Late last week, TechCrunch reported that Disney had recently acquired Helsinki, Finland based social games creator Rocket Pack. Of any other run-of-the-mill games developer, this would be astonishing, considering that the company was founded less than one year ago, with the game engine still in development as of February 1st. So what has made all the difference? HTML5.
Rocket Pack showcased their HTML5 based Rocket Engine back in September, allowing for a code-free methodology of developing games. They’ve produced their own game, Warimals: Cats vs. Dogs, and while not a runaway success, Rocket Pack can be qualified as a successful title amongst hundreds of others (approximately 4k DAU, and 48k MAU). Again…what makes this Finnish developer so attractive to Disney? It’s not necessarily the game they have already produced, but what kinds of games that are capable of producing in the future.
When games developers are done with the game mechanics and storyboarding, one of the next crucial questions to answer is, “Which platform do we want to target?” There are several different operating systems to choose from, each with their own pluses and minuses. Likewise, choose the wrong platform to launch your title on, and you’re already 1 step back. Certainly the option remains to bring in various specialists and launch a title across all platforms simultaneously, but as you can imagine, the word specialist and often translate into budget breaker. What Rocket Pack has done, by powering their (not yet complete) gaming engine with HTML5, they’ve effectively removed this question from the conversation. Browser based, stand alone PC, Facebook, iPhone, Android, etc. – no problem. With a dash of javascript here, and a pinch of CSS there – presto, instant gaming. No flash, no plugins, just fire it up, and go.
As TechCrunch daftly points out, with the growing prevalence of HTML5 (let’s not forget about Mr. Jobs’ lack-of-love for Flash), and it’s benefits of no additional plugins, Rocket Engine was the first on the scene offering a fully integrated solution. Thus, if you’re a games developer building multi-platform single player games, Facebook titles, of browser based MMOs, chances are, you’ll eventually be using some variant of Rocket Pack’s technology. Or should I now say, Disney’s technology.
While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, estimates from around the community place the deal at somewhere between $10 – $20 million. At the end of the day, Rocket Pack founders and staff members can congratulate themselves on a rocket-paced development and acquisition. However, if/when Disney begins to license out this technology to various games development studios, how many deals will it take for Disney to fully recoup it’s investment and supersede Rocket Pack’s wildest visions?
To say that Friendster’s had a long and winding road might be the understatement of the decade. Founded in 2002, the original social network ruled the internets for a short while, but was quickly taken over by MySpace and Facebook. At least in the U.S. market – as Friendster ended up finding a home in the most unlikely of places, Asia. Currently, while numbers are paltry in the U.S., Friendster enjoys 50 + million users in the Asian market (over half the networks total number of users).
