Mindy Candy, the U.K. company behind the hugely successful Moshi Monsters adoptable pet monsters kids game, is branching out into animation. Today it’s announced plans to make a series of 52

This week, we hosted Accel Partners’ Rich Wong in the studio for our Ask A VC show.

Wong, who has invested in Angry Birds (Rovio), Lookout, Atlassian, MoPub, talked about where he sees the next wave of disruption in mobile technologies. He believes mobile security is a huge opportunity mobile, especially at the enterprise level.

We also chatted about whether entrepreneurs can build a great tech company outside of Silicon Valley. Wong has some interesting perspective on this considering that Atlassian’s headquarters are in Sydney, Australia and Rovio is based in Finland.

Tune in above to hear what Wong’s favorite Rovio game is and more.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

This week on techCrunch TV’s Ask A VC show, we have Accel Partners’ Rich Wong in the studio. As you may remember, you can submit questions for our guests either in the comments or here and we’ll ask them during the show.

Wong focused on software, mobile and internet services investments for Accel and helped lead the firm’s investments in Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, MoPub; Dealer.com, Qwilt and others. Prior to Accel, Wong was SVP/GM of Products at Openwave and was previously the Chief Marketing Officer at Covad Communications, the DSL provider.

Considering his focus on mobile, Wong should have some interesting insights on where VCs are placing their bets.

Please send us your questions for Wong here or put them in the comments below!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Rovio Entertainment, maker of the popular line of “Angry Birds” games, announced today that its expanding its business to include third-party titles, which it will publish, distribute and market to consumers. The new program is being called “Rovio Stars,” and makes available the company’s expertise as well as its marketing teams to other publishers. The first title to be released under the new effort is “Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage,” by Nitrome Ltd.

The Icebreaker game, which follows the adventures of a lone Viking, will be followed by medieval adventure and puzzle game “Tiny Thief,” made by 5 Ants.

This is the first time Rovio has included third-party titles in its lineup, the company announced this morning via a blog post and press release.

“We want to help the developers to give these games that last coat of polish, publish the games and find their audience,” said Rovio’s Director of Development Kalle Kaivola. “We’re focusing on a small, select number of games, and each Rovio Stars launch will be an event of its own.”

That “last coat of polish” means Rovio will actually assist its partners in finalizing game production and with post-production, the company explains. Rovio notes that it’s looking for titles in “an advanced stage of production” – that is, in either alpha or playable format.

Rovio’s experts will specifically help to mentor developers in order to “turn their games into blockbusters,” as well as market them, provide PR, and help publishers distribute titles to all the relevant app stores.

Developers can now apply for consideration as one of Rovio’s next picks on the Rovio Stars dedicated website, where the company provides a submission form. Interested parties can attach screenshots and/or video alongside a description of their game. For now, only mobile titles are being considered. Expecting a high volume of submission, the company says it can’t promise that everyone will receive a response.

Rovio has long since moved beyond being only a games publisher, and is now more of media company offering cartoons, toys, and other merchandise like t-shirts, books, and even soda. It has debuted an “Angry Birds Space Encounter” at the Kennedy Space Center, and Angry Birds-themed parks. It also recently partnered with Dreamworks to release “The Croods,” a game based on the animated film.

These expansions have been working well for the company so far. In April, Rovio announced its 2012 sales were up 101 percent to $195 million, and net profit was up to $71 million. 45 percent of Rovio’s revenue now comes from “consumer products,” versus 30 percent the year prior. The company also has 1.7 billion downloads across its properties, and sees hundreds of millions of active users per month.

Details regarding how Rovio Stars will generate revenue – through a revenue share, perhaps, or other fees, were not immediately provided. We’ve reached out to the company for more information and are waiting on a response. (Update to follow).

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I’m addicted to Dots. It’s betaworks‘ new game. 389. That’s my high score. No power-ups. I’m pretty proud of it. The game consumes my time. I no longer browse reddit during my “private times”; I play Dots.

