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Deal documents show Ngmoco's 50 million downloads, $10m losses in 2009
Stuart Dredge of MobileEntertainment did some digging into the paperwork behind the Ngmoco sale, and came back with some interesting figures about the company's financials. Turns out that rumored $403 million purchase price is true -- kind of. The deal includes a $100 million bonus, if Ngmoco keeps its numbers up to certain standards. The actual payment now is $303 million, which consists of $146 million in common stocks, $27 million in DeNA investments, and $128 million cash. That cash payment, Dredge reports, is about a third of DeNA's total cash balance, so this is a significant deal for both companies. Meanwhile, the documents state that Ngmoco has seen 50 million downloads on the App Store as of last month, and has 12 million users on the Plus+ network across 119 games (as a comparison, OpenFeint announced 25 million users this year, although of course that service is spread across many more titles). And perhaps most interesting, Ngmoco is growing, but has spent a lot of money for that growth. In 2008, its revenues were only $484,000, and it lost $2.46 million. 2009 went better on the revenue side, jumping up to $3.16 million, but the company's losses came out to a whopping $10.89 million. Pretty amazing that financials like that led to a sale of $403 million -- both Ngmoco and DeNA must expect a lot from this partnership in the future.
DeNA acquiring ngmoco for $400 million
DeNA, a Japanese mobile internet company, is set to purchase mobile publisher ngmoco, best known for Rolando and Topple, for a whopping $400 million. The combination of the two companies, according to the announcement, will create "the world's largest mobile social games platform company." The ngmoco shareholders and employees will receive $300 million in cash and securities, with an additional $100 million contingent on performance milestones. Gamasutra points out that this is just the latest acquisition by DeNA, which has slowly been making selective purchases in the western market. This is also just the latest social media purchase with an incredible dollar figure attached. Disney recently purchased Playdom for over $500 million, while EA acquired Playfish late last year for $300 million. -- oh yeah, and there's also that rumored $100 million investment by Google in Zynga. Now, let us all hold a moment of silence for sanity.
Japanese game giant DeNA buys Ngmoco for $400M
Japanese gaming company DeNA has announced plans to purchase Ngmoco for a cool US$400 million. This purchase sets quite a precedent as it represents one of the highest amounts ever paid for an iPhone application development firm. DeNA sees the mobile social gaming market heating up rapidly. The company's founder and chief executive Tomoko Namba described his aggressive, forward-thinking vision to the New York Times: "The big tide in social gaming is coming, right now. We'd like to capture it and quickly become the world's No. 1 mobile gaming platform...We want to enable developers to go cross-device and to go cross-border. And we need this to happen quickly, in about the next one or two years." Presently, DeNA runs Mobage Town, a wildly popular social gaming platform that is unique to Japan. The pricing model is interesting: the games are free but require users to create avatars that can be used to interact with each other. DeNA then sells clothes and other goodies for the avatars. Good luck to DeNA and congratulations to Ngmoco. We're eager to see what the next chapter will bring. [Via the New York Times]
Freeverse releases Hordes of Orcs 2 for OS X and Windows
When up-and-coming iPhone company Ngmoco bought old-school Mac game developer Freeverse, one of the big worries was whether the developer would continue to program games for the Mac. But worry not -- Freeverse has released a sequel to its old Hordes of Orcs 3D tower defense game, and it's available now for both Windows and OS X. The sequel brings new enemies into the mix, plus new towers and a completely overhauled user interface. You've got spells to cast that affect all enemies, and there are six different game modes to play with that range from classic tower defense to capture the flag and maze defense. The first one was a fun desktop variant on tower defense, and the sequel looks like it adds quite a few new gameplay and graphic elements into the mix. The app is US$19.95 for either platform, and it's available DRM-free from Freeverse's site. Even though we have Steam for Mac and more options than ever for Mac gaming nowadays, it's good to see the distinctly Mac developers still releasing new titles.
Ngmoco releases We City
Ngmoco has introduced its third title in the "We" series. We City arrives after We Rule and We Farm as the same kind of social simulation game. This time around, players will be building and creating their own cities, but other than the setting and the graphics, not too much has changed. Just like the other We titles, you can build farms to grow harvests (in this case, factories that build products), houses for citizens to give you rent, stores for your Plus+ friends to come and put orders in, and various types of decorations and custom items to paint your kingdom, sorry farm, sorry city as you see fit. What's called Mojo and Gro in the other two games is called Zap here, and it's available for the usual microtransactions, or some for free as you level up. Colleges are the one big innovation here -- you can build colleges and universities to do research for you, and those bits of research can unlock new buildings and items. It's kind of a shame that Ngmoco didn't go too far off of the beaten path -- especially with NimbleBit's Pocket Frogs showing that you can do different (and really fun) things with freemium, it's disappointing to see another "We" game with only the names and graphics changed out. But then again, I guess I can't blame them for going with what works. We City is available for free now on both the iPhone and the iPad. If you've played the other games, you know what you're in for, and if you've never seen Ngmoco's freemium model in action, here's your chance to check it out.
