Jawfish Games, a Seattle-based startup run by a former professional poker player and the engineering team that built the Fult Tilt Poker site, launched a gaming platform that can host more than 100,000 simultaneous players in real-time tournaments across iOS, Android and the web.

While asynchronous, turn-based games have done well on mobile platforms and Facebook over the last five years, pure, real-time multiplayer games haven’t caught on as quickly partially because data connections haven’t been fast enough and because a game developer would need a critical mass of players to match them synchronously.

But Jawfish, which has raised $3.65 million in funding from firms like Founders Fund’s angel fund, Right Side Capital and other angels, says it has built a platform to do just that. Their platform can support more than 100,000 simultaneous players and host 1 million tournaments for less than $10 in bandwidth.

They initially came out with a few games in partnership with Seattle’s Big Fish Games, but now they’re bringing out more of their own titles.

Because Jawfish’s CEO Phil Gordon is a championship professional poker career who has hosted The World Series of Poker and published five books on the game, the company is doing a poker game (of course). The poker game is designed to have the look and feel of a broadcasted game with Gordon’s running commentary throughout play.

They’ve also launched a basic word search game, called Jawfish Words, that lets players compete on the getting the highest scores, finding the longest words or the most diagonals. There more obscure goals too, like finding the most words with a single vowel. They launched that game last month through a partnership with Amazon. The company has pointed out some promising stats: the average player spends 21 minutes and plays 10.7 tournaments a day. Each tournament is about 60 to 90 seconds long.

They plan to building out a suite of classic games, from casual to casino titles that make use of the platform. “Basically what we’re looking to do is to take games that people know and love and reinvent them for multiplayer real-time tournaments,” Gordon said. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do across a wide spectrum of games.”

While Jawfish hasn’t opened its platform up to third-party developers, there are other gaming networks that add multi-player mode to indie titles that are blowing up. Nextpeer, an Israeli startup, went from having just a few games in its network to well over 1,000 developers in the last several months.

“Barring a top 10-kind of franchise wanting to use our platform for multiplayer mode, it’s incredibly unlikely that we’re going to work with other studios,” Gordon said. “Certainly not for anything but the top tier. We know that our platform is the only one of its kind in the world and we think that it’s in our interest to keep the platform close to the vest and develop our own games.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Zynga has apparently told the makers of the dating website CupidWithFriends that they need to change the site’s name, because it allegedly infringes on Zynga’s trademarks.

CupidWithFriends was built by the startup Apartment 7 (which also released the dating apps Flock and Wednesday Night). The site launched a couple of months ago, allowing users to build and edit dating profiles for their friends.

Apartment 7 co-founder Jared Tame just forwarded me a copy of the letter from Zynga’s lawyers. I’ve pasted the full letter at the end of this post, but the gist is that users are likely to think that CupidWithFriends is associated in some way with Zynga (which acquired the developer of the With Friends mobile gaming franchise, a franchise that recently expanded with the launch of Running With Friends). So the social gaming company is demanding that CupidWithFriends change its name by May 24.

Tame said he has “no plans to change the name of the product,” adding,”At the end of the day, we’re busy trying to innovate in the dating space and dealing with Zynga would be a major distraction to us. I think they should be more focused on innovating rather than targeting month-old startups like us.”

I emailed Zynga for confirmation and details, but a spokesperson declined to comment. When I ran a search on the US Patent and Trademark Office’s website (direct links to specific filings don’t seem to be working for me), I did find a trademark filing for “With Friends” in relation to computer game software and entertainment services.

Tame isn’t the only one building an app named using a “with friends” name. There’s also Bang With Friends (which has other problems, as it was recently booted from the Apple App Store) — I asked the company whether it has received a similar letter from Zynga, but it declined to comment.

