Posts Tagged ‘rockyou’

RockYou signs second deal with Loot Drop, Cloudforest Expedition due out this summer

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

20 million+ social gaming firm RockYou has recently announced the continuation of their publishing relationship with upstart studio Loot Drop.  RockYou announced their first deal with Loot Drop back in January, and clearly company execs are impressed, as the deal will now see a second social game forthcoming from industry vets John Romero and Brenda Brathwaite.  Loot Drop’s first title, Cloudforest Expedition is on tap for a summer delivery, and was funded and to be published by RockYou.

“We’ve been collaborating closely with Loot Drop, and their progress on Cloudforest Expedition is blowing us away,” said Jonathan Knight, SVP of Games at RockYou in a statement. “Loot Drop is a natural fit with our design-driven studio culture and with our commitment to developing and publishing the best social games in the world. With Romero, Brenda Brathwaite, and a full roster of veteran developers, their team continues to exceed expectations. We’re honored to be working with them and look forward to adding two Loot Drop titles to the RockYou portfolio!”

Given Loot Drop’s collection of talent, and their associated pedigrees, RockYou’s investment in the firm could pay off in droves.  Along with Romero, most noted for his work Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, and Brathwaite, most noted for her work on Wizardry, Playboy: The Mansion, and Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes, Loot Drop features Creative Director Laralyn McWilliam, who’s work on Free Realms earned her a shared spot with SOE Prez. John Smedley on Massive Online Gaming’s list of most influential people in MMO’s, and Austin Studio Head and Game Designer Tom Hall, a long time friend of Romero, and co-founder of id Software, as well as former KingsIsle Entertainment employee.  Given this collection of talent, it’s quite clear to see what RockYou wouldn’t have second thoughts about signing the team to a second title.  Likewise, it would appear that Romero is equally happy with the agreement.

“Since we signed our initial deal in January, RockYou has been an awesome partner. They support our creative freedom as we bring innovation to the story-driven adventure genre with Cloudforest Expedition,” said John Romero in a statement. “Extending the relationship with a second game makes sense, and we’re excited to reveal more details of our projects.”

Again, Loot Drop’s inaugural title, Cloudforest Expedition is planned for a summer launch.  It should be interesting to see how Romero’s experiment pans out, as he’s operating under the premise that an independent games studio can produce IP for a variety of publishing firms, all the while, maintaining the artistic and creative freedom usually reserved for firms with not-so-large deals.

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RockYou acquires social games maker Playdemic

Friday, January 14th, 2011

Social games developer RockYou has recently announced that they’ve successfully acquired Manchester, England based developer Playdemic. As part of the deal, Playdemic will remain an independent operation, under the banner of A RockYou studio, and continue to develop Facebook games. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“At RockYou we place great value on the art of game-making,” said Jonathan Knight, RockYou’s SVP of Games in a statement, “and we’re elated to welcome the Playdemic team into our studio system. Playdemic will retain their culture and creative control, as they bring their significant game industry experience to making social games of today and tomorrow.”

This acquisition marks RockYou’s latest move in their quest to deliver high-quality, engaging social games. With the Playdemic acquisition, RockYou can now count established Facebook game Gourmet Ranch as one of their own. In addition to this popular title, RockYou has purchased a significant amount of talent with the Playdemic purchase. Staff members include amongst their resumes, time at Ubisoft, THQ, and Eidos. Games Workshop co-founder, and Eidos life president Ian Livingstone provided a significant amount of initial investment, and Playdemic CEO and Founder Paul Gouge will stay on as VP and General Manager.

“Being a part of RockYou gives us the opportunity to remain creatively independent, while leveraging RockYou’s vast network and expertise at scale to reach a wide audience with our games,” Paul Gouge said. “We see a massive opportunity to expand the depth and quality of social games, and have found an ideal partner in RockYou.”

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RockYou CEO and Founder Lance Tokuda stepping down

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

Since helping found RockYou back in 2005, Lance Tokuda has been the man at the helm. All that is about to change, as reported by Jason Kincaid from TechCrunch. Tokuda successfully championed several rounds of funding for the Redwood City, CA. based social games and advertising solutions firm. RockYou hasn’t had the easiest of times as of late, and this move from Tokuda indicates that the company is firmly committed to, quite literally, get back in the game.

