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<P>MULTI-PLAYER WEB GAMES ON A SHOESTRING</P>
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<P>The Story of CyberSkipper™</P>
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<P>#3403</P>
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<P>James P. Abbott jabbott@longshot.com
http://www.longshot.com</P>
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<P>© 1997 Inventure. Inc.</P>
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<P>CyberSkipper is a multiplayer baseball forecasting game that was
designed exclusively for publication on the World Wide Web on a
shoestring budget. It has grown, in just over a year, from an
unrealized idea to a reality that has now become an important part of
the relationship between thousands of fans in the ten markets where
Inventure has licensed the game to a Major League team and/or the
major interactive newspaper in the market. </P>
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<P> <I>What a Game! Cyber Skipper is one of the best sites on the
Internet. I have been an Orioles Fan for my entire life and I have
never tracked player statistics as I do now. Cyber Skipper makes
baseball games more exciting and enjoyable to follow.
Jami Casamento Fri, 21 Jun 1996 </I></P>
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<P>The growth of CyberSkipper has been accomplished principally with
the use of intellectual capital -- and without the use of any venture
capital. This paper explains why the Web was chosen as the medium
for CyberSkipper, what software was created, and how CyberSkipper was
bootstrapped into existence.</P>
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<P>WHY THE WEB?</P>
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<P>CyberSkipper takes advantage of the Web's great strengths in
database management and prompt information delivery. Play on
CyberSkipper is almost completely asynchronous, permitting thousands
of players to play each day without suffering any disadvantage
because others played before them, and without causing delay in play
while waiting for others to move.</P>
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<P>Thus, CyberSkipper allows competitive multi-player play without
ever gathering everyone together at one time. At the same time,
because its design does not rely on instantaneous reaction time, it
avoids any significant negative impact from the latency period
between a player's moves on his client computer and the response from
the server.</P>
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<P>CyberSkipper also benefits from the ability of the Web to control
a relatively complex set of variables, and make the game appear quite
simple to players. This is accomplished through the use of an
interactive playing grid that guides play in accordance with the
rules of CyberSkipper.</P>
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<P>MARKETING ON THE WEB: </P>
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<P> The Importance of Branding</P>
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<P>CyberSkipper was marketed under a plan that placed great reliance
on the economies of Web publishing: the low cost of production and
the low cost of distribution. The same plan recognized, however,
that one of the most important and prohibitive costs associated with
game publishing are those connected with marketing and promotion, and
that although there are many ways to market though the Web, there is
an ever increasing problem with clutter and confusion. The very fact
that it is easy and cheap to produce for the Web ensures this. As
millions and millions of pages are added each month, Web search
engines are hopelessly overmatched. Bottom line: without a powerful
marketing campaign there would no way to ensure that even the best of
games would not die of loneliness. </P>
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<P>Because the Web does not have an effective way to reduce marketing
expenses, Inventure addressed the need for promotion and marketing of
the game by creating a game that served the goals and objectives of
the major brand-holders in the target niche -- Major League Baseball
teams. It then presented the game to those brand-holders on terms
that were attractive enough to earn the powerful partnership of the
Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, Oakland Athletics, and Los Angeles
Dodgers before the game was even six months off the drawing board.
</P>
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<P>The key to these relationships lay in the decision, early in the
design process, to equip CyberSkipper to function as a marketing
tool, not just a fun game. Fortunately, the objective of creating a
fun game and the goal of creating an effective marketing tool were
nicely congruent in this case. CyberSkipper was designed to enhance
team loyalties and drive traffic to Web sites. But it could not have
been marketed this way had the game not been fun to play. </P>
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<P> A Broad Audience Within a Narrow Niche</P>
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<P>CyberSkipper was developed in order to serve the fantasy sports
game market -- a clearly identified niche audience present in large
numbers on the Web. Inventure sought, however, to avoid direct
competition with others in this niche by creating a game that was
fundamentally different in design from the Rotisserie™ style
games that had come to dominate the market. CyberSkipper was designed
to allow fans of a particular Major League Baseball team to play a
fantasy baseball game -- or, as we prefer to call it, a baseball
forecasting game -- based entirely on the play of one Major League
team. This had not been done before. </P>
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<P>All prior "Rotisserie™" style games required that game
players build their fantasy team out of players drawn from all over
both Major Leagues. This rule divided the team loyalties of those
who did play. Because of this, Rotisserie™ games were not
attractive allies of baseball franchises. CyberSkipper focused on
enhancing the relationship between fans and their team, and therefore
had a powerful story for prospective partners.</P>
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<P> <I>I think you guys have come up with a great game, and a nifty
way to keep busy fans interested in the braves.... Also, do you
guys plan on keeping this game going next year when the season
starts? hope so!!! DANIEL BALDWIN Sun, 04 Aug 1996</I></P>
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<P>The rules of Rotisserie™ style games also narrowed the target
audience to baseball zealots with knowledge of all teams.
