Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Trailer Reveals Interesting Gameplay

by Sylvie Krekow, Posted Jan 23rd 2014 11:05AM

Here's the newest trailer for the upcoming "Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor" game, and boy, does it look... interesting. In the game, which is set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, you're a Ranger named Talion who has special Wraith powers. These powers allow you to do several awesome slow-mo-Assassins-Creed-like moves, and you're also able to terrify certain enemies into becoming loyal to you. The game also features a unique "nemesis system" feature, which basically means it remembers your interactions with specific characters and enemies and adjusts the gameplay and storyline accordingly.
Although the gameplay looks pretty fun, however, it remains to be seen how interesting the plot actually is. And even though it's being developed for next-gen consoles like the Xbox One and the PS4 (along with being developed for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC), the graphics seem a bit unimpressive. Hopefully the the developer, Monolith Productions, spruces everything up in time for release.
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RockYou, Peak Games Partner to Bring Zoo World 2 to Turkey, Middle East, North Africa

Social game developer and publisher RockYou announced a partnership with Peak Games today to bring Zoo World 2 to Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa.

RockYou launched its sequel to 2009’s Zoo World on Facebook earlier this summer. The game runs on the same app ID as the original, making it somewhat difficult to nail down the exact number of new incoming players. Our AppData traffic tracking service, however, shows an over 400% increase in monthly active users and over 100% increase in daily active users for the ID between the game’s launch-date and its present-day levels.

During that time period, RockYou CEO Lisa Marino told us that the company was experimenting with a new ad platform that we could expect to see added to Zoo World 2 before the end of August. In the last seven days, the sequel’s growth has slowed down somewhat, knocking it off our weekly rankings of fastest-growing games by MAU and DAU. With Zoo World 2 coming to a new audience in localized versions for Turkey and the Middle East and North Africa (a.k.a. the MENA region), we expect to have a better picture of who plays the game, given that the localized versions will run on their own app IDs.

Peak Games established itself as a leading developer and publisher for the region with in-house games like Okey and publishing partners like TheBroth. The company secured a $5 million first round of funding back in May. Part of Peak Games’ success has been in focusing on games that provide a level of socialization in-game that players cannot get in their day-to-day life due to social norms. This is what drives the engagement in card games like Okey and other board game titles developed or published by Peak Games. Even so, TheBroth’s Peak Games-published farming sim, Komsu Çiftlik, enjoys roughly the same amount of traffic as Okey. It’ll be interesting to see if Zoo World 2 has a similar experience. The press release announcing the partnership says that the localized versions of Zoo World 2 will contain “culturally specific enhancements.”

Read our review of Zoo World 2 here.

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CityVille Middle School Upgrades: Everything you need to know

One of the older buildings in CityVille, the Middle School, is finally being given some extra attention via the launch of Middle School upgrades in the game. Of course, if you're not in need of a raise in your population cap, you can ignore these upgrades, but why not give them a look either way?

The stock Middle School adds a boost of 800 citizens to your maximum population, but to upgrade that number, you'll first need to be at least Level 32 and have a population of 2,200 citizens already living in your town. The first upgrade takes you to Level 2 and turns the building from red to blue. The process of upgrading will likely take you a bit of time though, as it isn't as simple as adding more staff; instead, you'll need to collect various building materials to upgrade. Here's the list of items you'll need:
3 Lockers3 Paper Airplanes3 Notebooks3 Manila Folders3 Staplers
This Level 2 state raises the 800 citizens boost to 1,300, for an increase of 500 citizens. But wait, there's more! To upgrade to Level 3, your city must have at least 3,700 citizens living in it, and you will then have to collect the same building ingredients, but in larger amounts: six of each, to be exact. Once again, your Middle School will change in appearance from blue to yellow, and your final population boost will rise to 2,000 citizens. All told, that gives you room to house 1,200 more citizens without taking up more space with additional buildings, which is arguably the best part about every upgrade in the game. With space coming at a premium, at least you now have one more option for an increased population cap without losing any space.

Will you upgrade your Middle School to provide housing for more citizens? Which building or business would you like to see upgraded next? Let us know in the comments.