Dots is simple. It’s elegant. The game has restored my faith in mobile game development. But more importantly, it’s fucking addicting. I can’t put it down.

Dots a simple game: just connect adjoining dots of the same color to clear them from the board. You have 60 seconds. Clearing dots by making squares is the way to high scores. Use your dots to buy power-ups. That’s it. That’s Dots.

Like Angry Birds and Temple Run before it, Dots demonstrates that a simple game with replay value is the key to a successful mobile game. I always want to play just *one* more game. And since the game only lasts 60 seconds, I’m assured that I won’t waste that much time. I might not best my high score, but I’ll give it another go.

Dots is simple. That’s important. The first time the game loads, the user has to connect two dots to advance to the next screen. Instructions are not presented. Just two dots. After poking the two dots, users will naturally drag a line between them. And from there, they’re hooked.

When the app launched Jordan called Dots the most beautiful mobile game she’d ever seen. I won’t argue with that statement. The game is lovely. The betaworks title is also very popular and downloaded over 1 million times within its first week.

Dots is the epitome of a good game. The barrier to entry is set very low, but yet the replay value is very high. This is the golden formula that few games have achieved.

Pacman and Tetris are classic examples. Both were massive hits because it didn’t take any skill to get hooked. Just gobble up the dots or line up the blocks. It’s that easy with Dots. My 3 year daughter gets a kick out of connecting just a couple of dots. My 6-year-old got 114 his first time.

Even Bejeweled, the hit game turned bloatware, is a great example. How many of us wasted weeks of our lives playing that game on a PDA or a feature phone?

More recently Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds proved that smartphones can be a legitimate platform for casual games. Even now, years after their release, they’re still widely popular titles. Why? Because like Dots they’re easy to play and crazy addictive.

Sadly my love of Dots won’t last. There will come a day where I’ll move it from my home screen to a folder where it will live out its time on my device next to Words With Friends, Letterpress, Angry Birds Star Wars, and Temple Run OZ. That’s just how these things work.

Eventually I’ll grow tired of connecting dots and listening to the game’s satisfying pings. And then, probably a year from now as I mindlessly clear up space on my iPhone, I’ll delete Dots, not even pausing for a second to reminisce about our time together. But right now, I’m living in the moment, hiding in the bathroom, ignoring the needs of my children and the yells from my wife while I try to best my high score. Just one more round.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Angry Birds maker Rovio today finally introduced a way for users to save their gameplay and progress in the cloud, and then resume play on any device. Called simply “Rovio Accounts,” it’s a feature which has been in such huge demand that fan communities like the officially sanctioned Angry Birds Nest had previously drummed up complicated, multi-step workarounds to solve the problem.

In a brief announcement on Rovio’s site, the company reports that the Accounts feature is first arriving in the new The Croods game worldwide, and in the classic version of Angry Birds on iOS in Finland and Poland. The continued worldwide rollout to other titles and markets will happen “gradually,” explains the post.

Registering for a Rovio Account will be an optional feature, and it will support transferring progress to new devices, such as when you upgrade your phone, or to enable continued gameplay on other devices you may currently own. In addition, the feature will also allow several users to share a device, each with their own saved game.

If you’re already playing multiple games on several devices, upon first sign in on each, you’ll be asked if you want to merge the scores, stars and feathers into your current account. However, power-ups will continue to be stored per device, explains a Rovio FAQ.

To get started, after registering, you’ll need to verify your email within 48 hours to confirm your account.

Rovio didn’t offer any details as to when it expects the Accounts feature rollout to complete worldwide, but it’s no small undertaking given the size and scope of its current lineup. In the past year, the company launched Amazing Alex, Bad Piggies and Angry Birds Star Wars, which in addition to Angry Birds Classic, Friends, Space, Seasons, Rio, and The Croods, accounts for 263 million active monthly users.