CyberSkipper sought to broaden its audience by making a game that
could be played by game players with only a limited knowledge of
baseball. Because a CyberSkipper player only needs to know the
players on his or her favorite team, many more fans self-qualify to
play. CyberSkipper continued to seek the loyalty of aficionados, and
it accomplished this not only because of its underlying complexity,
but also because of its prompt feedback and its direct relationship
with the play of each separate game during the season. </P>
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<P>Finally, Inventure sought to broaden the audience of CyberSkipper
by designing play so that the game could be started, and played
competitively, at any point in the season. This was a remarkably
successful strategy, as almost 4,000 Atlanta Braves fans joined the
game even though the Braves version of CyberSkipper did not appear on
the Web until late July.</P>
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<P> The value of a dynamic daily data input event</P>
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<P>For games to become popular, they need to be played repeatedly.
For games to be useful as a marketing tool, games need to be played
repeatedly. The program that runs CyberSkipper was developed by
Inventure in order to permit the company to hinge the game around the
statistics that are generated each day by the play of Major League
Baseball teams, and that are reported in the form of "boxscores."
By identifying the boxscores as a critical dynamic data input event
that would recur each day, day after day, through the six month Major
League Baseball season, Inventure was able to utilize real time, real
world variables in order to determine the outcome of the CyberSkipper
games each day. At the same time, Inventure guaranteed that the
principal motivation for people to return to the game each day would
be created dynamically out in the real world, and would not have to
be generated out of the game itself. Every announcement of the
baseball games to be played each day also reminded existing players
to return to CyberSkipper.</P>
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<P> <I>Just a note to say how much I enjoy the Cyberskipper game. I
have been playing Oriole ball all season and I must admit, the
first thing I check each morning is my results from the night
before. Internet Maine Thu, 26 Sep 1996</I></P>
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<P>This meant not only that Inventure could tie its marketing push to
a pre-existing promotional engine -- Major League Baseball in local
markets -- but also that it could devise a game in which the core
game event was already of intense interest to the target audience.
CyberSkipper did not have to generate interest in its content out of
thin air. Millions of people already cared deeply about the baseball
game results that drove the CyberSkipper engine. CyberSkipper merely
gave them a chance to feel even more strongly about the games,
because now they were interacting with them on an almost real-time
basis. </P>
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<P> <I>Cyberskipper is a great idea. Have been a Yankees fan since
1960 but like many had become disillusioned with what was going
on. I've coached H.S.baseball for 20 years,but other than the
Yankees hadn't really been keeping up with baseball even though I
get U.S.A. Today Baseball Weekly. Now my 10 year old son and I keep
up with everything daily. How many more teams will you be adding?
If you get too many my wife is liable to shoot me. Kenny Collins
Sun, 18 Aug 1996</I></P>
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<P>CyberSkippers now can watch a baseball game with two objectives
that are not inconsistent: they can root for their home team and they
can root for themselves to be proven the most knowledgeable and savvy
of fans. This has never been true for Rotisserie™ style games,
because in such games players always had to divide their loyalty
between their home team and the players on the opposing team who were
on the game players' fantasy team. Because CyberSkipper is more
deeply centered in the play of real teams, the game is more properly
called a "forecasting" game, not a fantasy game.</P>
<P>Moreover, a Web game based upon dynamic daily data input from the
real world had the appeal of removing pure randomness from the
variables that drive play. Historically, games range from those
based upon chance, such as casino games, to those of skill, such as
chess. Basing a game on a dynamic database that appears almost
random, but that is generated in fact by events that are to a large
degree predictable, creates a unique game of skill -- and the skill
lies not only in the ability to forecast, but also in the ability to
maximize by strategic play, the return (in game points) from a
correct forecast.</P>
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<P> <I>I'm in the middle of writing my dissertation final draft
which I defend on October 15. I really shouldn't be paying so much
attention to this game, but it is addictive. Just don' t go
announcing my name as winner :-) until AFTER I deposit my thesis!
My advisor would wonder.... Dave Bott Wed, 11 Sep 199</I></P>
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<P>Baseball players tend to recreate their statistical performances
year and year throughout their careers. These statistics, as well as
information identifying for each hitter the pitchers against whom he
tends to perform well and poorly, are available. This creates a very
happy blend. The newcomer can play intuitively and have fun, while
the veteran can apply his or her skill and knowledge to make
strategic plays based upon calculated probabilities. </P>
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<P>It was no coincidence that last year the CyberSkipper short-term
contests (in which players all started from scratch, again and again
throughout the season) repeatedly saw the same players scoring in the
top ten (among thousand of players). This evidence of learned skills
promises a bright future for ventures that generate games with an
educational purpose based upon other dynamic databases of relatively
predictable information -- especially if the information is more
important (if not more engaging) than the morning boxscores. People
can and do learn from games. Moreover, these games can be created and
marketed at low cost in partnership with brand holders who already
have a following, and who have an interest in intensifying the
involvement of those followers and expanding the size of that
group.</P>
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