The Finnish company, which struck gold in 2009 with the launch of its Angry Birds mobile game, said Wednesday it doubled 2012 revenue compared with the prior year and posted a steep increase in net profit. Head count more than doubled to 518 staffers and its closely watched active-monthly-user count marched past the quarter billion mark.

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Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, who once employed Jobs shortly before he and Steve Wozniak started Apple, doesn’t have any specific names to answer that question. But what he does have is a new book, out today, to aid in the search: “Finding the Next Steve Jobs — How to Find, Hire, Keep and Nurture Creative Talent.”

And Bushnell should know about the importance of recognizing that talent — during Atari’s heyday, he turned down the opportunity to own one-third of Jobs’s and Wozniak’s nascent company. By 1980, he writes in the book, “I was beginning to think it might turn out to be a mistake.”

“Finding the Next Steve Jobs” is being released by Net Minds, a print/e-book hybrid publishing startup led by former Yahoo exec Tim Sanders. Bushnell said it uses Jobs as a metaphor for the creative iconoclasts who clash with corporate culture and can’t get hired. He sat down with AllThingsD to explain further.

AllThingsD: Just how close were you to Steve after his brief involvement with Atari?

Nolan Bushnell: We’d talk on the phone infrequently, but he’d come up to [my house in] Woodside about once a month, usually on a Saturday or Sunday morning, and we’d go up on the hill and talk. Occasionally, I’d go down to his place, but a lot of the time it was him coming up to my place.

Why are we even looking for the “next Steve Jobs?”

Steve took a failing computer company — and they probably would have never brought him back if they weren’t at the end of their rope — and turned it into the highest-market-cap company in the world. People were always aware that innovative solutions are good for your company. I think this just underscored it in a really powerful way. It wasn’t just through cutting costs or innovative marketing. Though Steve was a pretty good marketer.

But that was when he returned to Apple in 1997. Most of the time when people talk about the “next Steve Jobs,” they’re using that phrase to refer to entrepreneurs who are still early on in their careers. So, are those people really that hard up for work?

I believe there are Steve Jobses all around us. Really, what is happening is that they’re being edited out of importance. Right now, Google is doing some great things, but Hewlett-Packard is trying to commit suicide. Every company needs to have a skunkworks, to try things that have a high probability of failing. You try to minimize failure, but at the same time, if you’re not willing to try things that are inherently risky, you’re not going to make progress.

Speaking of progress, what’s the most exciting thing for you in videogames?

I think the next big game opportunity is Google Glasses [sic]. If I told you all my ideas for it, I’d have to kill you. And the Oculus Rift. The game business reinvents itself every five years. The last five years have been the days of mobile gaming and shortform gaming, exemplified by Rovio with Angry Birds and Zynga with FarmVille. And that is over.

(Nolan’s daughter and PR agent, Alissa Bushnell, quickly jumped in at this point, asking him to clarify what he meant by “over.”)

Most games, by their nature, have a half-life of two years or less. It’s the outlier that has a half-life that’s longer than that. But that doesn’t mean that the marketplace is synchronized. So you have the early adopters coming into something, and they soon encourage the more timid to come in. It broadens the group. But players’ engagement is not lengthened.

But smartphones and tablets continue to be hugely popular, so how are their games “over”?

All the money’s out. Do I really want to do a mobile game that’s one of 300,000, where discoverability is everything? You really have to have a little more sizzle on the steak. I would rather be one of 100 apps for Google Glass than one of 300,000 for iOS and Android.

Does the potential for a new, game-changing entrepreneur exist independently of how these different companies or industries are changing?

I really believe that the future is happening whether we want it or not. The companies that force the future to happen faster will succeed in the next 20 years, and the ones that are stuck in today will lose market share. People say, “I want to be around in 20 years.” I say, “I have no idea. But if you’re not doing 10 different things, if you don’t have four skunkworks, then you’re not going to find the next thing.”

(Clarification: an earlier version of this story said Bushnell employed both Jobs and Wozniak. Although Wozniak was involved with and paid for his work on Atari’s game “Breakout,” he was paid by Jobs rather than Bushnell’s company).

That’s the snappy line Rovio strategist Andrew Stalbow is using to talk about the company’s forthcoming animated series, “Angry Birds Toons.” The show, first announced nearly a year ago, will be distributed primarily through an update to the Angry Birds game for smartphones and tablets.

The cartoons will also be available on Comcast’s on-demand services, Roku’s set-top boxes and Samsung’s smart TVs, and will be broadcast on TV in 12 countries — but not the U.S. — one day before each new episode comes to the apps.

Why is American broadcast TV not getting the show? It seemed like a natural fit, especially since Nickelodeon aired one of the first pre-series shorts in the run-up to Angry Birds: Space. The absence of Nick (or any other American station aimed at the younger set) from Rovio’s press release this morning was conspicuous.

Parents who would rather park Junior in front of the tube and keep the iPad for Mommy and Daddy, don’t despair. Stalbow left the door wide open for a future TV run in the States, even if initial talks didn’t result in a deal.

Andrew Stalbow

Rovio will roll out one new episode of “Angry Birds Toons” per week, with 52 of the three-minute to five-minute shorts planned so far. Unlike Netflix’s “House of Cards” episode dump, serialized installments will give players a reason to open the app more frequently over a longer period of time, and will likely expose them to new game features and cross-promotions for other games.

And even though downloads of Rovio’s games still tick up and up and up (crossing the 1.7 billion mark recently), engagement seems to be dropping: Onavo Insights estimates that active iPhone users of the original Angry Birds app dropped 22 percent in January.

After all, there are only so many ways to kill a pig.

Stalbow called the new series Rovio’s “transition from being a mobile games company to a fully-fledged entertainment company.” That’s markedly different from Cut the Rope makers ZeptoLab’s claim that “we’re a gaming company first,” in spite of a planned TV show of its own.

Stalbow said, though, that games are still the “engine driver” of Rovio’s IP.

So, what about those other games: Bad Piggies, which stars the villains from Angry Birds, and Amazing Alex, which takes place in a different world? I asked if they, too, would get the animation treatment, and again Stalbow left the possibilities open.

Stalbow said the focus right now is on the Angry Birds “classic world” (read: sorry, Bad Piggies fans), but that he expects animation to have some staying power within the company — it’s already one of the three pillars of Rovio’s new business, the other two being games and merchandise.

The first episode of “Angry Birds Toons” hits international TV on March 16, and games and on-demand services on March 17. Plus, Rovio is still working on that Angry Birds movie, now slated for a summer 2016 release.

The game, which is slated to arrive March 14, is the latest collaboration with DreamWorks, as Rovio also did Angry Birds Rio — a tie-in with the movie “Rio.”

