Inside Social Games

New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: RealNetworks, Mob Science, Atari, TinyCo and more

Sara Ines Calderon — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:00:48 +0000

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities across social and mobile application platforms.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at RealNetworks, Inc., Mob Science, Atari, King.com, Konami, TinyCo, Addmired, XMG Studio, Stealth Mobile Startup, FashionPlaytes, Inc., PlayMesh, SponsorPay, GREE International, Inc. and Social Point.

Product Manager

Game Designer

Marketing Manager

Data Jockey

Stealth Mobile Startup

Senior Android Engineer

Social Game Designer

Backend Game Developer

Director of Developer Relations

Senior Manager, Corporate Development

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

How bootstrapped Serbian startup Nordeus beat EA’s FIFA at its own Facebook game

Kathleen De Vere — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:30:02 +0000

Of all the sports games on Facebook, soccer-themed games reign supreme, accounting for more than half of the 40 most popular sports games on the platform.

The leader of the pack is Nordeus — a bootstrapped Serbian developer founded by three former Microsoft employees. Its game, Top Eleven – Be a Football Manager is a detailed football management sim, and despite its complexity, has 3.6 million monthly active users and 1.2 million daily active users, far above its closest competitor, the officially licensed title EA’s FIFA Superstars, which currently has 1.9 million MAU and 300,000 DAU according to AppData.

However, what may be most interesting about Top Eleven is the game’s slow burn. Unlike the average Facebook game, which typically sees most of its growth in the first six months, Top Eleven is still adding players 21 months in and is the most popular its ever been. Since the game’s launch in May 2010, Nordeus has taken Top Eleven cross-platform to iOS and to Android and introduced a raft of new features and updates, but has so far been silent about upcoming projects.

Inside Social Games had a chance to interview Nordeus’ co-founder and CEO Branko Milutinović and ask him about the success of Top Eleven, and what’s next for Nordeus.

Inside Social Games: Top Eleven is the most popular sports game on Facebook right now. Why do you think the game has been so successful despite the fact that its competing against officially licensed games like FIFA Superstars?

Branko Milutinović, Nordeus co-founder and CEO (pictured right): As well as double the MAUs, Top Eleven also has over four times more DAUs. That’s really important for us because it means our users are engaged and coming back to play regularly!

But to answer your question, we took the risk of developing a technically very advanced platform that enables rich gameplay, synchronous multiplayer experience and truly cross platform gaming (i.e. it’s exactly the same game on Facebook, Top Eleven.com, iPhone and Android). This gave us the opportunity to offer our users a game they find challenging and exciting to play with their friends.

Another thing we’ve focused on and think is crucial is the level of realism. We’ve tried to be as close to the real world of football management as possible, including a complex match simulation engine based on English Premier League stats. Actually, the only thing missing to bring us to the absolute realism is licensed brands, everything else we’ve covered.

ISG: When you released Top Eleven in 2010, Facebook was a very different platform. Since then user acquisition costs have risen quite dramatically — what are the challenges you’re facing now and how has Facebook changed as a platform?

Milutinović: The platform has changed a lot in the previous two years. We know the Facebook team is working hard to improve the platform for everyone, both users and app developers and most of the changes we find really positive.

From a developer point of view it is true that user acquisition has changed dramatically with viral growth channels narrowed, but I can understand that Facebook had to do that to preserve user experience on the platform. User acquisition is becoming a big obstacle for newcomers and companies that cannot rely on cross promotion from their other games, which is why we think publishing other studio’s games is going to become more common. At Nordeus we look at the changes as challenges we need to overcome. It’s evolution. We improve ourselves every day and try to adapt to the new conditions.

ISG: In September you revealed your relationship with Facebook was “very close” – can you reveal more about how Nordeus and Facebook work together?

Milutinović: Some time ago Facebook launched an initiative to strengthen the collaboration between platform and the developers. We were recognized as one of the brightest examples of how to leverage the platform, build a great product as well as a successful company around it. Since then we’ve been working with Facebook to implement new updates the platform, building the best possible experience for our users. That probably helped Top Eleven to be voted as The Best Sports Game of 2011 by Facebook based on user satisfaction.

The Facebook team is also doing great job in fixing bugs we report and we’re proud that we’ve helped the platform to become better, especially when it comes to Android and iOS support.