According to Lisa Marino (via TechCrunch), Tokuda announced his move internally last month; right around the time RockYou started putting it’s shift to a primarily social gaming based company into full effect. As a result of this shift, an undisclosed number of RockYou employees were let go, and former EA executive Jonathan Knight was brought on board in an SVP role. RockYou has also recently added former Gazillion Entertainment Interactive Design guru Steve Cartwright as Office general Manager.

As of now, the top slot at RockYou is being filled by an “Office of the CEO” team, including CFO Steve Van Horne, SVP of Technology and Engineering Shamik Sharma, and COO Lisa Marino. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations at RockYou, the team is actively seeking a replacement for Tokuda.

Marino commented that things are Rockyou are “going really well,” and that the company, “is going to be very relevant in social games in around 70 days.” However, Kincaid astutely points out that Tokuda is still listed as CEO of RockYou, and this change of top management was not mentioned in the press surrounding the hiring of Knight.

For now, Tokuda is still with RockYou, and will be working on ‘innovation and strategic initiatives’ moving forward. If Tokuda was instrumental in getting the company off the ground, and up and running, perhaps this new challenge, (did someone say mobile?) is exactly what both Tokuda and RockYou need. If Marino’s words are to be believed, we should expect some game changers from RockYou around mid February. Let’s see if they can, in fact, RockYou (with something new).

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RockYou brings home the SAMMY

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Social app maker RockYou has recently announced their achievement of winning this years’ coveted SAMMY award in the Best Social Media Platform for Marketing category.

rockyou-logo-e1271259278295An easier way to comprehend what this means for RockYou, is to think of the SAMMY as the World of Social Advertising, Media, and Marketing’s Oscar. Presented by Digiday, publishers of DIGIDAY:DAILY and DIGIDAY:SOCIAL, with a panel of judges culled from social media and marketing experts, journalists, industry insiders, marketers, publishers and social technology gurus.

When it came down to deciding factors, the judges’ panel awarded RockYou top honors in:

  • Branded Experiences. With their Video, Rich Media, Deal of the Day, and in-game sponsorships, RockYou proved to be the leader in it’s field. Judges thought that RockYou, above all others, delivered a safe, brand-friendly, immersive and engaging environment when presented to consumers. RockYou’s Deal of the Day was highlighted as delivering a targeted, user initiated brand interaction. RockYou delivers on this front via video, flash games, polls, and surveys. Judges also noted that over 50% of Deal of the Day users followed through and completed a targeted action. Something marketers can surely write home about.
  • Naturally, a nod to RockYou without recognizing their social games department wouldn’t be complete, and the judges panel agreed that Rockyou’s Social Games and Applications delivered best in class. Highlighted offerings from RockYou include Zoo World, Birthday Cars, and their most well known, Pieces of Flair.

“We are pleased and honored to receive the prestigious SAMMY Award for the Best Social Media Platform in Marketing,” said Lisa Marino, Chief Revenue Officer for RockYou. “An early pioneer in this exciting space, RockYou continues to innovate and revolutionize Social Media – by providing a forum which allows both Brand Advertisers and Application Developers to engage millions of consumers worldwide in deeply engaging social experiences.”

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And the money just kept a rollin’ – Zynga raises $15 million

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

If you’d been wagering on the explosion of venture capital investments in social gaming firms late in 2009, you’d be making off like a bandit right now. Just days after RockYou brought home $50 million in funding, and Playdom announcing their $43 million haul – according to VentureBeat, the biggest fish in the pound, Zynga has recently raised an additional $15.18 million in funding.

Zynga founder Mark Pincus

Zynga founder Mark Pincus

With more than 196 million users on Facebook alone, Zynga is clearly the market dominator right now. According to the VC filing, there were no new investors listed, presuming that the additional funding has arrived from previous or currently funding partners. This latest round of funding is equal to almost half the initial $40 million Zynga raised in their first round of VC funding. Previous venture capital has been provided by Kleiner Perkins, Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures.

This latest influx of cash is only one part of the party going on at Zynga. The social gaming company current enjoys the number one app spot on Facebook, with over 65 million monthly users, FarmVille is clearly the industry benchmark to beat.

And while Zynga might be the top of the heap in the Facebook app world, a market that they’ve been less than success in is mobile (read:iPhone) games. In a recent interview with AdAge, Zynga founder Mark Pincus states, “Smartphones. They’re the next frontier in social gaming.” While some might argue that that frontier is already here, we’ve still yet to see what wonders Zynga can do for mobile gaming when given the proper amount of funding and resources to devote to the platform. Could this recent bestowment of funding be earmarked for that exact purpose? And remember, Apple only recently gave the green light to microtransactions within free-to-play games, and area where Zynga shines.