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Peak Games Finds Growth In Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, Secures $5 Million in Funding

Turkish and Middle Eastern developer Peak Games announced a $5 million round of series A investment today, led by Earlybird Venture Capital. This brings the developer’s total funding up to $7.5 million toward expanding its social games library in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa (abbreviated as MENA), and other regions.

According to our social game traffic tracking service, AppData, Peak Games currently enjoys a combined 8.4 million monthly active users and 1.6 million daily active users across both its in-house developed games and its published titles. Its top performing in-house titles are variations on the Turkish tile game, Okey, which is a form of rummy. Its top performing published title is a farming sim called Komsu Çiftlik, developed by TheBroth.

What makes Peak Games truly unique is its success in emerging regions that Western developers often dismiss as regions as places that don’t monetize well. Peak Games CEO Sidar Sahin explains that this is a misconception of these regions that comes from developers that don’t understand the audiences of the region. For its part, Sahin says that Peak Games has seen much higher average revenues per user in Turkey and MENA than it has in Russia, China, or Eastern Europe. He explains that Peak Games succeeds in monetizing in these regions because the developer knows what the audience wants, whereas other developer stumble over fundamental cultural difference.

For example, Sahin and Peak Games co-founder/CSO Rina Onur explain to ISG that in Turkey and the MENA region, day-to-day socialization between potential social game players doesn’t occur in the same places or with the same frequency as it does with Western social game players who can go out to bars or tennis courts to meet people. This means that actual socialization in-game is something the Turkish and MENA audiences crave, usually in the form of private chat rooms and in games that require multiple players to participate online at roughly the same time — like board games and card games.

Peak Games succeeds at monetizing with this audience by providing a “VIP” subscription access to its games, which allows users to form private chat rooms to interact with other players. While subscription models haven’t performed well in Western-developed social games, it does seem to be a winning strategy in the MENA region. We’ve recently seen a strategy “VIP” paid level of access in Israel-based Playtika’s Farkle Pro. It seems this model lends itself well to lifetime user value and overall conversion of players. Peak Games estimates the lifetime value of a board game player at one year.

The trick for Peak Games will be keeping its brand distinct, even as competing developers encroach on its game types. For example, Turkish developer Mynet has a similar lineup of titles that feature the Okey game type. Peak Games will also have to look at expanding to other regions, which the developer has begun to do in Latin America with a new studio recently opened in São Paulo, Brazil.

For now, Sahin says the focus of the funding will be on hiring new staff for in-house development, some investment in new regional offices and new talent for those offices, on mobile platform expansions, and also on marketing and user acquisition. Up until now, Peak Games has relied primarily on viral growth — and it seems to have paid off, with several of its games recently appearing on our top 20 lists of games by growth.

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Last Week to Pre-Order Inside Virtual Goods: Profiling the Social Gaming Middle Market 2011

Games on social networks became a billion dollar business in 2010, enabling the market’s big developers to secure significant investments and pursue sizable exits. Now that Zynga has clearly established itself as the 800 pound gorilla, EA/Playfish are bringing more IP to market, and Playdom is being integrated across Disney, what opportunities remain for other small and medium sized social game developers in 2011?

Inside Network is proud to announce a new original research report by Justin Smith and Charles Hudson profiling social gaming developers outside the largest, most established companies, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: Profiling the Social Gaming Middle Market 2011. This report presents direct interview results from today’s most influential small and mid-sized developers aside from larger players Zynga, Playfish, Playdom, CrowdStar, and Kabam.

Get the Annual Membership

Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 $1,995 USD*

OR Buy Single Report: $995 $795 USD*

* Pre-order discount ends March 28, 2011. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on March 29, 2011.

Inside Virtual Goods: Profiling the Social Gaming Middle Market 2011 is available for discount pre-order now, and will be released to the public on March 29.

What are top mid-sized developers’ expectations for the social gaming space in 2011? How will existing players fare as Facebook shifts the social gaming landscape through the rollout of Facebook Credits and continued changes to the platform? Inside Virtual Goods: Profiling the Social Gaming Middle Market 2011 shares insights directly from the front lines on social game monetization, development, and customer acquisition and growth.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: Profiling the Social Gaming Middle Market 2011 shares insights from over two-dozen developers into key questions facing social gaming in 2011.