In more recent months, the company has been shifting towards making some games free, such as when it offered the original Angry Birds game for free this March. The new Accounts feature will now help with these efforts to draw in both new lapsed users who have since moved on from the device where they had first installed the paid Rovio titles.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

You remember the first time you played Angry Birds, right? What about the first time you picked up the iPhone 4 and realized just how beautiful a phone can be, both in hardware and software? Well, the latest company to launch out of betaworks mixes the addictive nature of Angry Birds with the minimalist beauty of Apple’s hardware and software.

Meet Dots.

The idea is simple: Everyone has played connect the dots with their friends during science class or with a sibling on a long plane ride. Dots is the digital version of the classic pencil-and-paper game.

The rules are slightly different. Instead of drawing against another player, or being allowed a single line at a time, you simply connect all the dots of the same color that are in a straight line. The more dots you can connect, the more points you get. If you happen to be able to connect the dots into a square, you get even more points.

Each game lasts 60 seconds, but it never feels like long enough.

The choice to build a game surprised me at first. The App Store is completely saturated with a million games, ranging from big names like Angry Birds all the way down to the silly stuff. But Dots actually has a solid chance at penetrating a huge market.

For one, the app touches on our memories of connecting the dots with our friends. It’s sentimental right off the bat.

It also appeals to everyone. Children could easily play Dots, yet adults would still find it challenging. And to top it all off, the team worked really hard to make sure that the design was just as simple and natural as the game itself.

“It’s hard to articulate what makes something fun, but we spent a lot of time and care crafting a well designed, and hopefully delightful experience that unfolds as you play,” said co-founder Paul Murphy. “This also reflects the background of the founder – Patrick Moberg. Patrick is a truly talented designer, illustrator, developer — you’ll see his personality and talent reflected as you play the game and win trophies.”

But how will Dots make money?

The currency of the game is actually called “dots”, which you earn for playing well. You can use these dots to get advanced powers. Of course, like most games, you can also buy dots through in-app purchases. Thankfully, you can always earn the same powers that are available for purchase, so you’ll never be roped in to spending money in order play more.

Dots is available now on the App Store.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Following last’s year expansion into merchandise including toys, underwear (!), and more, EA’s PopCap is now taking its popular “Plants vs. Zombies” title to the printed (and e-inked) page. Penguin Children’s has acquired the physical and e-book publishing rights to the game, in a three-year deal.

The first books – Plants vs. Zombies Official Guide, The Official Sticker Book, and the Plants vs. Zombies Joke book, will be published this summer, in August 2013.

Plants vs. Zombies has been downloaded over 120 million times since its release in 2009. It made a big comeback in March after the company made the paid title free, ahead of the release of a sequel due out later this year. As TechCrunch noted at the time, many game developers behind older, but still popular titles, on iOS are making their original games free, most notably Rovio, which also made the original version of Angry Birds free that same month.

Last summer’s announcement of game-related merchandise from PopCap was the first brand licensing partnerships to emerge in the company’s 12-year history, it said at the time. PopCap noted then that the first games it would focus on licensing were Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled. And sure enough, in January, PopCap announced that Bejeweled would cross over into the real world, as physical games sold through an agreement with Hasbro.

Penguin’s Children Group, which includes brands like Puffin, Ladybird, and BBC Children’s Books, has previously done deals with other digital titles including Angry Birds, Moshi Monsters, and Skylanders, for both game and interactive tie-ins.

According to this report of Penguin’s done deals ahead the London Book Fair, the Plants vs. Zombies acquisition (by Puffin) includes “world rights” excluding North America and Asia. That’s not exactly world rights, though. We’ve reached out to the publisher to clarify, given that the way it’s touting the news omits this key detail.

Update: Penguin has confirmed to us that the worldwide rights do not include North America or Asia. Shouldn’t there be some rules about using the word “worldwide?”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Line’s animated characters, which helped it become one of Asia’s top messaging apps with more than 120 million users, now have their own cartoon series.

