ngmoco:) & GDC 2010

Apologies for not being as active on our gamemakers blog recently. With Game Developers Conference 2010 coming up, we’ll try to rectify that and post more frequently. Look for posts from various ngmofos before and after GDC as we share our experiences at the event.

As we’ve mentioned before, many ngmofos are active participants in the creative community and GDC in particular. ngmoco:) is honored to be presenting four lectures at this year’s conference.

Neil Young, our fearless leader, will be presenting: Things to Unlearn Moving From Traditional Development to the New Digital World

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD10/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=10642

Clive Downie, VP of Marketing, riffs on Neil’s theme with a session focused on product marketing: Marketing in a Digitally Distributed World: What to Do When The Old Bag of Tricks Won’t Work Anymore

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD10/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=10801

On the technical side, we’ll be presenting two lectures at the inaugural iPhone Games Summit. The first one by Steve Detwiler and James Marr of our Creative R&D Team examines Building the Server Software for Eliminate.

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD10/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=10547

Later on in the day, producer Matt Roberts and our partner Andrew Stern at Stumptown Game Machine present a case study on the design of Touch Pets in a talked titled: New Dogs, New Tricks: Breeding Social Networking and Virtual Pets.

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD10/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=10546

In addition, we’ll also be showing off some new developments in Plus+ Network (more details to come).

See everyone there!

-Alan

ngmoco:) Co-Op and Internship Program

http://www.ngmoco.com/internships

The game industry has changed. We used to work on games for two to three years, stick them in a boxes and ship them to retailers around the world, hope for a decent Metacritic score and move onto the next set of titles. We don’t do that anymore.

In this new era of gamemaking, the rise of digital distribution platforms, social networks, pervasive and fast network access, and powerful new devices such as the iPhone has forever transformed the landscape. Now, we are perpetually connected with our players, we are tuning and iterating our game experiences on a daily and hourly basis, and we dialogue with our users and our fans constantly.

At ngmoco:) we’re committed to building next generation games for this new ecosystem. From innovative, platform defining games on iPhone to socially relevant, compelling experiences on Facebook based on daily active usage and virtual goods, we’re designing and creating these games now. From the the Plus+ Network, the Rolando and Topple series of games, to the highly anticipated free-to-play Eliminate and Touch Pets Dogs, ngmoco:) is leading by example.

If you’re interested in helping us define this new era of gamemaking, join us.

We are looking for the following intern and co-op candidates:

·      Engineers

o   Brilliant, passionate, driven future leaders of web & mobile software technology who can solve any technical problem, at any scale, in any language…our problems are solved usually in…

o   PHP (familiarity with LAMP and MySQL)

o   Flash (flash development: action script 3.0, JavaScript/Flash bridging)

o   On Servers (C, C++)

o   On Client devices (Cocoa, Objective C, Open GL, UIKit)

·      Associates

o   Aspiring gamemakers & marketers with clear visions, communication skills and leadership ability

o   An incredible personal passion for the intersection of games & business - opinions and insights into consumers & game design that are progressive but pragmatic

·      Designers

o   Aspiring gameplay & game mechanic visionaries

o   Personal passion for the intersection of human interaction with core gameplay compulsions and an obsessive thirst to invent, iterate and understand core gameplay compulsion loops

Requirements:

·      Must be within 2 years of receiving a bachelor’s degree or pursuing a masters degree or equivalent

·      Knowledge of software development cycle

·      Ability to thrive in fast-paced environment

·      Strong analytical skills

·      Ability to be flexible to quickly changing business needs, new technologies, and game requirements.

·      Exposure to game design and development experience (academic, employment, or personal)

If this is you please send a cover letter, your CV, and two letters of reference/recommendation to internship@ngmoco.com. This is a paid internship program.

Positions are available in the Spring from early January to mid-May and Summer from the end of May to mid-August. The dates are flexible depending on each applicant’s’ university schedule.

For the Spring program, please send your application no later than November 15th. We will notify accepted students no later December 11th.

For the Summer program, please send your application no later than April 11th. We will notify accepted students no later May 11th.

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Hey all!  David Cairns here!  I just wanted to mention that Amanda Wixted (of Zynga) and I are doing a talk about iPhone Game Programming at the 360|iDev Conference in Denver next Monday.  If you’re attending, please come check out our session, or at least come over and say hello at some point.

If you’re not attending, WHY AREN’T YOU ATTENDING?

— David

Let’s talk about names, upgrades, leveling, matchmaking… and Energy

Last time I wrote about the game, I was reflecting on how the recent addition of armor sets really felt like a game-changer.  Since that time, we went much deeper on player customization and drove it into the creative center of the game. It’s all about competing to earn credits and using those credits to purchase and upgrade new gear like weapons and armor. It really feels fresh and provides a compelling bonus reward cycle to the deathmatch gameplay at the heart of the experience.