Another way of looking at this new capital is a clear display of faith from investors that the potential class action lawsuit that Zynga and other social gaming companies are looking at is something that can be handled, and shouldn’t slow development.

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RockYou scores another $50 million

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

After passing on an intial offer to be bought out by EA (who eventually went with Playfish as their social gaming acquisition), Redwood City, California based RockYou has recently secured an additional $50 million in series D funding. This recent influx of cash was lead by SoftBank. The news funds are expected to further enhance RockYou’s current offerings and expand development, boost global brand, as well as create products that are ripe for in-game advertising possibilities.

Currently the largest independent ad network in the social media field, with more than 213 million monthly unique visitors, the company logs over 15 billion monthly impressions. Since it’s inception in November 2005, RockYou (originally called RockMySpace) specializes in providing marketers unique and industry leading solutions to reach specific market segments. Primarily focused on widgets and social applications, RockYou has commented that with this new round of funding they will also begin venturing into the currently rather risky waters of in-game offers, i.e. the Scamville affair.

“RockYou has been an innovator in the social media industry since our launch more than four years ago, and we are excited to expand our relationship with SoftBank with this round of funding,” said Lance Tokuda, co-founder and CEO, RockYou. “In 2009, RockYou is on target to triple our revenue from the previous fiscal year, demonstrating our continued growth in the space.”

With rumored revenues in the $30 – $40 million per year range, if Tokuda’s statement is on track, RockYou is well within the revenues range of major players including Zynga and PlayEAfish.

This latest round of funding brings RockYou’s combined total raised to a healthy $118 million. This round D funding effectively doubles what previous round C had netted – $52 million from SoftBank and SK Telecom Ventures this time last year. In addition to SoftBank and SK Telecom Ventures, Rockyou’s finding arrives via Sequoia Capital, Partech International, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and DCM.

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RockYou – on track to be on top

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Virtual Reality Social Games Worlds Networks can at times be busier than Grand Central at 5:09 on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  There are lots of players, each with their own unique take and slice on their specific niche.  And while playfish has certainly made a lot of noise over the past few weeks, it’s often the guys in the back of the room that you’ve got to look out for.  RockYou, please step forward.

RockYou is a self described, “innovator, creator, and distributor of widgets and applications on the social web.”  Try saying that one 5 times fast.  In other words, RockYou creates a lot of those cool widgets and apps that are served up daily every time you log in to your facebook account.  RockYou is the creator of popular apps including SuperWall, SuperPets, Likeness, and HugMe while their widget stable includes Slideshows and Corkboard.  Sound familiar, chances are you’ve used one or RockYou’s apps recently?   They also made waves back in July with the purchase of popular apps Speed Racing and Pieces of Flair.  According to insidefacebook.com, at the time of acquisition #11 app Pieces of Flair was clocking 475,000 daily users, and # 27 Speed Racing weighing in with 200,000 users per day.

Insidesocialgames.com’s Top MySpace games for September 24, 2008 places 2 of the top 12 belonging to RockYou, and they consistently rank high on the Facebook Most Active Users directory (Superwall, Hugme, Pieces of Flare, Likeness, and Birthday Cards all ranking in the top 28).

In addition, RockYou also specializes in creating customized branding and marketing solutions that reach consumers in a medium that the feel comfortable with and used to via applications.  They’ve developed applications for any social network including Hi5, MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Bebo, and Friendster.  Reaching the masses via advertisement through entertainment is nothing new, but few companies are able to do it as well as RockYou.

There has been a bit of confusion regarding just what slice of the social networking pie RockYou is after, as CEO Lance Tokuda was quoted as saying “ We want to be like the Electronic Arts of social networks, and build games for social networks,” at the Startonomics conference in San Francisco in the beginning of October.  While at the same time Brett Errill reported over at his blog that RockYou is still focusing its efforts on their ad network.

Whether Tokuda’s statement was taken out of context or not, I say: Does it matter?  With monetization models popping up all over the place, along with Google’s own entry into the game monetization via advertising, the way I see it, RockYou is already leaps and bounds ahead of their competitors.  With highly popular widgets and applications perfectly positioned in front of users of some of the world’s highest trafficked websites, along with the already existing ad network specialty, RockYou is well on track to becoming a mighty force to be reckoned with.

Find out more about RockYou by visiting them at www.RockYou.com.

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