Stick Cricket: Great game, successful strategy

I've been meaning to post about my favourite ever Internet game for a while now. Stick Cricket's history is quite an interesting read, a rise from a student learning how to develop in flash to one of the best Internet games out there.

I first became aware of this game a few years ago now and it is the only Internet game that has held my attention for longer than a week! I can't quite put my finger on what makes the game so appealing for me, but there are a few factors that probably help. Firstly, the ability to score fours and sixes on a regular basis (the entire point of the game) brings that feel good factor when playing. Secondly, the view you get (a batsman's view) of the ball careering to the boundary is very, very satisfying. It also looks like a proper cricket shot. Sometimes on other games the actual game play isn't very realistic. Finally I think the concept is something that fits the medium it has been developed on. Although originally using stick men, the game has developed but kept to the same ethos.

Apart from the game play elements addressed above I think another reason I really like the game is the way in which Stick Sports has been developed and allowed to evolve. Slowly but surely they've enhanced the Stick Cricket game. New features, new competitions, more variety in how you play have always enticed me back to the game. They tackled the most obvious shortcoming of their game (not being able to bowl) with a challenging online multi player game. It didn't last very long but it was good!

More impressively than the actual innovations that were borne seems to be the strategy they have adopted for development. Stick Sports had a core product and they spent time and money developing it; enhancing the game play and ensuring it maintained its popular appeal and market position. Only after this phase of its strategy had proved successful did it branch out to develop other games to complement the cricket game and produce a range of sports games under the stick sports banner. (The best of these games in my opinion is Stick Tennis)

Although with success has come less discrete advertising and more 'obvious' placement of adverts, this doesn't interfere with the experience of using the sites. They have developed a community feel to the site that although I don't personally see as advantageous, I know a lot of other users do). The site is not in the same league as Cric Info and other cricket media in terms of a cricketing knowledge base, but this seems to be the next phase in the strategy. Blogs and forums are prevalent on the site and there is also 'Live Score' features (although I must confess to not having used these enough to pass comment).

Basically I've been impressed with Stick Cricket since the beginning, and if it is possible to end with an awful pun, believe that from tiny acorns, cricket bats really can grown! [I'm sorry]