The TV show, called “LINE TOWN,” premiered on Tokyo TV Channel 6 last week (h/t Asiajin). “Line Town” features half-hour-long episodes and a prime 6:30PM to 7:30PM slot, and has already been picked up for syndication on BS Japan. According to Asiajin, the series also has the distinction of having a theme composed by Japanese pop idol and actress Shoko Nakagawa, the former presenter of Pokemon Sunday. Tech In Asia found a “Line Town” clip on YouTube:

This is not the first time the characters from the NHN Japan messaging app have popped up on television. In January, a 5-minute long animated short featuring the characters called “Line Offline: Salaryman” was broadcast on Tokyo TV.

Line’s characters, which users can add in the form of animated “stickers” to their messages, are among a host of innovative features, including integrated video, images, and doodles, meant to increase user engagement. Found in top Asian messaging apps including Korea’s KakaoTalk, China’s WeChat, and Taiwan’s Cubie, these features are now making their way to American apps like MessageMe.

Line is keen, however, to be known as more than just a messaging and free calls app. Last month, Line’s U.S. CEO Jeanie Han told TechCrunch’s Natasha Lomas that the app wants to position itself as a social media alternative, and sees itself as an entertainment–not technology–company. Line has its own main characters (including Brown the bear, Cony the bunny and highly emotive Moon), who appear in the new cartoon series, but it also relies on cultural research to create new stickers for different markets like Spain and the U.S.

Of course, Line is not the first app that has spun-off its characters into an animated series. Most notably, Rovio Entertainment announced last month that it is launching a cartoon based on its megahit “Angry Birds” characters. The Finnish company said last week that it doubled its revenue to $197.8 million in 2012 thanks in large part to Angry Birds titles like “Angry Birds Star Wars” and “Bad Piggies.”

It will be interesting to see if Line’s characters enjoy the same success and eventually join Pokemon, Totoro, and Astro Boy on the roster of Japanese hit animations that have achieved international fame.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Rovio today took one more step to grow the ubiquity of its games worldwide: it is launching mobile apps for of Angry Birds Friends, a social version of the game, created for Facebook that has picked up 60 million installs and 15 million monthly active users on Facebook’s desktop platform in the year since launch, according to Facebook. The news was announced during a Facebook mobile event in Helsinki: the social network is doing the rounds in Finland this week talking to mobile games developers based in and around the city — home to two of the biggest mobile games developers there are, Rovio and Supercell.

Pictured here is a screenshot of how it will look.

The news also comes on the same day that Rovio published annual results for 2012 — a requirement for all companies, even private ones, under Finnish law. Those results showed revenues of $195 million, and a growing proportion, now at 45%, coming from Rovio’s non-gaming business, specifically merchandise like books and IP licensing for plush toys and more.

Adding another platform for an already-popular game will give Rovio more exposure for its brands, an important part of the business to keep up demand for that merchandise.

It is also an essential move to respond to current trends in gaming, which see the vast majority of the most popular games favoring a free-to-download model with revenues picked up through in-app purchases, a shift from the paid model that has fuelled a lot of growth for Rovio to date.

“Rovio I think is very inspired by Supercell, which is absoutely ruling the App Store when it comes to top grossing apps,” Julien Codornoiu, who heads up Facebook Gaming partnerships, pointed out in an interview with TechCrunch. “No one caares about paid as much as they do about grossing.”

Codornoiu also notes that Rovio is already huge on Facebook’s platform, with the top three games on Facebook last year Angry Birds editions from Rovio (the next two, he notes, were from Supercell).

For a company that built its business taking an early lead in the fast-growing world of smartphones, Rovio has been surprisingly slow to embrace social gaming. Codornoiu tells me that he had a member of his team visiting Rovio once a month for about 18 months to get the company to launch its first social game on Facebook, and now mobile. It may be because up to now Rovio has been relatively reluctant to cannibalize revenues in areas like paid apps, but with that business maturing, and merchandising taking off, it’s created an opportunity to become more open with free games.

Last month, Facebook noted that there are some 250 million people playing games on Facebook.com each month, with one in five daily visitors to Facebook.com playing one.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch