Platogo Bets On Virtual Goods In User-Designed Games

Platogo is a casual games portal that at first blush resembles many others. What makes it very different lies under the portal's virtual hood: all of its games except one are designed by portal users, rather than by Platogo itself. The tools made available to users when they create games even include monetization options like the ability to create and sell virtual goods to users. Players can rate levels and games as they share and play creations.

To help make this user-created approach work, Platogo tries to make sure it attracts users with interest in development while emphasizing that anyone can participate. The company, founded in 2008, otherwise has only ten full-time employees. The portal currently hosts eight games with 360 levels among them designed by various users. Platogo is currently in beta, with an average session time of about ten minutes.

Platogo isn't the first company to try out the idea of user-generated games content in social gaming, but they may be the first not to give up on it. Some weeks ago LOLapps published their first mafia game, Yakuza Lords, which appeared to be proof of concept of old rumors that the company was at work on a whitelabel text RPG generator.

When asked about this, LOLapps's Manu Rekhi stated to Virtual Goods News that "We launched a whitelabel game creator last year.  The findings from
that experiment  were clear. Creating compelling games doesn't easily
lend itself to user-generated applications.  The target audience for
the game creator requires someone with passion for games, deep
understanding of game mechanics, art production and story telling –
not to mention a sustained effort to maintain the game."

What Platogo is attempting with its largely user-generated games portal flies in the face of this wisdom. While the advantages of its method are clear — Platogo is far more likely to end up hosting unique content — what isn't clear is how the portal intends to keep user engagement high enough to keep the flow of game content steady enough for virtual goods sales to happen. That makes Platogo a company to keep a careful eye on in the next year. 

[via Venture Beat]

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