games. Where would we get them, though? Google did Games, but not with the focus on quality. Again, this is success in Search hurting in Social. Google is admirably non-editorial when it comes to Search. What the web thinks is important is important. If you send someone to a crappy website (that he thought he wanted) so what? 5 seconds wasted, and then he types in a different query. It hardly ruins Google's brand that there's garbage on the Web. Google's job is just to document and facilitate, not to curate (with Search). The problem with Games is that people are looking for quality, but game quality isn't visible until someone plays it for 30 minutes. If you deliver someone a stinker, he resents you for wasting half an hour of his time. He'll associate you with the shitty Zyngarbage and never log in again. We needed to curate, but that doesn't scale, and the people in charge of game selection (while strong in general technical and project-management competence) did not know how to pick games. So I came up with the Excellence In Games (EIG) initiative. Originally, I called it "Real Games" (a pun on Real Names). The idea was, instead of publishing dreck from mainstream publishers, who were giving us mediocre product because they didn't expect us to succeed, we court the independent developer community: the people who in 2013 are trolling Kickstarter for their 2D "retro" RPGs and German-style boardgames. We court these developers and give them a platform that does for them things they can't do for themselves, plus access to an enormous number of players. We also publish casual games, but only of high quality-- no Zynga dreck. By doing this, we create the image of being a gold standard for game quality. We keep the Google reputation-- we won't waste your time-- intact. The engineers on the G+ Games team were huge fans of EIG and wanted to implement that instead of working with Zynga (who are apparently miserable to partner with) but the senior execs were not fans of this proposal. However, they were proven wrong. Google+ Games failed. Google did the smart thing and covered, which is why you've never heard of Google+ Games, but it's still an enormous missed opportunity.
- Ntrails 14y ago
  "I do know a strategy that would have made it succeed because, when I was at Google, I proposed it." and "it [was] an enormous missed opportunity" are not the same thing.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Well, let me give some evidence of that. First, engineers familiar with the concept (including engineers responsible for working with Games) were unanimous in support of it. That's not proof of success in the market, but it's an indication. Engineers want to work on things they believe will succeed because it's good for their careers. No one thought Zyngarbage would improve the product. Now, can I prove, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that this would have made G+ more successful in the market? No, I can't. You can't prove a counterfactual. However, it would have clearly helped. Excelling is never a bad thing, and Google has the resources necessary to afford excellence's short-term costs. Making Games more excellent would have both (a) made Google+ more excellent, and (b) brought people into the service who might otherwise have had no interest in joining "yet another" social network. The Google way of doing things is to Excel First and Monetize Later. That's what they did with Search. It's what they needed to do with Social, but in Social, there's an added complexity... you actually need the people, and you need them to spend time in your product. So it's a different territory. Games are a great way to draw people into using a social network they wouldn't otherwise consider, but those Games need to be excellent enough to get repeat customers, so that people learn about all the other great things G+ offers (e.g. Hangouts). Since Google+'s problems have been brand-related rather than technical (the technology's fine) I think it's fairly obvious that EIG was The Missed Opportunity of 2011. There may have been others, but EIG was the marlin.
- bhousel 14y ago
  > Originally, I called it "Real Games" (a pun on Real Names). The idea was, instead of publishing dreck from mainstream publishers, who were giving us mediocre product because they didn't expect us to succeed, we court the independent developer community: the people who in 2013 are trolling Kickstarter for their 2D "retro" RPGs and German-style boardgames. We court these developers and give them a platform that does for them things they can't do for themselves, plus access to an enormous number of players. Wouldn't the "real" games also want to launch on Facebook (and mobile), eliminating your edge?

What was your plan and what proof did you have that it would work?

by bigdubs 14y ago

What was your plan and what proof did you have that it would work?

