Best Job Title Ever: “Founder, Customer Support”

I’ve been playing around with some lightweight CRM offerings and last night signed up for Worketc.  And today I got an email from Dan, who introduced himself as “as your go-to guy while you’re getting started with WORKetc.”

Turns out, Dan is the founder of WORKetc.  Dan goes on:

“I bet you are now wondering what the founder is doing on customer support? The reason is pretty simple. For a lot of software providers, customer support is an afterthought and usually outsourced to an offshore call centre.  We have a different philosophy here. I genuinely love interacting with customers and spend at least an hour every morning reading every single interaction between our customers and our support team.And, as he describes, he loves interacting with customers and hearing what they want and need.”

He signs off with this: “Dan, Founder, Customer Support.”  I love that.

View the original article here

Best Job Title Ever: “Founder, Customer Support”

I’ve been playing around with some lightweight CRM offerings and last night signed up for Worketc.  And today I got an email from Dan, who introduced himself as “as your go-to guy while you’re getting started with WORKetc.”

Turns out, Dan is the founder of WORKetc.  Dan goes on:

“I bet you are now wondering what the founder is doing on customer support? The reason is pretty simple. For a lot of software providers, customer support is an afterthought and usually outsourced to an offshore call centre.  We have a different philosophy here. I genuinely love interacting with customers and spend at least an hour every morning reading every single interaction between our customers and our support team.And, as he describes, he loves interacting with customers and hearing what they want and need.”

He signs off with this: “Dan, Founder, Customer Support.”  I love that.

View the original article here

East Side Games re-launches Ruby Skies as self-published title

East Side Games has re-launched Ruby Skies on iTunes as a self-published title, meaning 6waves is no longer involved with the game.

The game originally launched in September, part of a publishing partnership between East Side and 6waves. At the time, East Side Games CEO Jason Bailey told us his company decided to partner with 6waves after talking to several other publishers and receiving unsatisfactory offers based on outdated publishing models that don’t work for social and mobile markets.

“When  6waves came to us, they were the only ones who had a reasonable offer that actually worked,” he told us at the time. “They actually said, ‘hey, if we don’t meet what we’re actually promising you, you get the game back.’ They were the first ones to stand up and admit the publishing model was broken and help us to find a formula that was agreeable.”

Although East Side Games says it’s happy to be self-publishing its games again, this is the second high-profile mobile developer to leave the 6waves stable. In October, Vampire Season developer Brainz ended its relationship with 6waves and pursued publishing its games on a wider array of platforms. That said, 6waves is still publishing over 20 iOS games in the United States alone.

For East Side Games, re-launching the game on iTunes as a self-published title has both pros and cons. Without a third-party publisher, East Side Games is able to react to user feedback much faster than it would otherwise. East Side Games tells us the initial launch was invaluable, too, since it let the developer iron out some pretty big bugs. However, the game’s user reviews on the store page are all gone, which means new players might be slower to download Ruby Skies when there’s a dearth of feedback about how it plays. Also, players will have to download the new version of the game if they want to keep playing, which will probably be an irritation to some, but users’ progress won’t be wiped clean when they update.

Since we reviewed the game, East Side Games has been busy updating it to improve stability and performance issues, as well as adding story elements and making gameplay more enjoyable from the users’ perspective. We’re also told more content is ready for submission, which means the game will likely see more maps and the like in time for the Holidays.

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Risk: Factions reimagines popular board game and console title for Facebook

Risk: Factions is a new social game published by EA in collaboration with Hasbro, the rights holder to the Risk board game.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Risk: Factions currently has 30,000 monthly active users and 9,000 daily active users.

Risk: Factions was originally released as a standalone, downloadable title for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games consoles in 2010. A Windows PC version followed in early 2011, published through Valve’s Steam digital distribution network. The Facebook version is a fundamental re-imagining of the game for the social network, while maintaining many of the aspects which made the console version popular. Inside Social Games spoke to Spencer Brooks from EA regarding the move to Facebook earlier this week.

