Rochard Is The New Space Hero Protecting Us From Aliens!
Gravity defying, men against alien pirates, set to save planet Earth from evil, sounds like a typical video game. But with all the hype surrounding Rochard, I am sure Sony Online Entertainment and Finnish Recoil Games have done a quite an impressive job. Even though the hero defies gravity, the gamers are sucked into the gaming experience.
Rochard is a tale of John Rochard who is given the voice of Jon St. John, the same person who’s voice is better associated to the legend we remember as Duke Nukem. The gameplay revolves around Jon, who is an astro-miner when he discovers an artifact deep within an asteroid. When you say artifact it should be known that it is of great value, and if this is found in space, don’t be surprised if aliens come with an objective to acquire it. Artifacts, aliens, invasions and in comes Rochard and alien annihilator; the G-Lifter that helps him play with gravity, solve puzzles and save the day.
Angry Birds: 1 Million Plush Toys And 1 Million T-Shirts Sold Each Month. The Game Isn't All They Have
Angry Birds is phenomenal. It's great, it's growing and it sounds pretty clichéd and something that is apparently obvious to almost everyone. The brand has amassed over 350 million downloads of its game on numerous devices ranging from the iPhone, Android to PCs and PlayStation 3 and that’s just the software side. What is also worth mentioning is how they have grown out of the gaming world on consoles to board games, Hollywood movie; RIO to stuffed toys. Calling it the Pac Man of our generation will by no means be wrong, though the comparison may not be totally justified.
The Angry Birds brand has made leaps outside the digital world, especially with their plush toys that they launched back last year. While that only garnered 2 million sales in the first quarter or so, the sales have rocketed to one million each month thereon. That’s not it, the plush toys are just half the story and the Angry Birds T-shirts are selling 1 million pieces a month as well.
Gaming Fluid Dynamics with Sprinkle
Games, action, time-killers, fun - there are so many adjectives and verbs that can be instantly associated with games and gaming. With the rapid transformation of smartphones in the last 4 years, gaming turned out to be what it was never before. And this does not include the gaming consoles in the form of Xbox and the PlayStation.
We have seen how the Angry Birds became a sensation in mobile gaming, so much that it has had a movie around its theme, toys, board games, etc. That’s just one game that has done phenomenally well and there are others that enjoy success as well. We came to know about another game that takes advantage of features on your iPhone, iPad or Android devices called Sprinkle.
Minecraft Developer Mojang Eyes Co-Publishing Indie Games
Swedish indie game developer, Mojang recently announced its interest in co-publishing indie games alongside other developers with plans of releasing a title by the end of this year. The company has also announced this year that they're working on another title of their own.
Sofanatics' Stadium Rings Loud During Ice Hockey World Championships
When there is a platform available to ensure maximum user engagement, there isn’t really a point why it shouldn’t be fully leveraged and Sofanatics has everything to give to sports fans they need. We've written in the past about their latest improvement to the service, the stadium feature, which is one of the reasons for the wide usage relating to this post as well.
Game Fundings And Acquisitions $1.89B In 2010
Venturebeat has a story out on 2010 and how game fundings and acquisitions developed compared to 2009. Growth was spectacular and in terms of percentages, the size of the fundings and acquisitions rose by 130% compared to 2009. Thus in 2009 the overall size of the market in these terms was $819 million. The data is provided by IHS and is said to cover international markets. According to IHS, the numbers cover funding and acquisitions activity in all areas of gaming except mobile gaming.
Rovio Revenue 14M€ In Q1/2011
According to Helsingin Sanomat (Largest Finnish daily), Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds mobile game, have pocketed approximately 14 million euro ($20 million US) in revenue during the first quarter of 2011. Two thirds of the revenues come from app sales and about a third from advertising. Overall, Mikael Hed, Rovio CEO, stated that the game has been downloaded more than 120 million times.
Uplause Crosses 2 Million Audience Mark
When we called Uplause the Real World Massively Multiplayer Crowd Games, we weren’t wrong at all. The developers who create games for large events to enable the audience to collectively play interactive mini games. Uplause has recently made news with registering a milestone of hitting 2 million users.
Blow'em Now Available For iOS Devices
Ever thought about getting even with someone, but never had the courage to do so? There's a little iPhone app now on the market that might help you in this. The game is called Blow'em and it was started as a Garage48 project in Helsinki, Finland in January. It offers users a great way to have fun with its Perverted Candle, Retarded Tomato, Deep Throat or the Angry Egg. The instructions are simple; point, select your weapon and shoot. That’s it, you don’t really need a user guide on this do you?
Sony Ericsson Announces The PlayStation Phone, Comes With Unity
Sony Ericsson announced tonight the launch of the new "PlayStation phone", officially called Xperia PLAY, shipping this March. The device will be the first PlayStation Certified Android device, running Gingerbread 2.3. One of the first primary markets will be the US where Sony Ericsson partners with Verizon exclusively, the company announced at a launch event taking place in a hip Barcelona beach club prior to the Mobile World Congress.
