“Parents of young kids in the US tend to be more strict about the use of games than they are about other media, other entertainment sources,” Clark Stacey told his audience during Casual Connect Asia 2014. “So your game in the US needs to appeal to kids, but it also needs to appeal to parents, especially moms, and what parents are looking for, what they’re most interested in, is whether or not the game as any value beyond just entertainment, primarily”.
Clark Stacey is a co-founder of Smart Bomb Interactive, along with Kris Johnson and Jeff Amis. The three had worked together at Beyond Games, a studio Johnson founded in 1993. Before becoming involved in the games industry, Stacey was teaching and writing in academia. He had also founded a company which did not succeed, an experience which gave him a different perspective on market analysis and forecasting. His early years in games were in writing and design; then he moved to production and business development. He claims, “This evolution taught me how to convey designs to different disciplines in the company and to rally people around them. Designers need to be able to communicate concisely and effectively with artists, engineers, marketers, and business people. That proved to be good training for running a company, which requires the same skills on a larger scale.”
Stacey says the first time he saw a music video on YouTube that an Animal Jam fan had choreographed in their game, he was blown away. It was very elaborate and involved dozens of avatars in a musical flash mob. Although they now see a lot of these creative, amazing videos, it was this first time he saw one when he realized the community they have created is extremely important to a lot of kids. He admits, “I was poleaxed by that for a moment.”
Creative Expression
This experience drove home for him how important creative expression is for Animal Jam players, especially the girls who are their core demographic. When he saw how much of themselves they put into their avatars and their dens, he considered Smart Bomb’s roadmap of new experiences and recognized the need to prioritize those that give players more of a voice. So players will be seeing a lot of new features in Animal Jam geared toward creativity and self-expression.
One of the most satisfying aspects of his work is meeting his heroes in business and game design and discovering their children play Animal Jam. He says, “It’s pretty cool when someone whose games have blown you away for years tells you that he uses your game to get his kids to do the dishes!”
More Connected Toys
In Stacey’s segment of the games industry, he sees connected toys as a huge emerging trend. He calls Skylanders and Infinity the tip of the iceberg, claiming we will see new toys that primarily connect with mobile platforms and that are just as big as those properties were on consoles. At Smart Bomb, they are very excited about the possibilities.
In Stacey’s free time, you will find him involved with tennis, motorcycles, with his family, or doing lots of “geek reading”. He loves playing games on his iPad and rarely boots up his consoles, since there are so many great mobile games. These days, he is playing Skulls of the Shogun and XCOM.
Purchase Frustrations
He enjoys free-to-play because it allows him to try out games and pay only for the ones he really likes. But he hates the experience of making a purchase out of frustration or obsessive compulsion instead of delight. He points out, “I’m psyched when I buy a new Xbox Game—I can’t wait to fire it up and see what happens. I’ve rarely had that experience with a free-to-play game, and there’s no good reason why that should be the case.”
At Casual Connect Asia, Stacey announced specific revenue numbers and other KPI for Animal Jam. He also unveiled a new social mobile game for kids.
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