Last year, Rovio released Amazing Alex, its first big non-Angry Birds title since the avians took off. It flew to the top of the charts, like other Rovio titles, but quickly came back to earth.

The Boggle-inspired game, available for iOS and Android, is the first self-published title from Swedish studio MAG Interactive. The numbers behind its growth are seriously impressive, but data obtained by AllThingsD suggests that, like last year’s mobile sensation, Draw Something, its popularity may have already peaked.

For the uninitiated, the game works like this: Two competing players each have three minutes to swipe their fingers across a square grid of letters, finding as many words as they can and scoring points in the process. Each game is divided into three rounds, and each round ends with the ominous, perfectly calculated sound of a tick-tick-ticking 10-second countdown.

First, the good numbers: Ruzzle product manager Daniel Hasselberg said more than 100 million rounds (so, more than 33.3 million games) are played every day. With 28 million active users in January, the game has topped the iOS App Store charts in 30 countries.

Ruzzle players have spent, in aggregate, more than 10,000 years playing the game, Hasselberg added.

And according to mobile intelligence service Onavo — which uses anonymous user data from its popular data-compression app to estimate apps’ market share — 7.51 percent of all iPhones in the U.S. opened the game in January, up from 1.29 percent just one month before.

To put that in perspective: The original Angry Birds, which Onavo ranks as the most popular in the series, was opened by “only” 4 percent of American iPhone owners in the same month.

However, Onavo now says that those January numbers may have been the peak for users’ engagement with the app. Although it is still handily beating Zynga’s similar Boggle-esque title, Scramble With Friends, the number of Ruzzle’s daily active users has dropped consistently since the first week of February.

The second graph in the image below shows the trend. The purple line represents Ruzzle, and the gray line represents Scramble With Friends.

Of course, it’s still possible for the developers to turn that curve around, and Hasselberg promised new features for the iOS and Android versions of the game “over the next few months.”

But just two days after Ruzzle peaked, on February 5, MAG Interactive released a new game called QuizCross that’s already bringing in rave user reviews. Despite its youth, the company seems to understand the M.O. of mobile: Like Ruzzle’s ticking countdown, hits don’t last forever.

“We’re fortunate enough that we got dealt an amazing card, and it’s called Cut the Rope,” Lyalin said of ZeptoLab’s hit series. “But we still have to build up everything else. With one card, you go into the game, and everybody has a hand, and you have nothing.”

That “everything else” includes two other games, Parachute Ninja and Pudding Monsters, which combined with Cut the Rope’s three titles have generated more than 300 million downloads across all platforms since 2010. The company also licenses enough merchandise to choke even Cut the Rope’s voracious star, Om Nom: Toys, apparel, food, board games, a digital comic book and an ongoing animated Web series.

And that list is growing. In an interview with AllThingsD, Lyalin said ZeptoLab is planning four new games for this year: Two new Cut the Rope games and two completely original titles. The company is also working with Sony Pictures Television to develop a TV show, to start airing in 2014.

(Also coming soon to a TV near you: A half-hour animated TV series based on Zynga’s social game FarmVille, not to mention Rovio’s Angry Birds TV shorts, a few of which have already aired on Nickelodeon. Whether the new generation of videogame-related shows can live up to the artistic excellence of the “Super Mario Bros. Super Show” remains to be seen.)

The CEO declined to go into detail about the TV show, other than to say that it would be Cut the Rope-themed.

Lyalin said these sorts of licensed products are now a part of the expected path for game companies that have a hit on their hands.

And that’s telling. Once, the iconic games that were able to command extensive lines of merchandise were only available on a few devices approved by their publishers (think Mario on Nintendo’s consoles or Sonic on Sega’s). Now, stuffed Om Noms are both an extra revenue stream and a form of advertising for the Cut the Rope brand, which freely follows users across different devices and different operating systems.

However, Lyalin stressed the need to keep releasing new games above all else.

“We’re a gaming company, first and foremost,” he said. “That is where our strength is from.”

So, where are those games headed? With its fans primarily on mobile devices, ZeptoLab hasn’t yet tried to break into the troubled home-console market, but Lyalin said he hasn’t ruled it out. In particular, he said, Android-based game consoles (such as the forthcoming Ouya) are “a given,” since the company’s games are already on the Android OS.

His bigger philosophy, though, is refreshingly frank, if not terribly complex: A lot of platforms where ZeptoLab might go won’t survive. But, Lyalin said, if they can attract an audience in the short term and potentially expand Om Nom’s reach, then that’s enough.

Heijari, who had been a senior VP for Rovio, is remaining in Finland to lead European operations for PlayHaven, a San Francisco-based company that helps mobile games earn money through in-app ads for other games. The company offers game makers the opportunity to promote their titles on a pay-per-install basis, and is in about 4,000 iOS and Android games used by 115 million people each month.

“From my experience at Rovio, I see the importance in this industry of cross-promotion,” said Heijari, who left Rovio last week and started in the new role earlier this week. “PlayHaven is in exactly the right position.”

In January, PlayHaven hired former AdMob exec Charles Yim to be its chief operating officer. Heijari said he was introduced to PlayHaven by Yim, and has been watching the company closely over the last year.

Heijari, who said in an interview last year that he had yet to tire of Angry Birds, said Thursday that it was great helping build such a massive consumer brand, but he was attracted by PlayHaven’s business and culture.

In recent years, game sales have declined dramatically, with software and hardware making up only half of industry spending, according to NPD Group. The other half now goes toward downloadable content and microtransactions — in other words, digital content for consoles, smartphones and Facebook.

Because of this seismic shift in gamer behavior, many industry veterans are banking on the release of the new PlayStation, and a new Xbox coming later this year from Microsoft, to provide a jolt in traditional game sales.

On Wednesday, Sony is hosting an event in New York, where it is expected to unveil the PlayStation 4, as it has been nicknamed. Sony’s machine is expected to come in time for the holidays, along with the Xbox, although Microsoft declines to comment on its plans.

The good news is, that in the past, new hardware has always led to more software sales; as consumers bought one, they bought more of the other. But after a lackluster launch of the Wii U by Nintendo this holiday season, some wonder if a living-room-driven gaming experience has as much firepower as it once did.

“I feel like consumers are happy, and I’m not sure if there will ever be the right time to release a console again,” said Jerry Holkins, co-founder of Penny Arcade, a company that produces provides commentary on the industry through Web comics. “I think the spend is elsewhere. I don’t think they are waiting for the next generation; they are happy with where they are playing today.”

Electronic Arts’ John Riccitiello is more optimistic about the prospects of the next-generation devices. But then, as one of the industry’s biggest publishers, he has to be. During the company’s last conference call, he said that the December quarter was disappointing, but “that often happens when the consumer carries the expectation of a console transition.”