Interestingly, the Danish-born Unity Technologies has struck a deal with Sony Ericsson for the new device, in which Unity's technology comes embedded. The partnership is the first of its kind for Unity that hasn't teamed up this way with a platform manufacturer before.
iAssociate 2 Fuels TicBits Steady Growth
TicBits is a Finland based iOS developer that has released the successful iAssociate 2 brain game. You may have not heard of it, but it's become very successful over on the other side of the pond. ABC has featured the game in their Good Morning America show as a brain sharpening game last summer.
The World's Not Enough! Rovio To Bring Animated Angry Birds Series
I guess Angry Birds think that the mobile platforms don’t give them a large enough empire to vent their wrath upon the pig army. Rovio’s sensational game has grown leaps and bounds so much that the mobile strategy is now just a smaller part of their expansion strategy.
Lapland Studios Brings Wesley Snipes To iPhones And iPads
iPad, iPhone that’s where the folks are rushing in and so must I. That is what Wesley Snipes must have had in mind when he signed up for Julius Styles: The International. The game comes from Lapland Studios, a Finnish game developer in association with Elstree Studio Productions and Red 27 Films. The release is set for June 2011 release but with Wesley Snipes as Julius Styles, expect nothing short of kicking and bullet riddled action. Oh there is some puzzle too.
Angry Birds Goes Analog, Comes Out With A Board Game
Make addiction common and affordable if you are to reach masses. Don’t take me wrong here but this is at least what I think Angry Birds is about. The otherwise available only for iPhone, Android game was found making inroads to the board game culture, that too on a hard core tech event, the CES.
Rovio Brings The Wrath Of Angry Birds To The Mac App Store
Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds, are on a roll. Just a few days ago we wrote about the company releasing their app for the PS3 and PSP devices and yesterday Angry Birds made its debut in the Mac App Store. The app immediately rose to the Top Paid app list's #1 spot.
Mediatonic Invests 300k€ Into Housemarque's Upcoming Game
Mediatonic, the "revenue based investor" from Finland, has made a 300 000 euro investment into Housemarque's upcoming game. Mediatonic invests in a project oriented way, meaning they do not take any equity from the company, but only invest in the hope of retaining a share of the future revenues against the investment.
Rocket Pack Launches HTML5 Cross-Platform Social Game Warimals In Alpha
The Finnish JavaScript and HTML5 game engine and game developer Rocket Pack has released their new game Warimals: Cats vs. Dogs into open alpha. The new social game is playable both on Warimals.com and Facebook. As for the target devices - the game plays just as well on e.g. G2 Android phone, iPad, and iPhone - to name just a few (see video in our previous post). Any device with HTML5 and decent JavaScript performance should do. The game is a casual tower defence and attack game, based on asyncronous multiplayer gaming among friends and strangers. As the tagline puts it: "Warimals is the epic browser game about the everlasting battle waged between Cats and Dogs."
Shadow Cities Launches And Hits Top Spot In App Store
A new Finnish iPhone game called Shadow Cities developed by Grey Area launched today with a whopping success. The game was available in the Finnish App Store in the morning and by 1.30pm, it was already the third most grossing app in terms of sales. Mind you, the app is free itself. Later last night the game was already the most grossing app in the App Store. The last time it happened, the game in question was Angry Birds.
The Game Trail Leads You To The iPhone App Store's Gems
Discovery and cross-promotion are important buzz words all over the app and gaming world, especially on the iPhone and Facebook where the amount of new product launches is ever increasing. With thousands of new products being launched each day, it is very daunting task for game developers and publishers to try to stand out and drive downloads to their own apps - at least if not gettng any help. It can be also very hard for the users to find out new content they would enjoy from all the noise. Swedish The Game Trail's purpose is exactly to "guide iPhone gamers down the right path to quality games" and thus ease the problem for both sides.
New Trailer & Screen Shots Of Upcoming Location-Based iPhone MMORPG Shadow Cities
Grey Area, a new Finnish iPhone gaming startup (see our previous coverage), has been operating silently the past months, but now the firm has released a new teaser trailer and screenshots of their upcoming location-based MMORPG for iPhone called Shadow Cities. The game transforms the neighborhoods and familiar streets as part of the game world, visible to the player through iPhone. The tagline is "Your city is a game." The company promises the game will be available on the iTunes App Store in late 2010.
Rocket Pack Launches Ground Breaking Cross-Platform JavaScript Games Engine
Finnish social gaming startup Rocket Pack is preparing its first casual multi-platform MMO, expected to come into beta in a few weeks. However, maybe the most interesting aspect of the company is that as a "side" product of the development, they have build a game engine and complete tool set for game developers to build browser-based single player games, Facebook games, and browser-based MMOs that work cross-platform. That is, the games run on PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, Android, smartphones - on all major browsers, without any plugin installations required.