If you haven’t seen the latest trailer, go check it out on the newly revamped Eliminate website as it attempts to describe the entire ecosystem of the game in under 2 minutes. See, as you compete in global matches, you’ll also earn credits.  The better your performance in a match, the more credits you earn. You’ll earn something even if you’re in last place, but great performance will always pay back the highest earnings. As you use these credits to buy new weapons or armor… or to upgrade your gear along multiple upgradable dimensions, you’ll gain an advantage over your enemies if they’re not upgrading too. And that’s where our matchmaker algorithms really become critical.

As you start performing better and winning more matches – by pure skill or with the help of upgrades or any combination – the matchmaker will continually match you up against better performing players. This keeps the individual matches balanced overall even as one player chooses to upgrade and another chooses not too. You’ll always find yourself matched against other players of similar potency. Ultimately, the player at the top of the global leader board will possess both skill and a healthy assortment of upgrades. Part of the fun is gearing up your character to reflect the style of play you enjoy the most. Are you all about offense? Maybe evasive moves? Or do you love blasting enemies with rockets above all else? The in-game armory and upgrade options give you the tools to play the way you like.

If you use up all of your energy, you can continue practicing on the global servers, but no credits will be earned until your energy levels are sufficient. You can recharge your energy at any time by using Power Cells. Your app download will include some Power Cells and you can purchase additional Power Cells from iTunes or acquire them through other methods to be revealed later.  Or you can wait for your energy to recharge automatically.

Why bother with Energy? We use energy for a lot of things: to regulate and balance the game content, to help stack-rank the queue of players waiting for their next match (current default wait time is 5 seconds), and of course to pay for the global servers and infrastructure we host for lobbies, matchmaking, and gameplay. It’s a pretty huge undertaking and is not feasible without a scalable revenue stream tied to it.

If you really enjoy the game and want to engage deeply, you can do exactly that. We expect some portion of players will be willing to pay a fair price for something they really enjoy. And by doing so, those deep players can accelerate their progress in the game by earning more credits and leveling up faster than someone who is not engaging as deeply. That’s okay. The deep players are helping support the game for everyone, making online practice mode possible. And the deep players are given priority in the event the servers are slammed by tons of simultaneous players. It seems like a pretty fair solution—to offer the core online competitive FPS experience with credit-earning and upgrades at a fair price to everyone who wants to give it a try—while also offering deeper engagement with additional benefits to those players willing to invest more into the game. You can still progress and level up even if you’re not buying extra power cells, but eventually you’ll run out of energy and will need to replenish before earning more credits and leveling farther.

You may be wondering if players willing to throw piles of money at the game will simply rocket to the top of the leader boards overnight. The answer is NO. Most items and upgrades are level bound, meaning you have to earn the prerequisite level through combat experience in order to qualify for the armor or upgrade or whatever. So just because you pay more doesn’t mean you don’t have to play like everyone else. That’s the whole point of the game – to play and win! You’ll level up faster when you’re earning credits, so energy is a factor, but you definitely have to play and earn those credits.

We recently wrapped up a pretty big session of hands-on play tests with real fps players who are not game developers. The whole process was a great source of insightful feedback. We had 65 gamers blasting the shit out of each other, earning credits, buying new gear, using energy… the whole nine yards. The complete cycle felt very natural. We’re definitely fine-tuning some things as a result of those playtests and the game is already better as a result. The reason I bring this up is that it gave me a lot of confidence that players do understand this new ecosystem and the game will ultimately be better as a result. Eliminate’s release is not going to be a fire-and-forget launch. We’re in this for keeps.  We want people to bring it anytime, anywhere. And extend their FPS lifestyle beyond the desktop or livingroom – into wherever their lives take them.

-chris

Develop: Alan Yu talks ngmoco, App Store and the rise of microstudios

ngmoco co-founder Alan Yu is currently on assignment at the Develop Conference in Brighton: He’s participating in a panel about the future of the iPhone and partaking in assorted tomfoolery. But Yu still has time to look back over the past year and answer a bevy of questions from Develop’s Michael French.

In this conference-side chat with an ngmofo, Yu talks about the founding of ngmoco, publishing games for the App Store, Plus+ and how the iPhone has changed game making.

From Develop:

Can you remind us what the story is behind the founding of Ngmoco?

The company was founded by four of us – Neil, Bob Stevenson, myself and Joe Keen. In short: we love the iPhone.

Like a lot of people, I waited in line on day one to get mine. Neil tells the story when he does talks about the wait that day, and I was right there with him. It was hot, irritating, but it felt like it was going to be big. Even then, before all the software came, we knew iPhone was going to be huge – just interacting with it was different. Then, when the SDK was out we realised what a great device it was to make games for. We left our jobs, formed a company in July 2008 and got it incorporated in August.

The great thing about it for many of us, especially those in the company that game from much bigger organisations, is that it’s a refreshing change from the two or three year production cycle needed for most other games. And it’s such a difference from managing a studio of around 400 people working on one or two products; we released eight games – a mix of free and paid-for apps – in the space of just seven months. A year later that number is 11.

Creativity, the iPhone has reinvigorated me – and Neil and a lot of other people.

Why did Ngmoco have to be an independent company? Why couldn’t you just do this within the EA business?