In January, Nintendo slashed its sales outlook after holiday sales of the Wii U failed to hit expectations. The poor turnout does not provide a lot of support for the theory that consumers were just holding back spending for the release of the new hardware.

The Japanese game company was hoping to rekindle consumer excitement by launching the Wii U with a controller that had a six-inch touchscreen display and acted much like Apple’s iPad. It also enabled consumers to interact with their TVs, by allowing owners to comment on programming within a closed social network. But the console was mostly trying to extend the life of the traditional videogame business, which relies on selling packaged software at $60 apiece.

Again, Riccitiello is hopeful that Nintendo’s performance is not an indication of the other two launches.

“I wouldn’t say that we see much correlation between the results that Nintendo has shown with their console debut of the Wii U, and what we see coming,” he said. “We see a pretty sharp distinction and, unfortunately, I am unable to go any further than that.”

But there’s no way to discount what has happened in the games industry since the last generation of devices launched. Social and mobile platforms have led to the rise of the 99-cent game and the free-to-play business model. Gamers have grown to enjoy playing a game without having to pay a dime. Then, if they want to, they can invest as much as they want.

If Sony or Microsoft are to be successful, adopting new business models may be the key.

There are already some signs of Sony’s willingness to change. According to The Wall Street Journal, Sony will provide a new streaming game service that will allow users to play games delivered over the Internet. The service is designed to use current PlayStation 3 titles on the new console. While cloud gaming hasn’t really taken off on other platforms, the technology does enable other pricing models, like subscriptions.

Another development since the last generation of consoles hit store shelves is how much the definition of a gamer has changed. With the massive popularity of Rovio’s Angry Birds and Zynga’s FarmVille, gamers aren’t just “hard-core” players but also housewives and touchscreen-savvy children.

To be sure, Microsoft has been aggressive in reaching out to a broader audience. Last week, it said that 38 percent of Xbox users are women, and more than 51 percent of owners are people who have kids. Overall, it said non-gaming usage has soared by 57 percent year over year.

Despite interest in other platforms, many also believe that there’s still a time and a place for the highest-fidelity experience possible. The console, with its high computing power, is often the perfect delivery mechanism for a gunshot to the face, or a perfectly depicted battle scenes — a fact that Activision proves year after year with its title Call of Duty, which defies industry trends. This year, for instance, the title under the name of Black Ops 2 crossed $1 billion in sales in just 15 days.

Anil Dharni, an SVP of Gree, has focused on publishing hard-core titles like Crime City for tablets, but still believes that consoles “serve an audience, who wants a high-fidelity experience that mobile devices can’t deliver today.” He thinks the traditional gaming market will decline, “but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Penny Arcade’s Holkins says he will continue buying consoles even if that makes him look old. “I liked having a console,” he said. “I enjoyed that, and I’ll still do that.”

Here’s its latest attempt to break through: Disney Infinity, a series of games aimed at console game players.

That is: People who play games on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PS3 and the Nintendo Wii.

Short version: Infinity is a series of games linked together via a virtual “toy box,” so players can swap and modify characters from one game and bring them into another. Which means Sully from “Monsters University” can jump into a “Pirates of the Caribbean” game, etc.

The games also incorporate real-world collectible toys, which players use to unlock characters, games, etc. And you can also buy “power up” packs and other modules to boost/alter your games.

Or, for those of you who know kids of a certain age: This is a lot like Skylanders, except with Disney/Pixar characters that you can mash up. For the rest of you: Skylanders is a super-successful franchise from Activision that has generated $500 million in retail sales in a couple years.

That last sentence helps clarify what Disney is trying to do here. But if you’re wondering why Disney is focused on big, expensive (a “starter pack” for Infinity, which includes three games, will go for $75) console games, when the big trend in gaming is toward cheap/free casual/mobile games like Angry Birds, then Disney gaming chief John Pleasants wants to reassure you: They’re not.

“We’ve been fairly clear in our communications with folks that we have made a fairly big shift into online, mobile and social,” he says. And Infinity won’t change that.

But since people are still spending an awful lot of time on console games — and Sony et al are prepping the next generation of those machines — there’s no reason to abandon the market.

But 2013 looks to be the year automakers move beyond a few pre-approved partnership-driven test apps and into the great unknown.

Today, Ford is announcing its developer program, which will allow app developers to connect their Android and iPhone apps to Ford’s SYNC voice-activated interface.

But don’t expect to be playing Angry Birds on your dashboard as you’re driving down the freeway. The so-called “open platform” for an auto interface will have a high bar for approval of new apps.

“It’s as open as we feel comfortable to make it. Developers can be as creative as they want, but we do reserve the right to be selective under safety concerns,” said John Ellis, Ford’s global technologist for connected services and solutions.

As of today, developers can register to download Ford’s AppLink SDK. Then they can submit a Ford-compatible app for review “to ensure it works properly and is suitable for use in the vehicle.”

There already seems to be significant latent interest in developing for the Ford platform. In the lead-up to this launch, Ford collected 4,000 developer sign-ups on its website.

But Ford isn’t the only automaker trying to attract developer interest for its increasingly open platform. General Motors, which is also gearing up for a big launch at CES later this week, held a hackathon this weekend where about 20 projects were developed for the GM platform.

While the details of GM’s full announcement aren’t out yet, the hackathon projects included an app that allows users to remotely update in-car navigation with new destinations — the idea is to extend a “honey-do” list while your partner is already out doing errands — and another called “meet me in the middle” that suggests restaurants and cafes halfway between two GM drivers’ locations.

Ford was the first major auto company to jump on the connected-car bandwagon; the AppLink program dates back to 2010. At first it only included a few apps — Pandora (of course!), Stitcher and a couple more.

That small library has grown over time, and today at CES, Ford partners are launching quite a few more apps: In social media, Sina; in news, Wall Street Journal radio (where, full disclosure, AllThingsD reporters are sometimes featured), USA Today and Kaliki; in music and entertainment, Amazon, Aha Radio, Rhapsody and Greater Media; and in navigation and location, Glympse and BeCouply (a bit of an oddball, in that it provides date ideas on the go). Some of these apps will soon be live in Europe and Asia as well.

The next big step is for carmakers to provide app developers with vehicle data. That will allow for apps to be built around interesting and car-specific topics like fuel efficiency and ride sharing.

Vehicle data is “very near on our roadmap,” according to Julius Marchwicki, Ford’s SYNC AppLink program manager. GM seems to be further along on that front, with vehicle data mentioned in a developer website that’s already live.