Here’s the full letter to CupidWithFriends:

Dear Sir or Madam:

We serve as intellectual property counsel to Zynga Inc. (“Zynga”). Among other things, Zynga publishes and owns intellectual property rights in the ‘WITH FRIENDS™ family of social games, which includes Words With Friends®, Chess With Friends®, Scramble With Friends®, Hanging With Friends™, Matching With Friends™, Gems With Friends™ and Games With Friends®, as well as other ‘WITH FRIENDS games in various stages of development (collectively the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks). Each of Zynga’s games using the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks is published and played by millions of users on various social networking portals, including Facebook, Android and iPhone.

Zynga has consistently used and promoted the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks together as a family and, as a result of Zynga’s extensive marketing efforts and commercial success, the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks is strongly identified by consumers with Zynga’s reputation for quality.

It has come to our attention that CupidWithFriends has developed and launched an application called “Cupid With Friends”. CupidWithFriends’ use of the name “Cupid With Friends” for an online application is confusingly similar to the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks owned by Zynga, and users are likely to believe, erroneously, that CupidWithFriends’ application is published, sponsored, endorsed by or associated with Zynga. CupidWithFriends’ use of “Cupid With Friends” also dilutes the distinctiveness of Zynga’s famous ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks.

Zynga has invested substantial time and resources in developing and promoting the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks, and it vigorously protects its rights in its marks, both collectively and individually. Zynga hereby demands that CupidWithFriends immediately cease use of the name “Cupid With Friends” in connection with its online application, and refrain from further exploitation of the goodwill that Zynga has developed in its ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks.

We anticipate that you will accede to this demand, and ask that CupidWithFriends confirm by Friday, May 24, 2013 that it has ceased use of the name “Cupid With Friends” in connection with its online application. Nothing contained in this letter constitutes an express or implied waiver of any rights, remedies, or defenses of Zynga, all of which are expressly reserved.
Very truly yours,
/s/

Dennis L. Wilson
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Amazon today is taking a step into social gaming with the launch of Amazon Coins, its new virtual currency that is now live in the U.S. To kick it off, Amazon announced that it would put $5 worth of the currency — equivalent to 500 Coins — into all Kindle Fire users’ accounts to use on apps and in-app purchases on its platform. The company says that this is equivalent to “tens of millions of dollars” worth of Amazon Coins.

Coins, which were first announced in February, are the company’s move into an area that has been a strong way for app publishers to generate revenue through their apps. In that sense, the launch serves a two-fold purpose for Amazon: a way of encouraging developers to come to its platform (something Amazon has already been working on), and to spur more revenue generation.

A lot of the talk in virtual currency of late has been around the potential for bitcoin and other new monetary instruments fuelled by a network effect. But before bitcoin became the buzz, there were already a number of other virtual currency networks run by Facebook, Zynga and many more, with aim being to spend the “money” on gaming and other apps on their platforms.

Unlike bitcoin, and more like Amazon Coins, most virtual currency is based on users redeeming standard currencies for “virtual” ones on the network in question. This money can then be used to buy new features in a game, or extend your life, or to send “virtual gifts” to friends. One idea here, I think, is that users are more likely to spend money when it’s less transparent that they are doing so; in Amazon’s case, 500 Coins sounds a lot more exciting than $5. Another is that it ties a user more closely in with a particular game and a particular platform. Amazon Coins will give Amazon a way of more reliably monetizing users longer-term.

Amazon Coins is an extension of other social services that Amazon has added to its app platform. Specifically, Game Connect lets developers list virtual goods for sale on Amazon.com — a way of also marketing those games themselves; and GameCircle is a kind of social network that lets users measure their achievements in games against their friends and other players. On top of that, Amazon also allos for in-app purchases using real-world money as well.

Amazon says that it will be offering discounts of 10% to those users who buy Coins in bulk. Developers will get a standard 70% revenue share on all coin spend.

This looks like it is just the beginning of Amazon Coins, which the company says will extend to other services on the platform — and likely outside of the U.S. over time, given that virtual currency has proven popular outside of the U.S. in markets like Asia and Europe.

