Zynga’s annual shareholder meeting focuses on real-money gaming

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Zynga today held its annual stockholders meeting in San Francisco, which heavily focused on the game company’s real-money gaming efforts, an anonymous shareholder told PandoDaily.

Zynga’s shareholder meeting comes one day after the company just laid off 18 percent of its staff (520 employees) and shut down three of its offices — Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York — including Omgpop‘s office.

In October 2012, Zynga announced a partnership with real-money gaming operator bwin.party, where bwin would help support real-money games from Zynga in the U.K. The social games giant Zynga launched its first two web-based (client download as well) real-money games — Zynga Plus Poker (review) and Zynga Plus Casino (review) — in April. PandoDaily’s anonymous source says that Zynga referenced positive preliminary reports in the European market.

Zynga looking to real-money gaming to save the company isn’t anything new. Although we have speculated that Zynga may not be able to convert its non-real money audience, which sits at 253 million monthly active users (MAU) as of its last earnings, to real-money gamers. And, with real-money gaming unlikely to be legal on a federal level in the U.S. any time soon, it might be a long shot that real-money gaming will save Zynga from its current troubles.

Phil Gordon, founder and CEO of social gaming startup Jawfish Games, tells Inside Mobile Apps that the real-money gaming market in Europe is already saturated, with the likes of Ladbrokes, Bwin, 888, PokerStars and more.

“Muscling your way into a saturated market with undifferentiated products will not be easy, even with a billion dollars in cash,” Gordon tells us. “Trying to do so with a team comprised of engineers and game designers that don’t have any real-world, real-money experience is a recipe for disappointment.”

Gordon advises Zynga to acquire a small, existing real-money poker or real-money gaming provider in order to kick start what he sees as a “difficult” and “painful” learning experience.

“Were I an investor, I’d be very wary of a company that is ‘slow playing’ their way to a winning hand in real-money gaming,” he says.

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Parallel Zombies focuses on cooperative, story-based location gameplay

Parallel Zombies is the next entry into PerBlue’s “Parallel” series of location-based games, following Parallel Kingdoms and Parallel Mafia. The game is PerBlue’s first Android exclusive title and is designed to deliver a location-based MMO experience that eschews player-versus-player gameplay in lieu of cooperative mechanics and story-driven missions.

The game takes place in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, with players working together to explore the world and stop the infection. Parallel Zombies features much more in-depth character creation than Parallel Mafia did, with players able to customize their avatars much more than they were in the previous game. These avatars now sport detailed designs and outfits and appear as full characters on the game map. A spokesperson for the developer says that fan feedback fueled the decision to allow more personalization in character creation.

There are three character classes: soldier, hunter and doctor, and players can create multiple characters to play as. Each of these character classes come with unique skills for players to level up as they earn experience in the game, like increased damage and healing abilities. These skills can be reset, for a price, so players can experiment with different abilities to figure out what works best for their character. The developer hasn’t decided yet if these can be reset for hard or soft currency.

As opposed to many location-based MMOs, Parallel Zombies doesn’t actually feature territory claiming mechanics. Instead, it’s based on cooperative play and story missions. When exploring a map, players are alerted to missions that they can examine and then accept or reject. Clicking on  a mission brings up a summary of the goals and outlines the rewards, as well as who played through it last and what player has the highest score. Accepting a quest will bring the player into a level where they move around and fight off hordes of the undead with melee and ranged weapons. Movement is handled with a virtual joystick, while combat is controlled via an attack button, quickslots  for weapons and skills and a reload button.

Social mechanics are much more significant than in PerBlue’s earlier games. Parallel Zombies will contain in-game messaging and chat, as well as synchronous multiplayer. If a player wants to play with  group, the game will launch an automatic search for people playing nearby and instantly teleport the player’s character to them as soon as they’re found.

PerBlue’s previous games have been available for both iOS and Android, and have proven successful for the developer. In April, Brand Director Forrest Woolworth told us the average player’s lifetime value on Parallel Kingdoms exceeded $95. Since then, Parallel Mafia launched for iOS and Android, reaching 120,000 players just two months after launch (a milestone that took Parallel Kingdoms a year and a half to achieve). Humphrey tells us more of PerBlue’s audience are Android players and the studio decided to hone its skill developing for the platform and made Parallel Zombies an exclusive for the platform.

Parallel Zombies is set to launch on Android on July 19.

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Ecko Code Focuses on Facebook With Showtime Tie-In Games Weeds, Dexter & Borgias

Video game developer Ecko Code is launching a series of social games on Facebook based on leading Showtime original series Weeds, Dexter, and The Borgias.

Ecko Code began as a video game studio set up by entrepreneur Marc Ecko, who currently sits on its board of directors. The developer got its start on consoles with 2006 PlayStation 2 and Xbox game, Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Though the game received favorable reviews, it wasn’t profitable enough for Ecko Code to continue developing for consoles. Through a partnership with TV network Showtime, the studio went into mobile games with a licensed Dexter title for iOS in 2009.

The Weeds game, Weeds Social Club, is the first of Ecko Code’s Facebook titles. The game is officially developed by Mytopia and published by Ecko Code in collaboration with show producer Lionsgate Entertainment. We took a look at the game in its early beta state, observing that while certain themes of the game were shared with the show, it was largely a standalone experience. Players take the role of series star, Nancy Botwin, and attempt to grow and sell marijuana while avoiding law enforcement. Most plot elements and other characters are omitted from the game and it’s not clear where, if anywhere, the game fits into the show’s continuity. Weeds Social Club will go into public beta as soon as this week.

The next Showtime property to hit Facebook via Ecko Code is Dexter in a game called Dexter: Slice of Life. This will be Ecko Code’s first Facebook game developed in-house. Like the iOS game, this game is deeply tied to the show’s plot. But while the iOS game was based off of Dexter’s pilot episode while season 3 was running, Slice of Life comes directly from the show’s sixth season with Ecko Code sometimes working with scripts before they’ve even been shot. The game launches on Facebook on October 3, the day after Dexter’s season 6 premier.

The latest Showtime property picked up by Ecko Code for Facebook is The Borgias. Not many details are available on the game as yet, but the developer confirmed to us that the game exists and is in development. The show concluded its first season in May and was renewed for a second 10-episode season to air in Spring 2012.

TV tie-in games form a rapidly expanding genre on Facebook. They range from casual games with light integration with the parent show (e.g. MTV’s Jersey Shore) to time-sensitive products that work with the actual content of the show (e.g. Starz’s Spartacus: Gods of the Arena). Ecko Code is leaning heavily toward the latter with Dexter as an experiment in what kind of gameplay experience Facebook fans of the show prefer.

“We want Weeds to be something you play for five minutes ten times a day,” Ecko Code VP Marc Fernandez tells us, “whereas with Dexter, we want you to play for twenty minutes two times a day — more engagement.”

Another important component for Ecko Code is the “edginess” factor. The content of Weeds Social Club (marijuana) and of Dexter (serial killers) are things that “get people talking,” according to Fernandez.

“The brand softens the edge a little bit,” he says. “But we want to partner with brands we like so that we only make the games we want to make. I wanted to make a crime game, a renaissance game — so, the Borgias. I wanted to do a weed game, so Weeds Social Club.”

As for the future, Fernandez says the developer will eventually move to web-based multiplayer games and tablet games.

“On Facebook we’re going to stick to Dexter, to Weeds, and to Borgias,” he says. “Thank God we made our money back on [Getting Up], but the retail games business is a tough business. So we jumped to digital distribution, mobile, and now free-to-play. We’re not afraid to say ‘this isn’t working, let’s go find another niche.’”

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