The other big question is how integrated automakers want to be with existing platforms, and how much they require developers to build on top of car systems — which unfortunately often seem to be a takeoff of the interfaces we get on our smartphones and tablets, only with more pixelation and awkward hierarchical menus.

There are a range of perspectives on that issue — for instance, Kia and Hyundai said last week they will add Google Maps into their navigation systems.

Ford’s strategy is to have developers incorporate its voice-activation and vehicle interfaces into their apps for Android and iPhone apps, so they are distributed through familiar marketplaces to drivers’ existing cellphones.

But there are some hiccups with that strategy — for example, on the iPhone, Ford cannot open a new application; the app must already be open for the car system to engage with it.

The GM developer portal, meanwhile, indicates that the company is choosing more of an HTML5 open Web app strategy, though we’ll hear more about that soon.

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Already, 30 percent of sales come from physical goods. “In a few years, more than half of our business will be physical,” Rovio marketing chief Peter Vesterbacka said during a panel discussion at the Open Mobile Summit on Thursday.

That’s not to say the company isn’t devoting a lot of time to its game-making. This year has already seen the Angry Birds flying into space, along with the release of Birds spinoff Bad Piggies, and Amazing Alex, a non-Angry Birds title. And, on Thursday, the company released Star Wars Angry Birds.

The goal is to create physical goods that drive more time spent with the video games, and vice versa. In all, the company hopes to have a billion fans interacting with Rovio’s characters in two or three years’ time.

“We are looking at food, drinks, stuff that you will use everyday,” Vesterbacka said. The model in this area, he says, is Coca-Cola, which serves up a billion servings of its soft drinks each day. If they can do that with a physical product, Rovio should be able to do it with the Birds.

“Again, people think that we are crazy,” Vesterbacka said, clad in his usual red Angry Birds sweatshirt.

So, what of projects that blend the physical and digital worlds? Augmented reality would seem to be a natural fit.

It is indeed an area that Rovio has been investigating.

“We have done a lot of work on that in our labs,” Vesterbacka said in an interview Thursday. The challenge, he said, is doing something that isn’t just a technology demonstration.

“A lot of stuff has been too gimicky,” Vesterbacka said.

Vesterbacka was coy on whether what he had in mind was something that would put real people inside the game, or something that would expand the game play into the real world.

“We’re getting close,” he said. “It’s not trivial to get it right. We are probably like 90 percent there. The last 10 percent is like tough.”

Reaching the company’s ambitions requires Rovio to continue adding new types of talent. The company has grown to roughly 500 workers, up from 220 just a year ago. Among the new hires is an expert in theme parks, aiming to help the company in its quest to build “activity parks” throughout China — the second-largest market for Rovio, and its fastest-growing one.

The parks are another of the company’s ventures into the physical world. In part, Vesterbacka said Rovio is trying to do its part to encourage kids to exercise their minds and bodies.

“We think that’s almost our responsibility,” he said. But he notes that Rovio isn’t doing the parks as a philanthropic venture. “It’s not only the right thing to do, but it is an amazing business opportunity.”

I’ll have more from my chat with Vesterbacka in a follow-up post. In the meantime, here’s a look back at AllThingsD’s coverage from our visit to the Angry Birds roost in Finland earlier this year:

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• How the Angry Birds Almost Died Before the First Level

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121109/rovios-mighty-eagle-on-taking-his-angry-birds-into-the-real-world/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121008/rovio-hopes-to-use-the-force-as-it-pairs-angry-birds-and-star-wars/ http://allthingsd.com/20121008/rovio-hopes-to-use-the-force-as-it-pairs-angry-birds-and-star-wars/#comments Mon, 08 Oct 2012 16:47:05 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=257931 Rovio announced details on Monday on its plans for a “Star Wars”-themed Angry Birds game, due out next month.

Set to arrive Nov. 8, Angry Birds Star Wars will feature traditional Birds game play with the characters and settings from the Lucasfilm movie franchise.

The move will also give the companies the opportunity to sell merchandise, with tons of “Star Wars” and Angry Birds-themed gear slated to go on sale starting Oct. 28. Clothing, costumes and action figures are all on tap.

It’s part of Rovio’s strategy to continue tapping the popularity of the birds, while also branching out into all-new titles like Amazing Alex and spinoffs like the recently released Bad Piggies.

Bad Piggies has shot to the top of the sales charts, but whether it will be a long-term hit remains to be seen. Amazing Alex had a big launch, but has fallen out of the Top 100 titles.

In a good sign for Microsoft, the game will be available for Windows Phone and Windows 8, in addition to Macs, standard PCs, Kindle Fires and, of course, iOS and Android devices.

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• How the Angry Birds Almost Died Before the First Level

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121008/rovio-hopes-to-use-the-force-as-it-pairs-angry-birds-and-star-wars/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121004/battle-bears-go-to-hollywood-a-mobile-game-becomes-a-tv-show/ http://allthingsd.com/20121004/battle-bears-go-to-hollywood-a-mobile-game-becomes-a-tv-show/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2012 11:30:07 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=257002 SkyVu Entertainment, a small mobile games developer from Omaha, Neb., has formed a blockbuster partnership with a Los Angeles studio to bring its popular Battle Bears game to the TV screen.

Wildbrain Entertainment, the studio behind “Yo Gabba Gabba!” and other hit TV shows, has agreed to produce a full season of half-hour episodes based on the game. In addition, it intends on manufacturing a line of Battle Bears action figures and toys.

SkyVu is claiming this is the first time an original TV series has been based on a mobile game. Even if that’s true, some other games are getting close, as mobile applications become a part of people’s everyday lives, just like any other entertainment brand.

For instance, Disney is having some success with its mobile game Where’s My Water?, which stars Swampy the alligator. Based on the game, it has created an animated series for Disney.com and YouTube. Rovio’s Angry Birds also got pretty close to the silver screen when it teamed up with 20th Century Fox to create a version of its game based on the animated movie “Rio.”

SkyVu’s co-founder and CEO Ben Vu, who was previously an animator for the movie “Coraline,” envisioned creating a cross-platform brand since the company’s start, and as long as the pilot is a hit — and a network picks it up — the dream could become a reality in as little as a year.

I previously compared the Battle Bears games to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it entertains with both violence and humor. When the bears slice off heads, rainbows — not blood — come pouring out. To add to the Ninja Turtle vibe, the bears talk like California surfers. The games have been downloaded 18 million times, which is a sizable chunk of the 9-to-15-year-old male demographic.

In a statement, Michael Polis, the president of Wildbrain said, “Between its built-in fan base and the expandable universe that lends itself to consumer products and character-driven extensions, Battle Bears has the potential to become the next big boys action comedy brand.”