The market moves so fast that we felt we needed entrepreneurial focus – and it was a risk, a risk we were willing to take. EA is a great company, I love it and the people and I learned so much while I was there. But you can move faster when you are independent and not a part of those larger organisations.

And if you look at even the trends in the game making space for iPhone, a great democratisation has taken place. It’s $99 for the SDK, you need a Mac to program on… and that’s it, you’re off. That’s reflected in the types of games we’re seeing in that space and the kinds of developers making them. Instead of 80 person teams working on a game that they hope will be a hit, you have two to three man teams – or in the case of Rolando, one guy – working on a release schedule that covers just a few months.

But Ngmoco describes itself of a publisher of these smaller games – how does that work?

We do a range of things. We have no internal development, but there are concepts we come up with internally – such as Topple, Maze Finger, Dr Awesome and Word Fu – which we then find developers externally to move into production under our direction. Then there are games we publish and go and acquire such as Rolando and Star Defence – these concepts come to us from other developers. We also do marketing and other platform development stuff in the form of our Plus+ platform.

What do independents get out of working with you rather than just submitting the game themselves?

I think it’s a misnomer that you can self-publish on the App Store. You can self distribute – but it’s like someone gave you the key to GAME or Virgin Megastore. That’s great, because you can go in and put whatever you want on the shelf, but it’s bad because 25,000 other people can come in and do the same thing.

So any competent developer will have financing and marketing to get a product in front of as many people as possible. And marketing in this space is really different, it’s not about getting a game into stores or buying TV ads; it’s word of mouth and more socially driven.

In working with us developers get capital, financing and marketing – plus we are game makers ourselves. Neil, Bob, myself and the rest of the team have worked on games that have sold in the millions and millions of units. So the power is creative management and feedback to developers. [Rolando studio] Hand Circus plus Ngmoco is better than Hand Circus or Ngmoco on its own; there are real benefits for all of us by working together.

A lot of people have positive things to say about the iPhone, but in what ways do you personally see how the format has changed the games industry?

One refreshing area is talent. I’ve been in the game industry a long, long time, and I used to run GDC and then worked at EA. I realised that through all that time I was really talking to the same people – great friends, but no new blood. But here on iPhone with a $99 devkit and a Mac Mini, so many more people can move into this space. For me it’s been reinvigorating and awesome to speak to people like [Rolando creator] Simon Oliver, and people from outside games who are now coming in by making an iPhone game. Of course, that has meant a lot of people, and a bigger cast of characters – which allows for more orthogonal thinking, it’s changing the echo chamber that is the games industry. So it is very exciting to be able to not only speak with new talent all the time but help them realise their dreams.

Another great thing is the rise of the microstudio. You can now get a game out there with just a few people. That’s one of the major changes we are seeing. There are no great bands that are more than a couple of guys – and when you have that kind of rock star-style development you aren’t talking about managing a huge budget or all the other trappings you’d have in a larger organisation, and it’s a lot easier to get up and running.

Will the encroachment of EA and Gameloft into iPhone upset the kind of model you have established?

I think there’s lots of room for all kinds of companies in this space. Our advantage is that we are focused entirely on the iPhone, that’s all we do. I think comprehensively understanding the features of the hardware is a great benefit – especially when it came to understanding the great features in 3.0 and what that enables us to add to games.

But the other advantage we have is understanding the user space and knowing how people use their iPhone. It’s a benefit to us to solely focus on this device and not be distracted by other things the way bigger games publishers might.

Plus there is our publishing platform, which gives us an advantage over other companies.

Tell me about the Ngmoco platform.

Basically, inside our games is a very powerful analytics package. We call it our eyes and ears. In that I can tell how many Maze Finger mazes you have completed, where you might get stuck in Topple – it was level four, by the way – where people touch the screen in Rolando.

Or even the average play session, which is around 22 minutes – that’s something which, as an aside, shows that this really isn’t just a casual platform, that’s a core gamer-style stat.

So our platform talks back to us, gives us a relationship with the consumer and means we can live tune the software seamlessly for the user without an update. That stuff is invisible to the user.

Our system also includes in-game ads which we don’t sell – we just use to cross-promote our games – plus an achievement system, friends list, social referalls, push notifications, asynchronous multiplayer, live multiplayer and in-game currency.

All those features get battle tested in our games – once we’ve written them for Star Defence, for instance, it gets fed back in to the platform, so it is trusted and proven.

The thinking is that these new independent developers coming to this space don’t want to write all that stuff from scratch. That’s another answer to that question about the value we as a publisher can offer to developers.

There’s still a discovery issue around iPhone games in terms of telling users about them – and as you say the marketing requirements are different – does that mean games need to be designed differently to ‘traditional’ games?

I think so. iPhone is moving very close to the social gaming area and pushing the boundaries on what we typically expect of a game. One game we are working on is Touch Pets, our pet simulator – you can have a pet and even send them on play dates with other players. That takes the game beyond just the device and builds a social canvass for players to paint on. In all, consumer expectations have been fundamentally changed by the new functions the phone allows and the games have to match that.