“Today we are giving Kindle Fire owners $5 worth of Coins to spend on new apps and games, or to purchase in-app items, such as recipes in iCookbook, song collections in SongPop or mighty falcon bundles in Angry Birds Star Wars. And with discounts of up to 10% when you buy Coins, this is a great way for customers to save money when they buy apps, games and in-app items,” said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon, in a statement. “We will continue to add more ways to earn and spend Coins on a wider range of content and activities—today is Day One for Coins.”

Whether that will ever include making purchases on Amazon.com with Amazon Coins remains to be seen — but it seems that in any case Amazon Coins will be one more way that Amazon will build out its e-commerce empire ever further.

Release below.

Amazon Coins Now Available for Kindle Fire Customers
Every Kindle Fire owner in the U.S. will find $5 worth of free Coins deposited directly into their Amazon account

Customers can also purchase Coins in bulk and receive a discount up to 10%

Tens of millions of dollars worth of Amazon Coins are now in customers’ accounts to spend on developers’ apps

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May. 13, 2013– —(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today announced that customers can now use Amazon Coins to purchase apps, games and in-app items in the Amazon Appstore and on Kindle Fire. To celebrate the launch, existing and new Kindle Fire customers in the U.S. have had 500 free Coins—a $5 value—deposited into their Amazon accounts today. For customers, Amazon Coins is an easy way to purchase apps and in-app items on Kindle Fire, and for developers it’s another opportunity to drive traffic, downloads and increased monetization. With discounts of up to 10% for purchasing Coins in bulk, it’s also an opportunity for customers to save money on their app and game purchases. Customers can purchase Coins by visiting amazon.com/coins.

“Today we are giving Kindle Fire owners $5 worth of Coins to spend on new apps and games, or to purchase in-app items, such as recipes in iCookbook, song collections in SongPop or mighty falcon bundles in Angry Birds Star Wars. And with discounts of up to 10% when you buy Coins, this is a great way for customers to save money when they buy apps, games and in-app items,” said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon. “We will continue to add more ways to earn and spend Coins on a wider range of content and activities—today is Day One for Coins.”

Amazon Appstore developers will earn their standard 70% revenue share when customers make purchases using Amazon Coins. No Coins-specific changes are required for developers with apps and games currently in the Amazon Appstore. Developers not yet in the Amazon Appstore should submit their app today through the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal (https://developer.amazon.com/welcome.html).

Amazon Coins is the latest offering in an array of services that make Amazon the most complete end-to-end ecosystem for building, monetizing and marketing their apps and games. These capabilities include:

The ability for app developers to use Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) technology platform for their infrastructure needs. Building blocks such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon DynamoDB allow developers to focus on what differentiates their app rather than the undifferentiated heavy lifting of infrastructure.
App submission for distribution to nearly 200 countries globally enables developers to reach millions more Amazon customers worldwide.
In-App Purchasing on Kindle Fire, Mac, PC and web-based games. This enables developers to sell virtual items in their apps and games while allowing their end users to simply use their Amazon accounts to make the purchase.
GameCircle, which includes capabilities like Achievements, Leaderboards, Friends and Whispersync for syncing games across devices, and leads to better engagement with games.
Game Connect, which lets developers list their virtual goods for sale on Amazon, increasing discoverability of their games and making the purchase of virtual goods as easy and convenient as possible for customers, leading to increased monetization for developers.
About Amazon.com

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including http://www.amazon.com, http://www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.amazon.de, http://www.amazon.co.jp, http://www.amazon.fr, http://www.amazon.ca, http://www.amazon.cn, http://www.amazon.it, http://www.amazon.es and http://www.amazon.com.br. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Games dominate the mobile app ecosystem. Seriously.