The TV show’s plot is expected to follow the lives of six Battle Bears as they travel to a remote pink planet. The bears soon learn that the planet is home to some of the galaxy’s most dangerous threats. The bears will have to use their skills to save the day.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121004/battle-bears-go-to-hollywood-a-mobile-game-becomes-a-tv-show/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120930/will-bad-piggies-give-rovio-the-boost-it-needs/ http://allthingsd.com/20120930/will-bad-piggies-give-rovio-the-boost-it-needs/#comments Sun, 30 Sep 2012 23:04:22 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=255146 This week, Rovio let fly Bad Piggies, the company’s latest effort to both build on and move beyond its signature Angry Birds franchise.

The game shot to the top of the charts, but the real question is whether the game will help or hurt Rovio’s cause to prove itself more than a one-hit wonder.

Rovio has raised a ton of money and billed itself as a company looking to be the next Disney and build an entertainment franchise with animation, games and more. It already boasts an impressive collection of products from toys to candies, but all are hitched inexorably to the company’s signature birds.

There have even been squawks about Rovio potentially going public, but it is unclear whether investors would want to see more of a track record before plunking down for the shares.

Earlier this year, the company released Amazing Alex, its first non-Angry Birds title since the avians made their debut. It had a brief stint atop the charts but is now no longer in the top 100 U.S. titles, according to App Annie.

Bad Piggies is an Angry Birds spinoff, but unlike Angry Birds Space and Angry Birds Seasons, it features an entirely new type of game play. Plus, in the new game, the pigs are the protagonists rather than the targets of weapons.

The pigs have to reach a map piece at each level and, instead of slingshots, the pigs travel by a conveyance put together each round by the player, using a set of available parts.

The result is a game that, if entertaining, also resembles a lot of other physics simulation titles on the market. The big question is whether the well-known characters will be enough to help it stand out.

I chatted on NPR’s All Things Considered on Thursday about the game and what it all means for Rovio.

And here’s a look back at AllThingsD’s coverage from our visit to the Angry Birds roost in Finland earlier this year.

RELATED POSTS:

• I Went to Espoo, Finland, and All I Got Was This Angry Birds T-Shirt (And Plush Toy and …)
• Rovio Shows Off Angry Birds Space — From Space
• Rovio’s CEO on Growing His Flock and Whether to Fly Solo
• How the Angry Birds Almost Died Before the First Level

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120930/will-bad-piggies-give-rovio-the-boost-it-needs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120927/rovios-bad-piggies-shoots-to-the-top-of-the-charts-but-will-it-stick/ http://allthingsd.com/20120927/rovios-bad-piggies-shoots-to-the-top-of-the-charts-but-will-it-stick/#comments Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:03:49 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=254912 Rovio is back on top of the iPhone charts today with a game called Bad Piggies, a spinoff of its insanely popular Angry Birds franchise.

In the new game, released today on iOS, Android and Mac, players build elaborate vehicles for their pigs before sending them through elaborate obstacle courses. The goal is to collect as many eggs as possible.

The 99-cent app has already risen to the No. 1 spot on the iPhone and iPad paid charts in the U.S., according to AppData, which tracks user downloads. The game is not yet registering on Google Play. A company spokesperson did not immediately return emails seeking comment.

There’s a lot riding on Bad Piggies for the Finnish game maker Rovio, which attempted to move beyond its core Angry Birds franchise this summer with the release of a game called Amazing Alex. However, while the game initially zoomed to the top of the charts in 54 countries, it failed to stay there. After less than two months, Amazing Alex ranked as the 73rd most-popular paid app worldwide.

As Reuters noted, the stakes are high for Rovio to get this one right:

A hit on app stores would give the Finnish company a boost as it looks to a possible stock market flotation next year. Some analysts put its market value at between $6 billion and $9 billion, nearly on par with another top Finnish tech name, phone maker Nokia Oyj.

Rovio was founded in 2003, and became a global phenomenon after it launched Angry Birds for Apple’s iPhone in late 2009.

The highly-addictive game helped Rovio’s sales jump tenfold to $100 million last year, a fraction of the 38.7 billion euros ($50.2 billion) that Nokia chalked up.

What Rovio has proven with Amazing Alex — and now with Bad Piggies — is that it has the network power to get a game to No. 1 on the first day, a skill any mobile game developer would covet. But whether that alone is worth as much as $9 billion, it’s hard to know.

Will a return to its original hit franchise help justify its sky-high valuation?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120927/rovios-bad-piggies-shoots-to-the-top-of-the-charts-but-will-it-stick/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120904/rovio-pigs-out-on-angry-birds-franchise-after-less-than-amazing-alex/ http://allthingsd.com/20120904/rovio-pigs-out-on-angry-birds-franchise-after-less-than-amazing-alex/#comments Tue, 04 Sep 2012 17:56:50 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=247328 After venturing beyond its core game franchise, Rovio is back with another variation of its hit Angry Birds game, this one called Bad Piggies.

While much of the game play will remain a mystery until it comes out on iOS, Android and Mac starting Sept. 27, Rovio confirms that it has turned the Angry Birds plot on its head, with players in the role of the pigs instead of the birds. And there are no slingshots.

In a release, Rovio’s CEO Mikael Hed said Bad Piggies is fulfilling consumer demand.

“There’s a lot of empathy towards the lovable enemies from the Angry Birds games, and we’ve been constantly asked: What about the pigs’ side of the story?” Hed said. “Bad Piggies gives you the chance to play as the second-most-loved characters in the Angry Birds universe, and explore this rich world through their green eyes.”

Later versions of the game will be available for Windows Phone and Windows 8.

The sequel comes close on the heels of Rovio’s launch of Amazing Alex, a physics-based game released in July. While Amazing Alex initially flew to the top of the charts, it has failed to sustain the same kind of momentum that Angry Birds has to date. After less than two months, Amazing Alex ranks as the 73rd most popular paid app, and the 42nd most popular paid game in the U.S., according to AppData.

The quick return to the Angry Birds franchise brings into question whether the Finnish game maker will be able to replicate its success with other games, or whether it will continue to be a one-hit wonder.

Here’s the trailer for the new game:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120904/rovio-pigs-out-on-angry-birds-franchise-after-less-than-amazing-alex/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120823/how-to-become-an-app-store-millionaire-make-a-hit-app-and-dont-make-anything-else/ http://allthingsd.com/20120823/how-to-become-an-app-store-millionaire-make-a-hit-app-and-dont-make-anything-else/#comments Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:56:36 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=244315 Three years ago, Igor Pusenjak and his brother Marko unveiled Doodle Jump, an addictive game that quickly became one of the biggest hits at Apple’s App Store. It turned them into millionaires.