Well, step back to summer 2011, when Facebook was facing social network fatigue due to, among other things, quality problems in content. This was especially a problem as related to games. People hated the Zynga games and the spam. Facebook had actually solved its spam problem by then, but reputation is a lagging indicator and people were pissed at Facebook about all the shitty games. We needed to brand Google+ as a high-quality social network. That was well-understood to be the strategy, and it was intended as a long-term campaign. Start highbrow, dumb down harmlessly. This wouldn't be hard, because its early adopters were Googlers, who tend to be high-quality people. What makes "social" so difficult for Google is that it's ideologically different from Search. In Search, you win if people get in and get out quickly. The less time they spend in getting through, the better you are doing. If you're a Facebook, though, you want people to spend time in your site. That's an ideological discrepancy between Google's very successful Search ideology (get the user in and out so fast the service is invisible) and what you need to do to win in Social. You also need to generate comfort among your users, which is hard to do and can't be forced. Google+ has a lot of awesome tech in it (cf. Hangouts). It's a really neat piece of software. But people need to get into the product and get "comfortable" so they can start exploring. Early adopters explore right away. Most users want to be comfortable first. Facebook achieved "comfort" within an Ivy League college. It was just a silly thing your friends would see. It didn't start out as a general-purpose social network. Google+ lacked that luxury. It came into the social network space as a fully-fledged product and it's harder to establish social "comfort" that way. People are more comfortable with things that develop organically (cf. boiled frog). This makes Games a critical battlefield. Games are a great way to bring people into the site, to get them comfortable, and to get them using the other goodies (e.g. Hangouts). If the games are good, they'll use your product a lot. It was also an arena in which Facebook seriously fucked up by not curating quality. Zynga damaged Facebook's reputation (and community quality, et al) in a major way. Mid-2011 was the nadir of its weakness on that issue. We needed to make that our strength by having some really awesome games. Where would we get them, though? Google did Games, but not with the focus on quality. Again, this is success in Search hurting in Social. Google is admirably non-editorial when it comes to Search. What the web thinks is important is important. If you send someone to a crappy website (that he thought he wanted) so what? 5 seconds wasted, and then he types in a different query. It hardly ruins Google's brand that there's garbage on the Web. Google's job is just to document and facilitate, not to curate (with Search). The problem with Games is that people are looking for quality, but game quality isn't visible until someone plays it for 30 minutes. If you deliver someone a stinker, he resents you for wasting half an hour of his time. He'll associate you with the shitty Zyngarbage and never log in again. We needed to curate, but that doesn't scale, and the people in charge of game selection (while strong in general technical and project-management competence) did not know how to pick games. So I came up with the Excellence In Games (EIG) initiative. Originally, I called it "Real Games" (a pun on Real Names). The idea was, instead of publishing dreck from mainstream publishers, who were giving us mediocre product because they didn't expect us to succeed, we court the independent developer community: the people who in 2013 are trolling Kickstarter for their 2D "retro" RPGs and German-style boardgames. We court these developers and give them a platform that does for them things they can't do for themselves, plus access to an enormous number of players. We also publish casual games, but only of high quality-- no Zynga dreck. By doing this, we create the image of being a gold standard for game quality. We keep the Google reputation-- we won't waste your time-- intact. The engineers on the G+ Games team were huge fans of EIG and wanted to implement that instead of working with Zynga (who are apparently miserable to partner with) but the senior execs were not fans of this proposal. However, they were proven wrong. Google+ Games failed. Google did the smart thing and covered, which is why you've never heard of Google+ Games, but it's still an enormous missed opportunity.

Ntrails 14y ago
"I do know a strategy that would have made it succeed because, when I was at Google, I proposed it." and "it [was] an enormous missed opportunity" are not the same thing.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Well, let me give some evidence of that. First, engineers familiar with the concept (including engineers responsible for working with Games) were unanimous in support of it. That's not proof of success in the market, but it's an indication. Engineers want to work on things they believe will succeed because it's good for their careers. No one thought Zyngarbage would improve the product. Now, can I prove, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that this would have made G+ more successful in the market? No, I can't. You can't prove a counterfactual. However, it would have clearly helped. Excelling is never a bad thing, and Google has the resources necessary to afford excellence's short-term costs. Making Games more excellent would have both (a) made Google+ more excellent, and (b) brought people into the service who might otherwise have had no interest in joining "yet another" social network. The Google way of doing things is to Excel First and Monetize Later. That's what they did with Search. It's what they needed to do with Social, but in Social, there's an added complexity... you actually need the people, and you need them to spend time in your product. So it's a different territory. Games are a great way to draw people into using a social network they wouldn't otherwise consider, but those Games need to be excellent enough to get repeat customers, so that people learn about all the other great things G+ offers (e.g. Hangouts). Since Google+'s problems have been brand-related rather than technical (the technology's fine) I think it's fairly obvious that EIG was The Missed Opportunity of 2011. There may have been others, but EIG was the marlin.
bhousel 14y ago
> Originally, I called it "Real Games" (a pun on Real Names). The idea was, instead of publishing dreck from mainstream publishers, who were giving us mediocre product because they didn't expect us to succeed, we court the independent developer community: the people who in 2013 are trolling Kickstarter for their 2D "retro" RPGs and German-style boardgames. We court these developers and give them a platform that does for them things they can't do for themselves, plus access to an enormous number of players. Wouldn't the "real" games also want to launch on Facebook (and mobile), eliminating your edge?