ISG: Are you interested in taking on partners for any reason such as publishing, acquisitions, etc?

Milutinović: We’re always open to new opportunities, but on the other hand have full belief in our own capabilities. When it comes to publishing I can say that we are considering the idea of publishing others’ games, but given that developing games is in our DNA we will probably focus all our effort on getting our titles that are under development right now to the market as soon as possible.

ISG: You’ve said before you want to be “the Zynga of Europe” and that you wanted to consolidate the talent in Southeast Europe. What is Nordeus’ long term strategy around this?

Milutinović: When it comes to hiring our long term strategy is actually to continue doing what we’ve been doing in the previous two years, especially in the last few months. We want to combine best young talent of the region with the most experienced experts from the industry. Examples of that effort include our new Head of Business Development who joined us after over 5 years of running sales and user acquisition for Eve Online, as well as a college hire from Caltech, both relocated to Belgrade. (If you’ve ever been to Belgrade you’d understand why ;)).

We’ve also organized initiatives to attract the best talent, like the game development hackathon we held two months ago. Over 200 of the brightest computer engineering students and graphical designers from the region applied. We’ve already hired ten of the students that took part, with more interviews ongoing. We strongly believe our people and company culture are our strongest assets and we will continue to nurture that.

ISG: What’s next for Nordeus? You’ve released iOS and Android versions of Top Eleven. Are you developing a new game or games? Will they be sports strategy games? Will they be on Facebook?

Milutinović: Unfortunately I can’t share as many details about specifics as I’d like to, but we are working full speed ahead on the next generation of games, which will introduce a lot of new concepts. They will continue to carry on our philosophy of unified gaming experience throughout devices, so they will definitely be available on Facebook, Android, iOS, and other platforms as well.

Fight alongside your favorite Marvel superheroes in Marvel: Avengers Alliance

Pete Davison — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:17:17 +0000

There are a handful of superhero games on Facebook already, but none like Marvel: Avengers Alliance, which gives players the opportunity to fight alongside their favorite Marvel superheroes in RPG-style combat against a series of iconic villains.

Marvel: Avengers Alliance is currently undergoing private beta testing with a final release to the public coming “very soon” according to developer Playdom. The game will be launching with a substantial amount of content, including a total of 28 recruitable Marvel heroes for players to add to their team and fight alongside, as well as a wide range of missions pitting the player’s team against well-known Marvel villains such as Dr. Doom, Loki and Green Goblin.

Players start the game by designing their own avatar, which does not have to share the name and gender of their Facebook profile. This character, known as “The Agent” throughout the course of the game, becomes a member of the Marvel “S.H.I.E.L.D” espionage and peace-keeping organization despite having no discernible superpowers at the outset of their career. Despite this, The Agent is the most customizable of the characters the player will take control of throughout the course of the game, with a wide variety of weapons, armor, special equipment and skills available, allowing players to take full ownership over their character’s development.

By following a series of story-based missions, players will recruit their first Marvel heroes into their team, including Iron Man, Hawkeye and Black Widow. The game’s basic concepts are gradually introduced, starting with the turn-based RPG-style combat which makes up the bulk of the game. The Agent and up to two additional heroes are sent into battle against various opponents in an attempt to work their way across various maps, culminating in a boss fight against a Marvel villain. Combat strategy is based on a system of character classes, where certain types of character are particularly strong and weak against others, meaning as the player’s team expands, heroes must be selected with greater care. Performance in battle is scored according to how quickly the conflict was resolved and how well the player’s team survived, with higher scores contributing to higher “mission mastery” ratings. Higher masteries lead to bigger rewards, which can then be spent on new equipment, training and consumable items.

The game involves little in the way of direct social interaction until after the first few missions, at which point a player-vs-player facility becomes unlocked, allowing players to pit their teams of heroes against one another. Alongside this, players are also able to visit their friends’ cities to “help” with missions by clicking on locations to recover money and items. Players are also able to recover “call for backup” items from friends, too, which can subsequently be used in difficult battles to even the odds somewhat.

Progression in the game will require players to either spend money or recruit friends due to the necessity of acquiring “S.H.I.E.L.D” points for training and researching new equipment. These can be procured either by requesting from friends or by purchasing with the game’s hard currency. Without them, players may still continue through the story, but will be unable to level up Marvel heroes or unlock new equipment for purchase in the in-game store.