So, what are they doing for an encore?

Nothing.

While most other developers might try to follow the success of one app by rushing out follow-ups, the brothers Pusenjak have been content to ride Doodle Jump as far as that will take them.

Which turns out to be pretty far. Igor Pusenjak says the brothers have sold 15 million copies of the iPhone game, at 99 cents each. And while the game is no longer routinely perched in the App Store’s Top 10 list, he says it is still selling 300,000 copies a month.

And since the Pusenjak’s Lima Sky company is a tiny one — it’s basically the two of them, along with a handful of contractors — that means they are doing very, very well. After you subtract Apple’s 30 percent fee, iPhone/iPod sales alone have netted them $10.5 million.

And they don’t have any venture capitalists or angel investors to share the proceeds with, because they’ve never taken outside money.

They’ve made some very cautious line extensions — there’s an iPad version of the game, for instance, as well as an Android one, and in the future they’ll finally start licensing the game for things like T-shirts and plush toys. Today, the company has updated the original version of its iPhone game, which includes extra goodies like in-game purchases.

But that’s it.

Why not try to sell more games? Or, alternately, why not try to sell the company to, say, big publicly traded acquirers who need hits?

Let’s let Igor Pusenjak explain himself:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120823/how-to-become-an-app-store-millionaire-make-a-hit-app-and-dont-make-anything-else/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120814/what-happens-after-angry-birds-is-played-out-meet-skyvus-battle-bears/ http://allthingsd.com/20120814/what-happens-after-angry-birds-is-played-out-meet-skyvus-battle-bears/#comments Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:55:53 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=240990 Now that Angry Birds has created millions of gamers on the iPhone, what will come next?

Many game makers are preparing for an opportunity to create edgier games as players begin to move upstream after cutting their teeth on simple mechanics, like slingshots.

To that end, a new crop of companies are forming to bring some of the classic first-person or role-playing elements found in console games to the phone and tablet market. The trend is not just happening on mobile, but Facebook, too, where new players were first introduced to gaming with farm-like mechanics, but now want something more.

SkyVu, which is announcing today that it has raised a first round of funding, is just one of those companies going after the so-called mid-core market.

The company’s games tend to attract a smaller user base, so they don’t reach the top of the charts and are not as well known, and being based in Omaha, Neb., has kept it off the radar of Silicon Valley. But SkyVu has been true to its target.

“We were one of the first to make mid-core action games on iOS. We stuck to our guns — no pun intended — and it has gone well for us,” said Ben Vu, the company’s co-founder, who was an animator for the movie ”Coraline.”

“We do not compete with Angry Birds,” Vu added.

For instance, one of its games, Battle Bears Royale, is a cross between Activision’s Call of Duty and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the game, bears slice off heads and shoot guns, but there’s never any blood. Instead, the funny action shooter — targeting boys age 9-15 — relies on rainbows and other wacky elements to entertain. To add to the Ninja Turtle vibe, the bears talk a bit like California surfers. In the words of Michelangelo, “Cowabunga, dude!”

Terms of the round were not disclosed, but investors include Lightbank, which is known for its investment in Groupon; Nextview Ventures; Great Oaks Venture Capital; Michael Chang, former CEO of Greystripe; and the Nebraska Angels. Vu noted that the company was profitable before it received today’s investment.

Battle Bears is a free-to-play game that is monetized through in-app purchases. So far, the company’s games have been downloaded 18 million times. That’s far fewer than Angry Birds, but because they draw in a more dedicated audience, Lightbank’s Paul Lee said, they still monetize well because the average user spends about three times more money than in other games.

According to AppData, which tracks the performance of apps across both Facebook and iOS, Battle Bear Royale’s top three in-app purchases were a small gas can ($2.99), a medium gas can ($9.99) and a gas tanker ($19.99). The game, which has more than 4,000 reviews and a rating of 4.5 stars, is currently the 329th top grossing iPad app in the U.S.

Higher engagement and better monetization are just two traits of a mid-core game, which may not attract as many players but can end up doing just as well or better as tamer titles.

The round of funding will be used to help launch the company’s two upcoming games and to open an office in the San Francisco area. The company, which has 22 employees, also has plans to extend the brand beyond games to merchandise, such as plush toys and T-shirts, and film and television deals. Updates will be announced soon on both of those fronts.

“These guys have done a good job of creating a cult brand,” said Lee, who reviewed 80 to 100 games before deciding to make SkyVu Lightbank’s first game investment. “This is like Rockstar Games (the maker of Grand Theft Auto) crossed with Angry Birds. We really like that.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120814/what-happens-after-angry-birds-is-played-out-meet-skyvus-battle-bears/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120813/rovio-product-wizard-julien-fourgeaud-goes-poof/ http://allthingsd.com/20120813/rovio-product-wizard-julien-fourgeaud-goes-poof/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:49:28 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=240700 Rovio’s Julien Fourgeaud, who held the title of New Product Wizard, has resigned from the Finnish mobile games company. The executive, who was in charge of the company’s digital services strategy, also previously held the title of “bad piggy bank manager and magician.” Fourgeaund told AllThingsD that he is joining Scarlet Motors, an electric car company that, according to Forbes, is currently raising a first round of funding.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120813/rovio-product-wizard-julien-fourgeaud-goes-poof/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120712/moving-beyond-angry-birds-rovio-releases-amazing-alex/ http://allthingsd.com/20120712/moving-beyond-angry-birds-rovio-releases-amazing-alex/#comments Thu, 12 Jul 2012 08:25:11 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=229477 Finnish game maker Rovio on Thursday released Amazing Alex, a physics game that will test the company’s ability to expand beyond its core Angry Birds franchise and justify its sky-high valuation.

The title is available now for iPhone, iPad and Android, and is coming soon to PCs, Macs and Windows Phones.

Amazing Alex has some 35 different interactive objects that game players can cause to bang into one another to create a single device to move among more than 100 levels. Fans can also create and upload their own level.

In an interview with AllThingsD earlier this year, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said that the company would release at least one non-Angry Birds title this year, even as it worked hard to leverage its popular avians.

There have been more than one billion downloads of Angry Birds titles to date.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120712/moving-beyond-angry-birds-rovio-releases-amazing-alex/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120626/the-new-new-web-ask-not-who-needs-it-ask-who-wants-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20120626/the-new-new-web-ask-not-who-needs-it-ask-who-wants-it/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:50:46 +0000 Keval Desai http://allthingsd.com/?p=223968 How can we make sense of it all?
A few weeks ago, I had dinner with Saumil and Sailesh, co-founders of LocBox.* Instagram had just been acquired by Facebook and there was speculation (later confirmed) about a big up round financing of Path. The recent large financing of Pinterest was still in the air, and the ongoing parlor game of when Facebook would go public and at what price was still being played. A couple of months prior, Zynga had acquired OMGPOP.

Sailesh wondered aloud, “How much time do we have for any of these?” “How many of them can coexist?” and “Do we really need them?” My answers were, respectively: “A lot.” “Many of them.” and “No, but we want them.” That dinner discussion prompted some observations that I am outlining here, and I invite you to share your own observations in the comments below.

In a nutshell, the Internet has evolved from being a need-driven utility medium with only a handful of winners to a discovery-driven entertainment medium with room for multiple winners. The necessary and sufficient conditions for this evolution are now in place — broadband, real names and tablets are the three horsemen of this New New Web. As consumers, entrepreneurs and investors, we should get used to the fact that the online economy is increasingly blurring with the offline economy, and in the limit, that distinction will disappear. As a result, just as in the real world, the Web of entertainment will be much bigger than the Web of utility.

A Theory of Human Motivation
One framework for understanding the consumer Internet is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which Abraham Maslow put forward as a way of explaining human behavior at large. The core premise is that once our basic needs of food, shelter, safety and belonging are satisfied, we tend to focus on things that are related to creativity, entertainment, education and self-improvement. A key aspect of this framework is that it’s sequential: Unless the basic needs are met, one cannot focus on other things. As an example, a study in 2011 showed that humans who are hungry will spend more on food and less on non-food items compared to those who are not hungry. Using this framework, we can see how consumer adoption of the Web has evolved over the last 20 years, and why all of the ingredients are only now in place for consumers to use the Web for what Maslow called “self-actualization” — a pursuit of one’s full potential, driven by desire, not by necessity.

1992-2012: Web of Need
Between the AOL IPO in 1992 and the Facebook IPO last month, the Internet has largely been in the business of satisfying basic consumer needs. In 1995, the year Netscape went public and made the internet accessible to the masses, I was a young product manager for a consumer Internet company called Global Village Communication. We were a newly minted public company and our hottest product was a “high speed” fax/modem with a speed of 33.6 kbps. Back then, using the Internet as a consumer or making a living off it as a business was rather difficult, and sometimes simply frustrating. In the subsequent years the basic needs of access, browser, email, search and identity were solved by companies such as AOL, Comcast, Netscape, Yahoo, Google, LinkedIn and Facebook.

2012-?: Web of Want
Today, the billion users on Facebook have reached the apex of Maslow’s hierarchy on the web. All of our basic needs have been satisfied. Now we are in pursuit of self-actualization. It is no surprise that on the Web, we are now open to playing games (Zynga, Angry Birds), watching video (YouTube, Hulu), listening to music (Pandora, Spotify), expressing our creativity (Instagram, Twitter, Draw Something), window shopping (Pinterest, Gojee*) and pursuing education (Khan Academy, Empowered*).

The Web Is Becoming Like TV
How do we make sense out of a Web where multiple providers coexist, serving groups of people who share a similar desire? Turns out we already have a very good model for understanding how this can work: Television. Specifically, cable television. The Web is becoming like TV, with hundreds of networks or “channels” that are programmed to serve content to an audience with similar desires and demographics. Pinterest, ShoeDazzle, Joyous and Alt12* programmed for young, affluent women; Machinima, Kixeye and Kabam programmed for mostly male gamers; Gojee* for food enthusiasts; Triposo* for travellers; GAINFitness* for fitness fans and so on.

In this new new Web, an important ingredient to success is a clear understanding of the identity of your users to ensure that you are programming to that user’s interests. The good news is that unlike TV, the Web has a feedback loop. Everything can be measured and as a result the path from concept to success can be more capital efficient by measuring what type of programming is working every step of the way — it’s unlikely that the new new Web will ever produce a Waterworld.

Why Now? Broadband, Real Names & Tablets
As my partner Doug Pepper recently wrote, a key question when evaluating a new opportunity is to ask “Why Now?” Certainly, companies like AOL, Yahoo and Myspace have tried before to program the Web to cater to interests of specific audiences. What’s different now? Three things: Broadband, real names and tablets.

The impact of broadband is obvious; we don’t need or want anything on a slow Web. With broadband penetration at 26 percent in industrialized countries and 3G penetration at about 15 percent of the world’s population, we are just reaching critical mass of nearly 1B users on the fast Web.

Real names are more interesting. In 1993, the New Yorker ran the now famous cartoon; “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” This succinctly captured the state of the anonymous Web at the time. Reid Hoffman and Mark Zuckerberg changed that forever. Do we find Q&A on Quora to be more credible than Yahoo! Answers, celebrity profiles on Twitter more engaging than Myspace and pins on Pinterest more relevant than recommendations on early AOL chatrooms? I certainly do, and that is largely because Quora, Twitter and Pinterest take advantage of real names. Real names are blurring the distinction between online and offline behavior.

Finally, the tablet, the last necessary and sufficient piece that fuels the “Web of want.” The PC is perfect for the “Web of need” — when we need something, we can search for it, since we know what we are looking for. Searching is a “lean-forward” experience, typing into our PC, either at work or at the home office. The Web over the last decade has been optimized for this lean-forward search experience — everything from SEO to Web site design to keyword shortcuts in popular browsers makes that efficient. However, smartphones and tablets allow us to move to a “lean-back” experience, flipping through screens using our fingers, often in our living rooms and bedrooms, on the train or at the coffee shop. Tablets make discovery easy and fun, just like flipping channels on TV at leisure. These discoveries prompt us to want things we didn’t think we needed.

Early Signs
This thesis is easy to postulate, but is there any evidence that users are looking to the Web as anything more than a productivity platform? As has been reported, mobile devices now make up 20 percent of all U.S. Web traffic, and this usage peaks in the evening hours, presumably when people are away from their office. Analysis from Flurry* shows that cumulative time spent on mobile apps is closing in on TV. We certainly don’t seem to be using the Web only when we need something.

Economy of Need Versus Want
The economy of Want is different from the economy of Need. We humans tend to spend a lot more time and money on things we want compared to things we need. For example, Americans spend more than five hours a day on leisure and sports (including TV), compared to about three hours spent on eating, drinking and managing household activities. Another difference is that when it comes to satisfying our needs, we tend to settle on one provider and give that one all of our business. Think about how many companies provide us with electricity, water, milk, broadband access, search, email and identity. The Need economy is a winner-take-all market, with one or two companies dominating each need. However, when it comes to providing for our wants, we are open to being served by multiple providers. Think about how many different providers are behind the TV channels we watch, restaurants we visit, destinations we travel to and movies we watch. The Want economy can support multiple winners, each with a sizeable business. Instagram, Path, Pinterest, ShoeDazzle, BeachMint, Angry Birds, CityVille, Kixeye, Kabam, Machinima and Maker Studios can all coexist.