There are two main parts to Risk: Factions — base building and missions. Base building plays out similarly to established games in the same genre with an important distinction: many buildings have a practical game function beyond simply providing the player with an income stream. Specifically, many buildings train troops over time, which are the resource the player needs to complete the second part of the game: the missions. Without troops, a player won’t be able to play until their base has produced more, so in some senses, they act similarly to an energy bar.

Missions play out similarly to the board game version of Risk. Taking place on one of several maps, players take it in turns to deploy troops to various territories and then use them to attack enemy-held areas. Combat is resolved through dice throws, so there’s an element of random chance, though brute-forcing your way through with a large force gives a greater chance of success in the long term. Control of larger numbers of territories means the player has more troops to deploy at the start of their turn, and players can also collect cards to allow them to make use of special weapons.

Social features for the game include the ability to add friends as allies, allowing you to visit their base and “boost” a building’s production; compete against friends and random strangers in multiplayer matches; and send gifts to allies. Players also earn Skill Points by winning matches, which enables them to upgrade their faction’s technologies — and further factions can be unlocked through leveling up.

The game’s monetization is handled through the hard currency of Stars. These are purchased using Facebook Credits and offer walls. Stars can be used to purchase the special weapons used in a match — though these weapons still require the collection of cards to use — as well as special buildings for bases. There are also a number of booster items on offer, including the facility to immediately purchase extra troops for the “supply” from which a player’s forces are drawn during play. Production of troops from a base’s buildings can also be “rushed” using Stars, enabling quick production of troops for the player’s stockpile.

Risk: Factions is already a complete and satisfying game, offering some genuinely strategic gameplay alongside the more casual, light base building elements. Over time, the game will offer more maps on which players can battle — at this time, only three of the five factions’ worlds are represented, with only three out of what looks like a proposed five individual maps per world on offer for players to clash over. Further game modes, many of which are designed for quicker play, are also in the works. The game will also offer more in the way of premium items and special weapons to purchase over time, as the offerings in the store are currently quite limited.

You’ll be able to track Risk: Factions’ progress with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

View the original article here

Best Job Title Ever: “Founder, Customer Support”

I’ve been playing around with some lightweight CRM offerings and last night signed up for Worketc.  And today I got an email from Dan, who introduced himself as “as your go-to guy while you’re getting started with WORKetc.”

Turns out, Dan is the founder of WORKetc.  Dan goes on:

“I bet you are now wondering what the founder is doing on customer support? The reason is pretty simple. For a lot of software providers, customer support is an afterthought and usually outsourced to an offshore call centre.  We have a different philosophy here. I genuinely love interacting with customers and spend at least an hour every morning reading every single interaction between our customers and our support team.And, as he describes, he loves interacting with customers and hearing what they want and need.”

He signs off with this: “Dan, Founder, Customer Support.”  I love that.

View the original article here

Fantasy Sports, Virtual Spaces, & Racing Meet in Title Town Racing on Facebook

The folks over at Gasworks Games have created a new sports management game focused on racing, called Title Town Racing, that comes with a number of classic social challenges as well as features reminiscent of a city-builder.

Title Town Racing reminds us of sports games such as Bola, mixed with a dash of fantasy sports. Managing drivers, cars, and upgrades, the title has surprising breadth. One of the few quality titles for racing fans, it’s main drawback is that it doesn’t always provide that much user feedback.

The idea is, of course, to build up a successful racing franchise. Players are given a virtual space out in the middle of nowhere and it’s up to them to turn it into a functioning business. While there a number of elements to this, perhaps the most important place to start is the actual racing.

Players don’t have much at the start, so with the few cars they have, or decide to purchase, they need to start racing. Well, the basic income earning mechanics ought to be familiar enough, as the game uses the traditional “quest” type mechanic. Players select a car and put it out on a race track for a set amount of time. The longer the time frame, the more money is earned. Curiously, while on the track, players can also pick up items — Wrenches — that can be used to upgrade their vehicle.