There are a lot of things to like about Marvel: Avengers Alliance. The art style evokes the atmosphere of its source material well; the story is simple comic-book fun with some entertaining dialog; and the gameplay itself is straightforward to understand while offering enough depth and challenge to attract more hardcore players. There are a few niggling little flaws which detract slightly from the experience, however — for example, some game terminology is used inconsistently, with “Stamina” and “AP” being used interchangeably in a number of situations, leading to confusion. Likewise, comic book fans will be sure to pick up on the illogical fact that it’s possible to call Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) for backup during combat even when Iron Man is already in the active battle party. The fact the game switches out of full-screen mode when sharing an achievement with friends — even when the post is created frictionlessly — is also a little frustrating, particularly at times when it’s impossible to immediately switch back to full-screen mode, such as during tutorial messages.

These flaws aside, Marvel: Avengers Alliance will likely attract a broad audience thanks to its deep gameplay and cast of recognizable characters. It also looks as if the game is set to be just the first step in a range of interconnected Marvel games known as “Marvel XP.” Details on this are slim at the time of writing, but the game will offer the facility to sign up for the service via a player’s Facebook account, with progression in Avengers Alliance potentially affecting progress in subsequent games.

Marvel: Avengers Alliance is set to launch on Facebook “very soon,” according to the developer. You’ll be able to follow its progress using AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

Play

The official Marvel license will help this well-produced game find a large audience among comic book fans on Facebook.

Ubisoft brings the Rabbids’ insanity to Facebook

Pete Davison — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:00:03 +0000

Ubisoft’s Rabbids series — originally a spinoff from the company’s Rayman franchise — is well-known for its irreverent, lavatorial humor and has invaded a wide variety of platforms over the course of the last few years. The small, insane, rabbit-like creatures have finally hit Facebook this month in the form of Rabbids Invasion.

Rabbids Invasion offers a twist on standard citybuilding gameplay: the city is already there. However, the city in question was built by humans and as such, the Rabbids are unable to avail themselves of all its facilities. In order to do so, the Rabbids must “invade” the existing buildings and take them over. In doing so, the drab, brown art becomes wildly colorful and often takes on humorous, surreal characteristics. Invading a house, for example, might cover it in toilet paper. Invading a farmhouse might redesign it to look like a giant cow. And invading a log cabin simply burns it down and turns it into an enormous bonfire.

Progress in the game is determined by a number of factors: the number of Rabbids available to invade buildings, the soft currency the player has on hand to purchase and invade buildings and cans of food that are required to supply businesses. Additional Rabbids can be acquired by invading public buildings such as post offices, and this then allows for more structures to be acquired, in turn leading to greater income of soft currency and experience points. Food, meanwhile, comes from harvesting strange crops such as roast chickens from fields.

The player is led through the basics of invading and building through a series of quests, all of which are presented in a somewhat sarcastic manner with numerous pop culture references. Early gameplay revolves around taking over buildings, building up stockpiles of food and currency and then expanding the borders of the Rabbids’ invasion by using a sausage so spicy it causes a Rabbid to explode, taking a boundary fence with it.

Social features are fairly standard for the citybuilding genre. The public buildings used to acquire additional Rabbids must be staffed by friends (or “Fake Friends” purchased through the game’s hard currency) and a number of quests require the procurement of items through the assistance of friends. Players are also able to visit their friends’ territories and send tourist groups of Rabbids in order to collect coins and experience. It’s also possible to set fire to friends’ Rabbids that are wandering around the map.

Once the novelty of the irreverent humor and the invasion mechanic wears off, there’s a fairly predictable citybuilding game underneath. It’s competently handled, though, and progression is rarely halted due to friend-gating. It feels like the Rabbids license is somewhat underused, however — in its previous incarnations, the Rabbids found themselves in a variety of ludicrous situations and it was generally up to the player to either help them out or punish them in one way or another through a series of very silly minigames. There’s nothing like that in Rabbids Invasion at this time, which feels like a missed opportunity. There’s nothing stopping Ubisoft adding something like this at a later date, however.

The game is solidly monetized, offering a wide range of premium items for players to purchase using hard currency. The most expensive of these costs an equivalent of almost $100 and provides a significant gameplay benefit, doubling the soft currency payout of all nearby buildings. There are plenty of smaller items available for purchase, however, and in the early stages the game is quite generous with the provision of hard currency to help speed up early progress.

Rabbids Invasion currently has 10,000 monthly active users and 5,000 daily active users, but has only been available for less than a week at the time of writing. The Rabbids series is a well known brand among casual gamers, and Ubisoft is likely counting on this to assist with user acquisition, along with the game’s frictionless wall posting facility for virality. To follow the game’s progress, check out AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

Play

Strong brand recognition, good design and an irreverent sense of humor will help make this relatively straightforward citybuilder a big success.

Mystic Guardians brings Pokemon-style monster battling to Facebook

Pete Davison — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:04:54 +0000

Mystic Guardians from DJArts Games is a title that wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Those who have played Nintendo’s popular Pokemon titles for Game Boy and DS will immediately recognize the formula — players are given one of three monsters (here called “Guardians”) to train before embarking on a lengthy journey to collect badges from local superstars of the training circuit. DJArts’ take on the well-established format is a mostly polished, entertaining and well-structured experience rather than a cheap clone.

Gameplay proceeds much as a traditional Pokemon adventure would. Players control their custom-designed avatar from a top-down perspective and guide them through their adventure, clicking on people to interact with them and on searchable objects to reveal either items or Guardians to battle. During the course of their travels, players will receive quests from certain characters, challenging them to complete a variety of tasks ranging from training Guardians up to a specific level to finding hidden items. The game’s story is largely told through these quests, but players are free to roam the world to battle and capture wild Guardians at any time they please.

During battle, players send their Guardians into one-on-one combat against a rival trainer’s team or a wild Guardian. Guardians then take it in turns to use one of their moves, which are generally either a direct attack, a “debuff” reducing the enemy’s capabilities, or a “buff” increasing their own abilities. Wild Guardians can be captured using “Capture Disc” items and added to the player’s team, while rival trainers are there for players to test their skills and earn experience points for their Guardians. Like Pokemon, all Guardians who participated in a battle receive experience points, allowing for players to level weak Guardians simply by letting them start in battle and then immediately switching to a stronger alternative.

Both field actions such as searching objects and battles cost Energy to perform. When this runs out, players can continue to walk around, talk to characters and shop but must either purchase additional Energy or wait for it to regenerate before they are able to battle or search any further items. Each time the player character levels up — a separate statistic from their Guardians’ levels — the maximum Energy limit is increased, allowing for dedicated, experienced players to enjoy longer play sessions.

Social features incorporated in the game are largely optional. Players can proceed through the adventure without assistance from friends, though there are a number of treasure chests scattered throughout the world which require either friends’ cooperation or the spending of the game’s hard currency to open. This hard currency may also be spent on certain items in the game’s stores, rare Guardians which cannot be captured through normal means and providing bonuses to Guardians’ statistics on level up. Sales of hard currency and premium items aren’t pushed hard throughout the course of the game, which may prove to be a mixed blessing to the developers — lack of “nag” screens will mean the game will appeal more to the “core” market, but it may hurt profitability in the long run.

The game is well-presented, with attractive, clear and distinctive visuals and a varied musical soundtrack — a far cry from the 30-second loops many Facebook games fall back on. It does suffer from occasionally long loading breaks upon the first visit to a new area, but subsequent visits are much quicker. The frame rate also takes an occasional hit when scrolling around, even on a powerful computer, but the nature of the gameplay means that this does not adversely affect the experience too much.

For the most part, Mystic Guardians is a well put together game that will entertain fans of Pokemon-like games for a considerable period of time. The game currently has 12 areas to explore and 40 Guardians to capture, with more on the way — DJArts is currently working on the second major content update since launch.

Mystic Guardians currently has 100,000 monthly active users and 10,000 daily active users. So long as the game continues to have regular infusions of new content and its user acquisition efforts focus on leveraging (and monetizing) the enormous Pokemon fanbase around the world, DJArts has the potential for a successful game on its hands. To follow its progress, check out AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Play

A game unashamed to wear its inspiration proudly on its sleeve, Mystic Guardians is one of the better Pokemon-likes on Facebook — though its potential profitability remains to be seen.