It’s easy to forget that as we all search for the next big, hype-worthy app of the moment, but it’s the truth. Eight out of the ten most purchased apps last year were games. Nine of the ten highest grossing apps in the App Store last year, all games.

Combine this with the fact that Apple’s Game Center was launched almost 2.5 years ago, and it’s a bit strange that Google has yet to launch a Game Center-esque hub of their own for Android.

If a string of recent leaks hold true, they’re finally getting around to it.

The guys over at AndroidPolice tore apart a just-released APK for “Play Services” — the behind-the-scenes grunt app that handles things like app updates — and have unearthed a host of details suggesting that Google is on the verge of launching a centralized gaming hub for Android that’ll handle everything from game invites to leaderboards.

In the absence of anything more official, the hub is tentatively being referred to as “Google Play Games”.

Could this be part of the reason why Google hired gaming industry vet Noah Falstein?

While it’s not clear exactly which features will be ready to go on day one, there are breadcrumb trails for all sorts of different functionality. Here’s what Play Games appears to be able to do:

• Game invites. For now, it seems that the invite system is pretty closely tied to Google+.
• Matchmaking
• Save syncing (to maintain your game saves between devices and installs)
• There’s some stuff in there for both real-time and turnbased multiplayer, suggesting that Google might be taking some of the weight of making a multiplayer game off the developer.
• In-Game chat
• Achievements
• Leaderboards

None of this stuff works at the moment, as the hacked-apart APK only contains a small chunk of the puzzle. With Google I/O just days away, however, you can almost certainly expect to hear more about this next week.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook App User IDs are a new feature available to iOS developers who can use them to target their users by actions they took within their app. This is already available in the Facebook SDK for iOS, but will come to the Android SDK soon.

App User IDs are a component of Custom Audiences. Previously, advertisers could create targeting groups by hashed email addresses, phone numbers or user IDs. Now, developers have a way to target ads to their app users who haven’t logged in with Facebook or registered with an email address or phone number.

For example, a shopping app can target people who made a purchase and then show them ads with other items they may be interested in. A game developer can target engaged users of one of their games with ads for another game that they make.

To do this, developers make a request to Facebook’s servers to request an ID to be generated, whether it’s for users who installed an app or made a purchase. Facebook will return encrypted IDs that can then be compiled into a list for Custom Audience targeting through Power Editor or the Ads API. Then a developer can reach the audience with any type of Facebook ad, either on desktop or mobile.

Each call to Facebook’s server to generate an app user ID will generate a different ID so that a developer can’t use the ID across apps or app instances, making it more privacy friendly. Also, in some cases where users have turned off ad tracking in iOS 6, the call will not return an app user ID. The same would happen if the person does not have the Facebook app installed or isn’t logged in.

Nanigans VP of Product Per Sandell says App User IDs could help developers improve app re-engagement.

“Facebook’s mobile channels are already delivering significantly higher ROI than other mobile channels,” he says. “Coupling that with the 5X or more ROI increase provided by Custom Audience targeting over standard interest targeting, and Facebook’s mobile advertising solution just became that much more powerful for marketers across the globe.”

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

More VC money sloshing around Europe. Creandum, the Stockholm-based VC best known for its early investments in the likes of Spotify and Videoplaza, has closed its third fund at €135 million (~$177m), laying claim to being the biggest technology venture capital fund in the Nordics.

The new fund, which was a year in the making and has already made around six investments, will target 25-30 early stage companies in the Nordics and wider European region, with a mixture of seed (€100k – 1m) and A-rounds (€1m – 10m). The majority of those will be in consumer and other software companies, with the rest being hardware and high-tech investments.

Maybe Europe’s Series A crunch — if there is such a thing — just got a little softer.

Creandum says the new fund was raised with “strong support from existing and new investors from the Nordics, rest of Europe and the US”, and that the number of Limited Partners doubled versus the previous €80m Creandum fund raised in 2007.

Interestingly, Unquote reports that only one investor from Fund II “did not re-up into Creandum III”, and that the new fund comprises 11 investors, with “approximately 50% of the capital coming from Sweden and the rest from elsewhere in Europe”. One of those investors is the Finnish government investment vehicle Finnish Industry Investment, which put in €7.5m. More generally, they are made up of family offices, and institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies.

Already active for a year, Creandum’s early investments from the new fund include the computer vision startup 13th Lab, mobile wine app Vivino, the price comparison service for sea freight Xeneta, last minute hotel booking app JustBook and Singapore-basd gaming company Non Stop Games – with a 6th Swedish investment yet unannounced.

I’m told that this accounts for no more than 10% of the new fund, with up to 24 more investments to go. Meanwhile, the VC says that 5 out of its first 6 deals have been seed investments.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Hassan Baig is an entrepreneur who runs White Rabbit Studios, a South Asian gaming startup he founded four years ago in Pakistan. Follow him on Twitter @baigi.

Mobile gaming is a huge worldwide opportunity at the moment, having clocked in at $9 billion in 2012, and it is poised to grow further in the coming years. With the world’s 1 billion smartphones scheduled to almost double in number by 2015 and games responsible for a whopping 66 percent of all app revenue, it’s easy for anyone to do the math and see where this is going.

Game development continues to have a bright future, but only for those who can develop profitable titles. Pursuing such profitability is an exact science now, with monitoring analytics and continuous A/B testing having become the staple of game development. In fact, Zynga – the gaming company to have popularized (if not introduced) the use of analytics – has been often categorized as a big data company.

One can imagine metrics to be ‘levers’ that a game developer can push or pull to create a desired outcome. Some levers have a generous range of motion, while others are more limited. In the end a game developer’s task is essentially to figure out the perfect combination of lever positions that will produce the best financial outcome at the least cost. Notions of creativity, novelty and fun are all confined within the prism of this analytics-centric approach: They have wiggle room as long as they improve analytics. That’s the fundamental philosophy behind modern-day game development.

For those looking for a more visceral understanding of game analytics, I’ve set up a simple mathematical simulation that compares game performances across hypothetical retention and viral profiles. It’s in simple spreadsheet format and can be downloaded here. I’ll quickly list out the assumptions governing this simulation, after which I’ll explain the noteworthy conclusions one can draw from the numbers.

Imagine that a gaming studio has six games under its purview:

As the mobile gaming market continues to spew riches for the foreseeable future, it is imperative that modern day game developers structure their entire operations around the fundamentals of data analytics instead of trying to fit a metrics-based veneer over introverted, blind game development. Their jobs are basically to create digital entertainment products that activate the maximum possible number of highly viral users on a daily basis for the longest sessions.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Tadhg Kelly is a veteran game designer, creator of leading game design blog What Games Are and creative director of Jawfish Games. You can follow him on Twitter here.

It’s very much in its infant phase, the time when the design looks a bit silly and people take photos of those who have one. Yet the Google Glass project is now a real (at a whopping $1500) toy. The reasonably familiar faces of the Valley tech scene are abuzz with the possibilities. Robert Scoble’s even taken a photo of himself showering while wearing one, presumably as some demonstration of the awesomeness of waterproofing.

There are many potentially useful applications. News headlines, tweets, your email on the go and location-aware maps are a good start. Contact recognition, ambient information about people and places and so on. And there’s even the creepy-cool stuff like video surveillance, possibilities for dating applications and so on.

Even if you do look like a dork walking around saying “Ok Glass, where’s the nearest sushi bar?”, it’s still pretty interesting. I suspect that pairing your Glass with your mobile device will be a more common way that users interact with it, because if Kinect and Siri have taught us anything, it’s that voice recognition is rarely perfect. But that too will be great. Imagine, for example, loading up a turn-by-turn map on your phone that then transfers to your Glass. Voila, turn-by-turn cycling and running navigation.

But while these are the sorts of features that gives tech bloggers the squees, for most people they lose their delight factor quickly. It’s amazing how being able to have your calendar on-the-go became something taken for granted, or how mobile email went from being exotic to humdrum in just a couple of years. Remember when it was awesome that you could check Facebook on the bus? These days you expect to be able to do that, but it’s not that exciting. If wearable computers like Glass mostly boil down to yet another notification platform, the average user might think them more annoying than amazing.

Unless they’ve got good games.

Eugene Jarvis, the seminal game designer who gave the world Defender, once famously said “The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games.” And often I agree. For most of us, computing largely boils down to being productive in the office, browsing the web, storing data and playing games. Of all of the above, games are the most genuinely compelling.

Games drive the adoption of platforms in ways that utility software rarely does. Games make computers exciting, and players then talk about their excitement. Few people ever tap you on the shoulder and ask “What app is that?” while you’re typing a document. But when you’ve got some crazy new iPad game, they do. They want to know what that cool thing you’re doing is, and where they can get one. When an Angry Birds moment happens, they do so in droves.

Games market a platform as sexy and give the user an emotional reason to buy in. Look at, for instance, the impact of games on the smartphone and tablet. While the original iPhone was cool for tech fans, for many it only came to life when the App Store happened. And what really drove apps? Games. What drives kids to want to learn to program? Games. What made Facebook go stratospheric? Games. What’s the most interesting app that you’re likely to download on your iPad this week? It’s probably a game.

So when I say that Google needs to be serious about the gaming applications of its Glass platform, I don’t mean it flippantly. Games are what will make wearable computing stick, whether in the form of smart watches, glasses or some other neat device. Fortunately Google seems to agree and has recently hired Noah Falstein to be its chief game designer.

The question then becomes: What kinds of game will fit Glass?

Some folks will immediately jump toward meta-game-y ideas and start to talk about next-generation Foursquares. Augmented reality, location gaming, gamification, digital larping and passive games (like Nintendo’s Streetpass system) all seem more achievable when the user has the ambient awareness of a screen at all times. The idea of playing a large massive-multiplayer real world roleplaying game likewise. I can see half a hundred game executives using the line “What if The Matrix was real?” to pitch that very idea in the coming months.

But meta-games are not going to get the job done. After the novelty of playing one or two wears off, the thinness of meta-games usually becomes apparent, and so they are only ever a fad. For wearable gaming to catch on, the games will have to be a bit more meat-and-potatoes than that. Simple games like puzzles, word searches, hangman, quizzes and original casual games are far more likely to be compelling over the long term.

Figuring out novel ways to use the system’s interactions (such as the touch-sensitive bridge, or the voice system) are where the really interesting stuff might happen. Using your smartphone as a controller, or your Glass as a second screen, might also prove interesting. Ultimately the future may look a little bit like a particularly terrible episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where Riker brings a wearable game onto the Enterprise, and it turns out to be a brainwashing device. We may spend our days riding the bus while playing miniaturized versions of Snake, saying “Ok Glass, left. Ok Glass, right. Ok Glass, left. No I said left. LEFT!”

And who knows, that may turn out to be quite a lot of fun.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Well, what do we have here? Somewhat under the radar, Google has hired the computer games veteran Noah Falstein to the position of Chief Game Designer. Yes, that’s right, the search giant, not normally known for its games development, appears to have a major gaming project in circulation, at least something that requires someone as experienced as Falstein at its helm. What that might be we can only speculate. A Google Glass-related augmented-reality game seems a possibility, though there could be something even more serious going on, given Falstein’s areas of interest.

For those who aren’t familiar with his work, according to his bio Falstein’s been in the computer games industry since 1980, spanning companies such as LucasArts, 3DO, and Dreamworks Interactive, and is the designer behind a number of hit titles. He most recently ran his own consultancy, The Inspiracy, which offered companies help on game design, development and business, as well as being a regular on the lecture and speaking circuit. Ever influential, so perhaps not so surprising that he’s wound up at Google.

