We're in quadruple digits - can SMS get us further?

That's right we've had over 1000 games played using the new version of Cotopia. 1000 games in about 10 days is not too bad, considering that so far we have been treating the system as a bit of a 'beta run'. The time is coming to throw the full power of our 'marketing department' (aka Tomas Zeman) behind this project and start some serious gaming. According to our biz plan we need to host something like a billion games every minute to start hitting black numbers :) (and all the sudden 100 games a day doesn't seem as such a large number)

As far as the current traffic is concerned we have some pretty good players that keep the server buzzing. Some even take the time and send us feedback which is much appreciated, consider that the next update of Cotopia will be based mostly on the feedback we've received. So keep the suggestions coming - they do make a difference. Namely we're bringing back private games and adding dates to message posts.

Another feature that is being considered is sending SMS game invites. There are two parts to this particular feature:

1.
Make it possible for a player to invite a friend who doesn't yet have a Cotopia account by SMSing them a link to download a Cotopia game. This would simply mean that each player is given an option from the main menu of any Cotopia game to send a formated SMS to their friend which will include wap link for a free download. The only cost is the same as sending a regular SMS and is paid by the player sending the invite.

2.
Make it possible for players who already have Cotopia accounts to SMS each other when they wish to meet up on the server and play. This is a little more tricky :) Firstly it means that the costs of SMSs are paid by Cotopia, since we cannot allow players to send SMSs directly to each other for privacy reasons.
Secondly it means that our games will have to include some additional management functionality to make sure that each player can block unwanted messages. Lastly, this will only work for players who are willing to share their mobile number with us.

I personally believe that both SMS related features would be great if we can push them out and I hope that once we do - the community will embraced them.