Playdom looks for second hidden object hit with Blackwood & Bell Mysteries

AJ Glasser — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:30:30 +0000

Disney Playdom is far from done with hidden objects after Gardens of Time‘s smash hit success. Launching this week is the developer’s second Facebook game for the genre, Blackwood & Bell Mysteries.

At the core, the game plays like Gardens of Time — players complete levels by finding lists of hidden objects and increase their level by decorating a virtual space with items they buy or acquire through gameplay and friend gifting. Blackwood & Bell, however, puts more of an emphasis on story and narrative, connecting story progression to special objects that players must find in scenes to advance the plot. Additional modes like one-on-one multiplayer will also be added to the game post-launch. Beyond gameplay, however, Blackwood & Bell features a darker, more sinister atmosphere than its predecessor, which is how Disney Playdom plans to differentiate the game from Gardens of Time and all the other hidden object games that have launched on Facebook since.

“We hope it overlaps considerably with the Gardens of Time audience,” Playdom Executive Producer Joey Klein tells us. “We’d be really excited if this can broaden the market with its edgier feel. Each chapter will have a distinct feel and it’ll be a little darker — we’ll toe the line between actual reality and fictional exciting characters like vampires. That’s where this game fits into the space.”

Incidentally, story and narrative were how developer Making Fun hoped to set its hidden object game, Hidden Haunts, apart from Disney Playdom’s Gardens of Time. With so many developers trying to break into the genre, it’s not surprising to see similarities like this between new hidden object games. It’s even less surprising to see that both Blackwood & Bell and Hidden Haunts draw some inspiration from classic downloadable games that dealt in similar themes of mystery and tension — like Big Fish Games’ Mystery Case Files.

Klein acknowledges that social game developers are often inspired by downloadable games because they were so successful. His real fear for Blackwood & Bell, however, is its inevitable comparison to Gardens of Time. “The theme and the story and the small tweaks make a better game overall,” he says. “By having a deep storyline with interesting characters you meet along the way — we hope it keeps players engaged for a long time. It’ll be interesting to see how the target market changes with the theme.”

Zynga’s ad leader Anekal departs for mobile advertising company Kiip

Kathleen De Vere — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:20:56 +0000

Manny Anekal, Zynga’s Global Director of Brand Advertising, has left the company to help lead reward-based mobile advertising startup Kiip as its new chief operating officer.

During his two years at Zynga, Anekal lead the company’s in-game advertising and brand integration efforts in its main titles, and was behind some of Zynga’s biggest in-game promotions, like Lady Gaga’s “GagaVille” promotion for her album Born this Way, as well as recent deals with Farmers Insurance.

Like his peers Barry Cottle and John Schappert, Anekal came to Zynga from EA, where he worked as the company’s senior manager of in game advertising and its global director of ad operations before leaving to join the social gaming giant. According to Zynga’s fourth quarter earnings results, the company earned $27.3 million from advertising revenue, a 230 percent increase year-on-year. It is not yet known who will replace Anekal at Zynga.

Kiip made its debut last April and works with more than 65 mobile developers to incorporate advertising into a game’s existing achievement system. Founded by then 19-year-old Digg alumni Brian Wong, the company has so far received $4 million in funding from Hummer Windblad Venture Partners, Crosslink Capital and True Ventures. In December, the company unveiled its latest product, limited-time promotional tournaments called Swarm campaigns.

Peak Games acquires Saudi developer Kammelna Games

AJ Glasser — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:34:29 +0000

Social game publisher and developer Peak Games announced the acquisition of Saudi developer Kammelna Games today for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition deepens Peak’s ties to the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region where the publisher makes most of its money off hyper-localized social game adaptations — like Komşu Çiftlik, the Turkish language adaptation of TheBroth’s Barn Buddy. In September, the company raised $11.5 million in a second round of funding to acquire two Turkish studios and increase regional operations in South America and Mexico.

The Kammelna buy brings Peak Games into Saudi Arabia — a country which shows a preference for card or board games, similar to what Peak’s audiences in Turkey and the rest of MENA prefer. Speaking to Inside Social Games at our Inside Social Apps conference earlier this month, Peak CSO Rinah Onur explained that Kammelna is a very small studio that made its name with a single card game of the same name. Peak claims that Saudi Arabia sees the highest average revenue per user (ARPU) by region.