Spartacus gets its Vengeance on Facebook for new season on Starz

Starz wants to take another stab at Facebook gaming. (Sorry, we just couldn't resist.) The entertainment company announced that it will launch a brand new Spartacus social game to coincide with the Jan. 27 season premiere of the show on Starz. Titled Spartacus: Vengeance and created by Large Animal, the Facebook battler will launch on the same day as the season premiere.

Starz Digital Media is handling the publishing of the game, which will capitalize on the success of the first, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. According to Hollywood Reporter, that first game enjoyed 1.2 million monthly players at its peak. While that peak didn't last for much longer beyond the 2011 Spartacus season's run, those are impressive numbers for a branded social game. And New York-based social game maker Large Animal looks to improve upon its winning formula.

"Spartacus: The Game helped change the landscape for branded Facebook games based on media properties and was very successful," Large Animal CEO Wade Tinney told Hollywood Reporter. (We kinda dug the first game, too, for what it was.) "With Spartacus: Vengeance Game, we intend to amp up all of the things our players and the show's fans love."

When Spartacus" Vengeance hits later this month, players will fill the role of--surprise--an escaped slave that builds an army of makeshift warriors to get payback on his slavers. Players will work with and against characters from the show to reach this goal, which includes an expansion of the battle system in the first into a six-on-six melee. To get a better idea of what to expect from Spartacus: Vengeance on Jan. 27, check out the game trailer below:

Click here for a chance to get into the Spartacus: Vengeance closed beta Now >

Did you like the first Spartacus Facebook game? What do you think of the next one, based on this trailer? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Large Animal Games, 6waves, Starz Look to International Market for Spartacus Off Season

Spartacus: The Game (a.k.a. Spartacus: Gods of the Arena: The Game) launched on Facebook in January to coincide with the release of the a prequel to the Starz Spartacus TV series. Now that the six-episode run of the show is complete, developer Large Animal Games is looking to publisher 6waves to get the game localized ahead of the TV show’s air dates in foreign territories.

When the game launched, Spartacus showed strong growth in daily active users and monthly active users, climbing to an all-time high of 1.1 MAU users and and 123,000 DAU between March and April. By that time, the six-episode prequel series had been done for over a month and it appears as though the game waned a little through the end of April. Starting in May, the game is showing an uptick again in both MAU and DAU as new content rolls out within the game and publisher 6waves localizes it for foreign territories in Europe where the TV show is only just beginning to air or will air over the summer.

In our continuing series on brand integration, we touched on branded properties whose brands were the game, such as TV show properties like game shows and Jersey Shore. With Spartacus, we get a rare look at the life cycle of a deep brand integration game that is both dependent on its origin intellectual property (in this case, the TV show) and a stand alone property that needs to adjust to the social games market. Speaking to ISG, representatives from Starz, Large Animal Games, and 6waves explained how they plan to keep Spartacus: The Game going while the TV show languishes in the off season.

First, says Large Animal’s Wade Tinney, the developer has to make a game that’s a game in and of itself. “I think that’s the way to make a successful branded social game,” he says. “Something that didn’t have meaning just because of the [network] association.”

In the game, players run a gladiator training house (or ludus) where they buy and train fighters to then send out against other arena fighters. Aside from two mentions of Starz at the upper and lower quadrants of the screen where 6waves and Large Animal Games’ logos also appear, the TV show connection isn’t made much of within the game. Outside of the game, Facebook ads for Spartacus: The Game do not bear the Starz network logo and the character art isn’t immediately recognizable as “game-ized” versions of the show’s cast members.

“We started [development] in September [2010] with a very tight timeline,” Tinney says. “We just wanted something that had a clear core gameplay loop. And the art had to look fantastic.”

Next, the network has to support the game in a way that contributes to the gameplay without taking away anything from the TV show. For example, Starz made the decision to share production stills and full episodes before their air date with Large Animal Games to give the developer ideas for the plot, but Starz is currently not allows Large Animal to tease anything about the next season of Spartacus. Instead, the network is working with the developer to identify additional characters in the existing series that Large Animal can use as fresh content for the game, such as new gladiators like Oenomaus (pictured below) for sale in the game’s marketplace.

“We knew that [a social game] would be a way for fans to connect and engage with the brand,” Katz says. “Very early on, we were considering the various digital distribution channels for Spartacus and we noticed the fan Page was over 1 million [Likes]. We saw an opportunity to launch the prequel with the game.”

The last piece of the puzzle is localization support from publisher 6waves. Within the last month, the company had the game localized in Turkish and French before rolling out localizations for German, Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese-speaking territories. Interestingly, Spartacus isn’t localized for Italian yet, but 6waves reports that the game does well in Italy among English-speakers. Tinney says Large Animal was surprised to see that Turkey was Spartacus’s number two audience in size behind the United States. In additional to Italian, Spartacus is also currently being localized for Korean, Russian, and Arabic.

“The conversation, internally, for us was [how] well the game would work globally,” 6waves Product Manager Catherine Herdlick. Given the growth trend Spartacus: The Game has seen as these localizations go live and the prequel series hits international networks, it’s clear that the game’s got the global potential the publisher looks for.

Katz and Tinney declined to discuss plans for Spartacus: Season 2, which is currently in pre-production following a re-cast of the show’s main character. Assuming the show is on-target for the January 2012 season, we expect to see second season teasers or video ads emerge in late summer or early fall 2011.

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Starz to brandish 'Camelot' Facebook game beta very soon

by Joe Osborne, Posted May 13th 2011 12:35PM

To arms, my brothers and sisters, as Starz is set to release a Facebook game promoting its hit new show, Camelot, in just a few weeks. According to the Hollywood Reporter, a beta version of the game will launch today, with a commercial release short after. The game seems to mark a new strategy for the cable TV network, as it released Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, alongside the debut of the miniseries of the same name. The first game enjoyed over 1 million monthly players at its peak, according to AppData, so Starz Digital Media is likely hopeful for the same success here with a new property.

As soon as the beta releases, players can log into the game and enter the password, "Merlin," for access. The game plays similarly to popular Facebook strategy games, driving players to gather resources, equip their armies, and rush into battle. Not to mention that this time around, the game will borrow liberally from plot points in the TV show. Fans of Spartacus (including myself) didn't appreciate the lack of control over battles, which would explain the drastic shift to an real time strategy game. Camelot: The Game is published by 6waves and developed by Sarbakan and Large Animal Games yet again in association with international distributor GK-tv, Hollywood Reporter wrote.

"We felt Camelot suits a couple of game genres out there, and none of the properties out there in this space were branded," Marc DeBevoise, senior VP digital media, business development and strategy said to Hollywood Reporter. "The action, adventure and challenge of this game is unmatched in the marketplace today and is a beautiful complement and extension of the Starz original series." From how it sounds, we're not so sure this game will cater to a large social gaming audience, but we'll see as soon as we get to wave some swords around soon enough.

[Image Credit: Hollywood Reporter]

Are you excited to play out your favorite moments from the series on Facebook? What do you think of social game tie-ins to existing franchises? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Tags: 6waves, advergames, camelot, camelot the game, companion games, facebook games, hollywood reporter, large animal games, sarbakan, spartacus, starz, starz camelot, starz digital media

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