Cross-Promotion Network Applifier Hit 55 Million Users In 4 Months
Applifier is a new Finnish startup that was pivoted from Everyplay, which was originally a social games developer. Applier is a cross-promotion network of independent social application developers on Facebook. It's user base has blow up over night and gone from zero to 55 million users in four months. The service currently represents over 100 social games and applications, and reaches more than 55 million monthly active users (MAUs). According to the company, it reaches more Facebook users than any social game publisher, except of course Zynga.
Ethics And The Freemium Business Model - Case Social Games
Earlier this week we covered the Games Developer Conference Europe 2010 (GDCE) session on Monetizing Social Games. Continuing on the same topic from a different angle, in another GDCE session, Teut Weidemann, lead designer of Settlers Online at a Ubisoft studio, provided further guidance on how to actually maximize the games' monetization by game design. He presented, as reported by Gamasutra, that in order to succeed with the freemium business model, one should "exploit human weaknesses", i.e. design the game so that it psychologically resonates with the deepest human feelings - so look into the seven deadly sins...
Making Money From Social Games
Games Developer Conference Europe 2010 (GDCE) took place last week in Cologne, Germany. Social gaming was naturally one of the key topics, covered in many presentations. As most, if not all, of the games on social networks use the freemium business model (i.e. it is free to install and start playing the games), of particular interest for developers is how to generate revenue from the games.
Fortumo Sideswipes Boku, Zong And Other Facebook Mobile Payment Providers
Fortumo is an Estonian startup (see our previous coverage) focusing on making it possible for everybody from individuals to home-based businesses to global web entrepreneurs to easily and cheaply collect payments from their customers using mobile payments. The company emphasizes that it should be as easy, quick, and cost-effective to start using mobile payments on your site or in your app as creating a blog or a homepage.
Fortumo has now released a new service called FortuMoPay, designed for selling credits (to be used e.g. on virtual goods) in online games, web applications, and social networks.
Mediatonic Fund I Starts Financing Games and Media Products
Mediatonic Management has closed a 5 million euro fund that will begin to finance games and media products from Finland. The fund has been set up by investments from Fennia insurance, Henki-Fennia insurance as well as the Sonera Pension fund. People behind the fund include Tanu-Matti Tuominen and Marko Tulonen.
The fund is a project and catalog fund that will invest in commercial games, television formats and web services. The fund does not invest into the companies in the manner a venture capitalist would invest, but into the rights of the products and services sold. Therefore the fund's business model is to take a commission from cash flows generated by the products and services sold.
The Game Industry In Flux
Those following the mobile gaming industry paid notice that the Finnish gaming studio Universomo was shut down (in Finnish) by its owner THQ Wireless, which acquired the Finnish firm back in 2007. Rumors started to spread on Tuesday this week and pretty soon THQ confirmed the liquidation of the studio. This is part of a bigger shift in the game industry.
Uplause Introduces Real-World Massively Multiplayer Crowd Games For Big Events
Massively multiplayer online games and Wii Sports are so last season, it seems. Uplause is a new Finnish gaming startup with quite an interesting a concept -- “Crowd Games” or Massively Multiplayer Crowd Playing Game (MMCPG) as the firm calls them. Uplause’s crowd games are developed for large events, where the audience can collectively participate in playing the interactive mini-games, real time, on location. See a quick overview of the concept in the video below.
The Future Just Arrived - Grey Area Is Developing A New Kind Of Mobile Gaming Genre From The Ground Up
Grey Area, a small startup operating in stealth mode, is gearing up to change the cityscape for everybody. I get back to how they are going to do this later in the post, but the story of how this startup came to be is equally interesting.
I first met the guys back in OpenCoffee Helsinki what must be more than a year ago. I remember Mikko Hämäläinen telling me how they were exploring possibilities to set up a company with two of his friends, Andreas Karlsson and Teemu Tuulari, from Ericsson. All three had started at Ericsson in 2003-2004 and met when they were put in the small team with the task of developing an Ericsson network node.
Week In Review: It Shall Be Released!
This week was all about the releases, new products, versions, and, er, some employees. Swedes-in-Berlin based startup SoundCloud launched their App Gallery, and we pronounced it good. Unfortunately, Sulake's release was in the form of 28 of their employees. Hopefully, when their Facebook application starts to take off, they can hire everyone back.
There were releases coming from the financial and government worlds this week too. The Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish Ministries' collaboration known as the Nordic Game Program awarded a total of 3,000,000DKK (400,000€, 4,200,000SEK, 3,300,000NOK, 73,000,000ISK) funding to 8 winners to develop innovative games. The Finnish Software Entrepreneurs Association released a manifesto demanding a tax exemption for startups that fund their operations from their own profits and are owned by the entrepreneurs themselves. Lastly, one of the very few investment banks left on the Earth, released a huge report on the future of the mobile internet, and we "filleted" it for you as best we could.
Finally, in a MUST SEE video for all European entrepreneurs, Mårten Mickos releases his hard won wisdom on challenges that are in the way of building world’s biggest anything