On his LinkedIn profile, his new title is “Chief Game Designer” at Google, joining sometime in April 2013. No further details are provided. Intriguingly, however, an earlier cached version has the position down as “Chief Game Designer at Android Play Studio.”

That, of course, points to something Android-related, even if — as one industry insider noted when I asked around — Google’s mobile OS seems to be doing just fine games-wise without the need for a dedicated Android Chief Game Designer within the company.

Were Google to be working on a new game (or games) led by Falstein, it wouldn’t be an entirely new avenue. It already has the mysterious Niantic Labs, maker of Ingress, a real-time augmented reality MMO for Android, so perhaps there’s a connection there. Or maybe a similar concept but for Google Glass.

Finally, if we zoom out further and think a bit more laterally, a major interest of Falstein is the field of “Serious Games,” which he defines as “Using Games, Game Technology, or Game Industry Techniques for a purpose other than pure entertainment.” The list of Serious Games projects Falstein has been involved in spans anything from using game techniques to improve health and education, to financial projections. In other words, weighty stuff.

Or, dare I say, very Google.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Five years after being started as a back-bedroom project by Michael Acton Smith, Mind Candy, the company that came up with the hugely successful Moshi Monsters kids game, has achieved a lot. Unusually for most UK consumer startups, it’s reached across the globe to become a global brand attracting 80 million registered users, up from 50 million in 2011.

Clearly this has been good for growth given that Mind Candy’s 2011 declared sales were £29m. But though tonight it celebrates its success with a lavish party for staff and guests, the company itself stands on a precipice, and the precipice is called mobile. That said, the company knows this, and plans to launch three brand new gaming worlds in the next few months.

In the company’s favour is a self-aware CEO. Acton Smith knows Moshi’s mobile and tablet, and its mobile offering is pretty weak, given that its target audience of young kids has switched almost overnight in the past two years to tablet-based games like Angry Birds, Plants And Zombies, Heyday and the rest. Moshi has done very well in licensing its characters for merchandise, generating half of its revenues from licensing and royalties deals this way – but that can’t last for long if the games themselves don’t satisfy its young audience.

Mind Candy CEO Michael Acton Smith admits that web site traffic has slowed as tablets have taken off, but he says the company is well positioned for the mobile future. Mind Candy has had a total of $10 million in funding from Index Ventures, Accel Partners and Spark Ventures.

While Moshi Monsters has 80 million registered users, it declines to release monthly active users, a metric used by most gaming companies today. It sounds like its getting ready for that shift of position.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Acton Smith said the company was making a big shift to a mobile strategy and that it was “vital that we crack this.”

Indeed, it’s looking like a seismic change at Mind Candy. Acton Smith says three entirely new worlds are being created which will build “entirely new IP.”

Moshi Monsters, however, will be kept “evergreen,” develop further onto mobile, and a full-length movie is slated for launch later this year.

“We are hiring aggressively for this” says Acton Smith.

The new games will be more broadly aimed at families, so parents playing alongside kids. “We’re big fans of Pixar and how it created movies aimed at the whole family,” says Smith, who has gained a reputation as a quirky and creative character, and is sometimes described as the Willy Wonka of London’s tech scene. The moniker works after a fashion – the Mindy Candy office boasts a tree house and a slide.

Moshi Monsters started out as an online world of adoptable pet monsters for boys and girls aged 6-12 back in 2008. It slowly crept to 1 million users before taking off in the summer of 2009 and growing by 1 new registered user per second. Moshi is biggest in the UK but has a global fan base. The top five territories are English speaking (UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand).

Mindy Candy has been on a roller coaster ride – almost closing in late 2008 when the business ran out of cash after blowing its initial funding on an Alternative Reality Game called Perplex City before Acton Smith sketched out the first Moshi Monster in a London cafe.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch