There are games with rich storylines, hidden object titles and bingo. That strategy of building very immersive games for a smaller, but more lucrative, segment of the market represents a shift that’s happened on the Facebook platform over the past year. Games on the platform are becoming a lot more diverse than the casual, resource-management or simulation games that have dominated over the past two years. It’s gotten edgier over its life as Kixeye has gotten more comfortable with its demographic. The real-time strategy game has players building and raising a monster army. Then there’s Backyard Monsters, which has had a surprisingly long lifespan for a Facebook game after launching more than two years ago. Players have to build and defend bases against the Draconian Empire. The company only has a few games under its belt, but they have a longer life cycle than other Facebook games as players stick around for longer.īattle Pirates is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the entire Earth is submerged under water (kind of like Waterworld minus Kevin Costner). “We have found a formula where we can make games that we’re super proud of and that are efficient at contributing to our bottom line.” (That’s Harbin in the picture at the top. “We haven’t sold our souls,” said Kixeye’s chief executive Will Harbin, who plays the company’s games for a few hours every day. Think fewer virtual potatoes and more epic sea battles with pirates. The company doesn’t target the stereotypical 35-year-old female demographic that Zynga is well-known for, but rather a subset of hardcore gamers that are willing to pay up. Kixeye is part of a class of companies that is taking Facebook gaming far from its “Cow Clicker” past. So Kixeye is doing 1/14th of Zynga’s revenue on about 1/50th the number of users. For comparison, Zynga says it will do between $1.35 and $1.45 billion in bookings this year and it had 240 million monthly active users during the fourth quarter, according to the most recent earnings report. That’s up from between $25 to $50 million last year, according to an independent source familiar with Kixeye’s financials. With just shy of 5 million monthly active users on Facebook, Kixeye is ranked a dismal 72nd on the developer leaderboard behind Zynga, EA and Angry Birds-maker Rovio, according to tracking service AppData.īut the astonishing revenue Kixeye makes per user has the company on track to gross more than $100 million in total revenue this year. After building a map room (to spot others) and a flinger (to catapult the monsters) players can unleash their monsters on other players.While Zynga and other gaming companies seem to be doing everything possible to claw their way off the Facebook canvas, at least one San Francisco company is still in. Using a complex procedure, players can create a range of creatures, that are housed in pastures. The number of buildings and upgrades is limited and bound to the level of the Town Hall. Upgrading buildings increases their functionality and health. Using ‘Shiny’, a fifth resource that can be bought for real money, people can buy certain improvements in game.Įvery building has a specific function and is built by workers, taking a period of time and a sum of resources to develop. #BACKYARD MONSTERS PLAY WITHOUT FACEBOOK UPGRADE#The resources must be stored in Silos and are used to buy other buildings, upgrade buildings and research and create creatures. Each of these can be gathered using dedicated buildings. The game revolves around four main resources ‘Twigs’, ‘Pebbles’, ‘Putty’ and ‘Goo’. Both gathering enough resources and upgrading buildings often take hours. All players are situated in the same world and the game goes on when players are not online. The goal is to expand the base, to attack other players and survive enemy attacks. You start off with a small stretch of unused grassland, and have to build a Town Hall (base) and all sorts of resource gathering, defensive and offensive buildings. Backyard Monsters is a browser based strategy and tower defense game available on social platforms such as Facebook or iPhone.
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