As with previous editions of Inside Virtual Goods, researchers Justin Smith and Charles Hudson have conducted several months of original research comprising interviews with developers and entrepreneurs in social gaming. This edition of Inside Virtual Goods will present exclusive interview results from the developers themselves, preceded by original profiles of all companies included in the survey. Social gaming is among today’s most competitive areas in technology; specific responses have been anonymized to encourage authentic, critical response.

What We Cover

Overview of the competitive landscape – Over the past year, the social gaming industry has been shaped and reshaped by enormous growth, market consolidation, and changes to payments and monetization brought on by the spread of Facebook Credits. What kind of competitive landscape and new opportunities should today’s developers anticipate in the year ahead?Profiles of key players – Companies like Zynga, EA / Playfish, and Disney / Playdom are regular topics in business news, but social gaming is an industry with dozens more key players whose rivalry and innovation are determining what the industry will look like in six and nine months. This section presents detailed, original profiles of the middle market companies to watch in 2011.Developer perspectives on the key issues – The responses in this section have been curated to reflect the diversity of viewpoints in today’s vibrant social gaming industry, and cover the following areas: DistributionMonetization and creditsGame design and developmentFundraising

See the full table of contents below:

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Company Profiles

50 Cubes6wavesA Bit LuckyCasual CollectiveCie GamesDigital ChocolateFive MinutesFunzioGaia OnlineGameHouseGSNHappy ElementsiWin/BackstageLionsideLolappsMetrogamesMindJoltOmgpopPopcapRockYouSocial PointTheBrothUbisoftWoogaZipZapPlay

III. Developer Perspectives

Distribution Viral ChannelsPaid AcquisitionOff-Facebook ChannelsMonetization Credits IntegrationResults with CreditsCredits IssuesGame Design & Development Projected Budgets and TimelinesTarget AudienceGenre InnovationFinancing Landscape Fundraising PlansPerspective on M&A

IV. Conclusion

New Insights on the Competitive Landscape

In 2010, social games began to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2011 will be an even more important year.

The social gaming market is evolving rapidly against a backdrop of shifting challenges, and still-emerging opportunities — social gaming will be this year’s industry to watch. If you’re involved, or are considering jumping in, Inside Virtual Goods will be one of your most important tools.

One year of original data and exclusive in-depth reports delivered on a quarterly basis is $2,495 and contains:

A detailed overview of the current state of the industrySpecific estimates on market size by segmentDiagnosis of key opportunities and issues by segment

About the Authors

Justin Smith

Founder, Inside Network

Justin Smith is the founder of Inside Network, the first company dedicated to providing news and market research to the Facebook platform and social gaming ecosystem. Justin leads Inside Network’s Inside Virtual Goods and AppData research and data services, and serves as co-editor of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games.

Prior to Inside Network, he was formerly Head of Product at Watercooler, one of the leading application and game developers on the Facebook Platform. Prior to Watercooler, Justin was an early employee at Xfire, the largest social utility for gamers, which was sold to Viacom in 2006. Justin holds a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University.

Charles Hudson

Former VP Business Development, Serious Business

Charles Hudson is the former VP of Business Development for Serious Business, a leading social games developer on the Facebook platform.

Prior to Serious Business, he was formerly the Sr. Director for Business Development at Gaia Interactive, a leading online hangout for teens. Prior to Gaia, Charles worked in New Business Development at Google and focused on new partnership opportunities for early-stage products in the advertising, mobile, and e-commerce markets. Prior to joining Google, he was a Product Manager for IronPort Systems, a leading provider of anti-spam hardware appliances that was acquired by Cisco Systems for $830 million in 2007. Charles holds an MBA and BA from Stanford University.

Get The Annual Membership

Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 $1,995 USD*

OR Buy Single Report: $995 $795 USD*

* Pre-order discount ends March 28, 2011. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on March 29, 2011.

Although the report will not be released until Tuesday, March 29, we are offering a special pre-order discount for those who purchase now. A one year subscription is $1,995 until March 28, at which point the price will go to US $2,495. The one year subscription includes three quarterly updates on key developments in the space.

Or, you can download just this report. The pre-order price is $795 until March 28, at which point the price will go to US $995.

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