Unlike most trial games, this one won’t expire. “It’s a really limited business model,” said David Cole, an analyst with DFC Intelligence in San Diego.Īlthough consumers can buy a full, 50-level version of “Diner Dash: Hometown Hero” for $20, PlayFirst is also offering them the chance to download a version with seven levels without having to pay a dime. But the model has a flaw: For the average casual game, just 2 percent of the people who download it end up buying the full version. The business model has been successful enough that the casual games industry has been one of the hottest sectors in video games in recent years. If they want to keep on playing, they have to buy the full version of the game for about $20. Since we added this game to our catalog in 2011, it has reached 91,791 downloads, and last week it had 29 downloads. Customers download its games from the PlayFirst or other casual games Web sites and can play them for 30 to 60 minutes.
Like many companies in the burgeoning casual games space, San Francisco-based PlayFirst has built a business around the try-before-you-buy business model. So when game developer PlayFirst decided last month to offer a free, non-expiring version of the latest edition of a franchise that has seen 200 million downloads, it was something of a bold move. En una visita a su ciudad natal, Flo y su Abuela Florence rememoran viejos tiempos.
“Diner Dash” is something like the “Halo” of the online casual games market.