These Wrenches act like a form of currency to improve the performance of the vehicle in terms of its engine, tires, suspension, transmission, and chassis. Unfortunately, this is where user feedback issues appear. The game doesn’t actually explain the benefit of each one. At the very least, a mouse-over tooltip would be expected, but such isn’t the case. All the player really knows is that increasing these values “improves” the car. Furthermore, if the specific aspects of the car don’t affect specific things, it makes the whole upgrading system seem a bit shallow.

Regardless, once upgrades are complete, players can take their cars to the next set of racing venues. This next “race” is where the fantasy sports come into play, as players can create a driving team of actual NASCAR drivers. Each week, they can pick cars for specific racing cups (certain cars can only race in certain cups) and a driver for each of them. Each Sunday — dubbed the “Sunday Cup” — a race will take place with the player presumably earning income based on how their drivers do in reality. Once again, however, the game lacks any tooltips or help section to reference any of these nuances. There is a tutorial, but after that is passed, the information appears inaccessible again.

The last form of racing comes from social play. In fact, it’s social play of some of the oldest variety: Challenges. As users invite friends, they will be able to “race” against them in a sort of mini-game. Choosing a car from their garage, the player is presented with a series of prompts to time a mouse click with acceleration, turning, and so on. The more accurate the timing, the more points that player accrues. Then, the opposing friend must also complete this mini-game, and the one with the best time wins a fiscal reward. Like the challenges of yesteryear though, and as one can probably already see, nothing occurs until the friend accepts and completes the race. That said, there are two non-player characters users can race, but several hours later, the results are still “pending” for us. Hopefully, results will come back soon, but as this game has just released in the last week or so, it may just be an early bug or oversight.

On one other social note, Title Town Racing also has a nice in-game section for players to interact and chat with one another forum-style. Furthermore, this “Tailgate” even has a great section entitled “Add Me!” so that the game’s Facebook profile page isn’t covered in such requests.

Now that the racing is out of the way, it’s time to start upgrading one’s virtual space for both nicer appearance, and new functionality. With this app, players don’t “level up,” but rather, they acquire a better license. In order to do this, they must meet a number of different requirements including revenue, franchise value, fans, more cars, and star rating.

Star rating is probably the easiest; even if it is one of the more expensive. This is earned by upgrading the buildings in the virtual space itself. The higher the upgrade, the higher the rating. The others, are a bit more difficult to earn, as they take more time.

Within the virtual space, there is yet another space (a race track) that can be decorated in a city-building kind of style. Though items can only be place in specific spots, users can purchase revenue generating buildings, seating, and décor. Each of these will increase the franchise value of the player’s space as a whole, while revenue buildings such as concession stands will generate periodic income, and seating will periodically generate fans. Unfortunately, all these different stats feels a bit arbitrary as none of them really have much of a purpose other than satisfying the new license requirements.

It would be nicer if they had some deeper purpose or were interconnected in some way. Also, and once again, these have no tool tips to signify their meaning. It actually took a bit of random poking about to find that each of these stats — franchise value and fans namely — didn’t affect one another but are just mark arbitrary numbers to meet for leveling. With the space resembling that of a moderate city-builder, we had expected that they would be doing more.

Overall, Title Town Racing comes with a lot of kinks, but it does show good potential. Nothing is terribly deep about it, and some of the elements feel arbitrary, but there is a lot to do and tinker around with in a single sitting. Even if it didn’t have the fantasy elements, it wouldn’t be a bad experience. Of course, it wouldn’t be all that different from other virtual space games either in that regard. However, the fantasy aspect is there, and it does add an extra level for racing fans. All that in mind, there’s nothing terribly offensive, design-wise, with Title Town Racing, making it at least worth a spin.

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