Posts Tagged ‘big fish games’

Faunasphere comes to Facebook

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Big Fish Games announced yesterday that they are now offering their free-to-play MMO title, Faunasphere on Facebook. The title stands above the crowd insomuch as it’s now a cross platform title, having the stand alone browser version linked to the Facebook based game so that players can have a seamless experience, regardless of the platform.

faunasphere“As a standalone site, Faunasphere has demonstrated incredible user growth and consistently high average spend per user. We are excited to see it perform at scale on Facebook, the world’s largest social network,” comments VP of Social Games at Big Fish Games Will O’Brien.

According to Big Fish Games, both versions of Faunasphere will operate under the same microtransactions system, whereby users can buy additional virtual goods and items for their fauna and commission scientific tests to learn more about the hidden skills their selected character(s) may exhibit. Big Fish Games is also touting the title as a “real” MMO on the Facebook platform, finally introducing the casual games community outside the normal realm of Mafia Wars, Happy Aquariums, and/or FarmVilles.

“MMOs are the original social game,” said Toby Ragaini, Big Fish Games vice president, MMO. “What’s great about bringing MMOs to Facebook is that you have a built-in network of friends to play with. People who play other social games on Facebook will enjoy the increased immersive experience that Faunasphere offers, thanks to the ability to have real-time, synchronous interactions with friends and fellow players. And because Faunasphere was designed for the casual gamer, it’s a perfect fit for the Facebook audience.”

Big Fish Games raised $83 million in 2008, and is continuing to invest in social games and that Faunasphere is just one of many efforts it has in the pipeline for this year. Obviously, Big Fish Games is taking cues from Zynga, hoping to cash in on the massive success of social gaming on the Facebook platform.

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Multiplayer Social Games company Iminlikewithyou names Dan Porter CEO

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

New York based multiplayer social games company Iminlikewithyou.com has named Dan Porter as its new chief executive officer reports VentureBeat.  First up on Porter’s agenda?  Getting the company on track with monetizing it’s social games and continued expansion.

Porter comes to Iminlikewithyou from his previous position as Senior Vice President at Virgin, where he was in charge of venture investing and corporate development for Virgin North America.  The move to Iminlikewithyou is certainly a shifting of gears for Porter, as he now heads up a company with less than 10 employees.  Conversely, Iminlikewithyou is well funded, having received $1.5M to date from Spark Capital, Baseline Ventures, and Betaworks, as well as getting off the ground with individual angel funding from Ron Conway, Marc Andreessen, and Kevin Rose of digg fame.

Iminlikewithyou has humble beginnings, resembling something more akin to a dating site, has refocused their efforts over the years, and now brands itself as a social games portal.  Porter reports that the site has proven compelling to regular users as the iminlikewithyou sees between 500k and 1M visitor per month.  Combined, these users have spent over 50 million minutes on the site in January alone.  Porters hopes for the site include monetizing via virtual goods microtransactions and subscriptions.

Some of the most popular titles on the site include Balloono and Blockles.  Iminlikewith you currently caters mainly to the 15 – 25 age group, and is evenly split between males and females.

And while iminlikewithyou does face a number of steep competitors including playfish, and Big Fish Games, there is a high potential there, as iminlikewithyou holds one key component that the others do not: a thriving social network operating outside the realm of it’s games.

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Paul Thelen presents Big Fish findings on casual gamer profiles and the casual game industry

Monday, July 28th, 2008

At least week’s Casual Connect Seattle, Big Fish Chairman and CSO Paul Thelen presenting some outstanding data regarding the casual gaming market.

The outline to Mr. Thelen’s presentation reads:

The terms “Casual Games” and “Casual Gamer” are very broad terms that mean different things to virtually everyone involved in this area of the overall games industry. The complexity of defining casual games is due to the evolutionary and revolutionary changes that occur each year and the diversity of products and services, breadth of consumption methods and wide variety of business models that have emerged. In this keynote address, Paul Thelen presents the results of new study performed by Big Fish Games, in collaboration with NPD Group, of the US games industry with an emphasis on the casual gamer. The study profiles distinct casual segments of the market and the resulting business opportunities as well as comparing and contrasting these casual segments with the traditional core games market.

Some of Big Fish’s findings include:

Segmenting gamers into two buckets is misleading

Combining Casual and Core gamers, there are 14 distinct segments

This business is complex

  • 14 customer segments
  • 17 Platforms
      PC, Mac, Mobile Phone, Touch Phone, PDA , Xbox 360, XBLA, Playstation 2/3, PSP, Wii, Gameboy, DS, WiWare, IPTV, In-flight entertainment, Basic Browser, Social Networks
  • 10 business models
      Pay-per-day, Try-and-buy, Multi-game subscription to won, Multi-game subscription to rent, Advertising supported, Advergames, Micro-transaction item sales, Single game subscription, Skill game wagering, Bricks and Mortar sales

With this massive amount of data, Big Fish and NDP have clearly presented us with a picture of complexity.  14 different customer segments to contend with.  17 different platforms for you and your developers to wrangle with.  10 different business models, all having their own merits.  Getting your game off the ground and to market is complex enough.  Why not take one worry right off the list?  How are we going to monetize the game?  Simple.  If you’re heading towards the growing trend of micro transaction based, free to play games, you’ve landed in the right spot.

fatfoogoo is a full service provider and offers you a turn-key solution to operate a marketplace including payment, clearing, settlement and in-voicing; all within your game’s environment.  fatfoogoo does what we do best: monetize your game, allowing you and your team more time to focus on what’s important, the game itself.

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