Investing in the Web of Want
The chart below shows that over a long term (including a global recession) an index of luxury stocks (companies such as LVMH, Burberry, BMW, Porsche, Nordstrom) outperforms an index of utility stocks (companies such as Con Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric that offer services we all need). The same applies to an index of media stocks (companies such as CBS, Comcast, News Corp., Time Warner, Viacom) which outperforms both the utilities and the broader stock market. Of course, higher returns come with higher volatility — Nordstrom’s beta is 1.6 and CBS’ beta is 2.2, compared to 0.29 for PG&E. It is this volatility that has cast investing in the Want business as a career-ending move in Silicon Valley for the past 20-plus years. As the Web evolves from serving our needs to satisfying our wants and, in turn, becomes a much larger economy, sitting on the sidelines of the Web of Want may not be an option.

Let’s Not Kill Hollywood
With a billion users looking for self-actualization and with the widespread adoption of broadband, real names and tablets, the Web is poised to become the medium for creativity, education, entertainment, fashion and the pursuit of happiness. As the offline world shows, large, profitable companies can be built that cater to these desires. Entrepreneurs and investors looking to succeed in the new new Web can learn quite a few lessons from our friends in the luxury and entertainment businesses, which have been managing profitable “want” businesses for decades. The fusion of computer science, design, data, low friction and the massive scale of the Internet can result in something that is better than what either Silicon Valley or Hollywood can do alone. It is no wonder that the team that came to this conclusion before anyone else is now managing the most valuable company in the world.

Epilogue
When we go see a movie or splurge on a resort vacation, we don’t stop using electricity, brushing our teeth or checking our email. The Web of Want is not a replacement for the Web of Need, it is an addition. Many of the Internet companies that satisfied our needs in the last 20 or more years of the Web are here to stay. In fact, they will become more entrenched and stable, with low beta, just like the utilities in the offline world. Microsoft has a beta of exactly 1.0 — it is no more volatile than the overall stock market. And for those longing for the days of “real computer science” on the Web, do not despair. Just keep an eye on Rocket Science and Google X Labs — there is plenty of hard-core engineering ahead.

Disclosures: * indicates an InterWest portfolio company. Google Finance was used for all of the stock charts and beta references.

Keval Desai is a Partner at InterWest, where he focuses on investments in early-stage companies that cater to the needs and wants of consumers. He started his career in Silicon Valley in 1991 as a software engineer. He has been a mentor and investor in AngelPad since inception. You can follow him @kevaldesai.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120626/the-new-new-web-ask-not-who-needs-it-ask-who-wants-it/feed/ 13 http://allthingsd.com/20120614/game-developers-already-abandoning-googles-social-network/ http://allthingsd.com/20120614/game-developers-already-abandoning-googles-social-network/#comments Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:38:46 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=220397 It has been less than a year since Google launched social gaming on the Google+ network, but already some developers are calling it quits.

Wooga has confirmed that Monster World has already been taken down and that more titles are on their way off. PopCap, a division of Electronic Arts, also confirmed that Bejeweled Blitz will be offline starting on Monday.

This is not a good sign for Google, given that Wooga and EA represent the fourth- and third-largest social game companies on Facebook, respectively.

Originally, developers considered Google+ as a way to diversify beyond the Facebook platform, but 10 months later, it doesn’t appear that Google is pulling in enough users to justify supporting it.

“We decided to remove certain games from Google+ because we have a much larger following on Facebook and they are active users,” said a Wooga customer care representative, who responded to an email sent to Wooga’s PR team. A PopCap spokesperson was a little more diplomatic: “PopCap has decided to suspend Bejeweled Blitz on Google+ to redeploy our resources to other adaptations of Bejeweled. Certainly, Google is a valuable gaming partner for PopCap and EA, and we’ll continue to develop for Google platforms.”

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

The Social Games Observer first reported that Wooga was preparing to pull its games off the network, adding that it also has plans to cut Bubble Island and Diamond Dash on July 1.

Google also hasn’t opened up the platform to just any developer. Between Wooga and EA’s decisions to pull some games, there will be 40 remaining, which is still up from the 36 games it had in February. Plus, many other big name games remain, including Rovio’s Angry Birds, Disney’s Gardens of Time and Zynga’s CityVille, Poker and Mafia Wars 2.

After the game platform launched, Google+ received a lot of attention from game developers, in part because they were looking for somewhere else to go besides Facebook, but also because the company was sharing 95 percent of the revenue from virtual goods with developers, and was keeping only 5 percent for itself. That was, and remains, much more generous than the 30 percent cut that Facebook takes.

In the beginning, Google announced several exclusive game deals, but still, the fact remains that Google+ has far fewer users (however you want to calculate it) than Facebook.

Back in February, when I chatted with Punit Soni, who runs games and mobile for Google+, he was honest about how far they still have to go. He was also extremely enthusiastic, and at times looked as if he wanted to leap out of his chair to get going right away on projects Google had planned. First and foremost, he said, they are working hard to get virality right; and second, they want to nail cross-platform, so that games work seamlessly across the Web and mobile.

At the time, Soni wasn’t willing to spill specific plans about what was launching next, but said a lot more is coming. “We are a start-up platform. We are humble and know our flaws,” he said.

Now we all know at least one of them.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120614/game-developers-already-abandoning-googles-social-network/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120613/tin-pan-valley-the-coming-shakeout-for-app-makers/ http://allthingsd.com/20120613/tin-pan-valley-the-coming-shakeout-for-app-makers/#comments Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:30:38 +0000 Dennis K. Berman http://allthingsd.com/?p=219606 They were 20-somethings emboldened by new technology. If they were shrewd, they just might get rich.

These inventors and wheedlers, dreamers and hucksters, were making the all-powerful software apps of their day: popular songs, sold then as widely distributed sheet music and phonograph records. They even had something of an addictive “Angry Birds” app back then: Irving Berlin.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120613/tin-pan-valley-the-coming-shakeout-for-app-makers/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20120607/felicis-ventures-launches-70-million-new-fund/ http://allthingsd.com/20120607/felicis-ventures-launches-70-million-new-fund/#comments Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:00:02 +0000 Mike Isaac http://allthingsd.com/?p=217772 Super angel outfit Felicis Ventures launched a new boutique VC fund totaling $70 million on Thursday, the third fund in the firm’s five year history. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, whose track record includes investments in Inkling, Shopify and Angry Birds creators Rovio, will also promote two of its principals to partners: Renata Streit Quintini and Sundeep Peechu.

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