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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Analysis and Opinion   >   Opinion   >   Konami Play – right idea, poor implementation

Konami Play – right idea, poor implementation

By on August 28, 2009

Konami shows that it is forward thinking, but makes a hash of implementation

Track and Field screenshot

Japanese publisher Konami has recently launched Konami Play, bringing classic games like Track and Field and Frogger as well as modern titles like Metal Gear Solid to the browser.

It’s a solid start, and I’ll post more comments as I use the site more, but my initial view is not favourable.

I immediately tried to log in using Facebook Connect, because I absolutely hate creating yet more user name/password combinations, and I thought these games might be more fun if my real-world friends were also playing them.

#fail.

Konami connected me to Facebook, but it gave me the user name of my 9 digit Facebook user id, preceeded by the letters FB. It never told me this, which meant that logging in was really difficult.

It then asked me pointless questions (like what my mobile number is – as if I’ve I’m going to give that to a brand I’ve only just started to interact with) and prefilled my birthdate as mid August 2002 (how on earth did they come up with that date?).

My initial experience is enough to make me distrust what they are doing with my Facebook stream and not to want to continue.

But in the interests of research (and playing Track and Field), I’ll persevere. I’ll let you know if it turns out to be fun.

Have you used Konami Play? Would you want to? I’m really keen to hear about your experiences in the comments.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com