TUAW preview: NimbleBit's Pocket Frogs
Since I got my new iPhone 4 a few weeks back, I've been playing more games than ever on Apple's little handheld. I just recently got back into Ngmoco's We Rule. It's probably the pinnacle of the "freemium" genre on the iPhone so far. It's free to play, very social, and very much based on timed "check-ins," where you set crops to grow and then come back in a few hours to harvest them. It puts in little blips of gameplay that move you towards a larger progress goal. The only problem is that We Rule isn't all that fun; it's a bunch of clicking and grinding. So, lately I've been wondering when someone would add a fun freemium game to the App Store. It would have to be something that was social and progressive and all that that entails, but it would also need to have a game component that was actually fun to play. Enter NimbleBit! They're following up on their great froggy platformer DizzyPad with Pocket Frogs, a freemium title that actually adds some fun to the equation and shows a lot of potential as well. %Gallery-102063%
Ngmoco's iPhone titles nominated for a few GDC Online awards
Nominations have been announced for the Game Developers Choice Online Awards (to be announced at the upcoming GDC Online conference in Austin), and iPhone developer Ngmoco has secured a few spots in among the rest of the big PC game developers. We Rule picked up nominations for Best Online Game Design, Best Online Audio, and Best New Online Game, and Godfinger was recognized in the Best Online Visual Arts category. iPhone developers Booyah and Digital Chocolate also got nominated, but both of those companies were chosen for their Facebook titles, not their iPhone creations. So congrats to Ngmoco -- the company has certainly made a splash on the App Store with its freemium model, but these nominations show that former EA exec Neil Young's company is competing on quality with much larger PC titles like League of Legends, Aion and Dungeon Fighter Online. The awards will be given out at GDC Online, taking place October 5-8 in Austin, Texas.
Ngmoco releases We Farm in the US, celebrates three million We Rulers with free mojo
Ngmoco's free to play strategy is spooling right along -- not only is its We Farm title now available on the US App Store (it arrived late last week after a short beta in Canada), but the company is also celebrating three million We Rule players by awarding everybody 20 free mojo. New players can get their mojo by downloading the app and logging in, or old players can just say hi, even if you've been away for a while (and all of your crops have withered up). Ngmoco also shared some fun stats about those three million kingdoms: players have played for 2.2 billion minutes collectively so far, and have built 70 times the number of buildings in New York City, with enough roads to go around the Earth three times over. Pretty wild. Still, as big as three million is, it's still not quite a breakaway hit -- Zynga's Street Racing Facebook game once claimed three million players, and it was recently shut down in favor of Zynga's other more popular title. I would definitely call We Rule a hit, and given that Ngmoco's plan has always been to push for a large free audience to try and claim a percentage of those folks for microtransactions, I think Neil Young's company is pulling off what it set out to do. But even with numbers this big, the App Store's not quite scratching the surface of what the most popular Facebook games are achieving.
Ngmoco's We Farm now available in Canada
Ngmoco has released the followup to its popular We Rule game on the Canadian App Store. We Farm is, as you can see above, very similar to We Rule, with the main difference being that the game is set on a farm rather than in a medieval fantasy world. You'll be able to raise animals, plant vegetables, build up a barnyard, and of course, trade and share with friends to earn experience. We Rule originally launched in Canada back in February (Ngmoco likes to use America's neighbors to the north as a testing ground before releasing their apps worldwide), and then it was released to everyone in March, so we can probably expect the same time frame for We Farm. Will it be as big a hit as We Rule was? It's hard to tell; the gameplay is certainly proven already, but one of the draws of We Rule was that it wasn't just a FarmVille clone, and obviously, this seems to be borrowing at least the setting from Zynga's popular title. Of course, another reason that We Rule was so popular was because it had the iPhone all to itself, and now FarmVille is up and running. We'll see, though. Ngmoco has certainly shown that it's constantly learning about how to find success on the App Store; I'm sure the company has taken lessons from We Rule and GodFinger, not to mention that their development method allows for plenty of quick updates and changes if things don't work out right away. It's been fascinating to watch Ngmoco's experiment, and We Farm (along with We City, another adaptation planned for release soon) is their next step.
Flurry: In-app purchases generating lots more revenue per user
Analytics firm Flurry has announced that in-app purchases are generating $14.66 per user per year in June of 2010, which is a few times larger than it has been in the past. Previously to 2010, the games tracked were generating only a few bucks per user per year, but in January the total jumped to around $9, and it's now in the double digits. Flurry says that money doesn't include ad revenue -- it's strictly profit from in-app purchases, either unlocking features or selling virtual goods. Whenever you talk about making money on free games, you have to talk about Ngmoco -- that company famously choose "freemium" as its business plan, and business appears to be good. Exec Simon Jeffery confirmed exactly that at a conference earlier this week -- while he can't discuss actual revenue, he says things are going well. And of course other companies who already know how to make money from free games (like Zynga, whose Farmville recently released on the iPhone) will see this as a big green light for joining Apple's platform. The revenue per user isn't the only important stat here -- Apple also has plenty of users to offer up. Disney's free Toy Story 3 app released recently, and has already picked up 1.7 million users, a good number of which probably bought the 99 cent in-app game offered up. Lots and lots of users spending a surprising amount of money inside their apps means lots and lots of revenue for both iPhone developers and Apple.
Apple spotlights apps ready for iOS 4.0
We already spotlighted a few big apps that have made the jump to iOS 4 (and I'm sure we'll have more coming up soon), but Apple has gone ahead and put a few of its favorites on a page in iTunes for you to browse through as well. There are some excellent games on the list (PopCap didn't waste any time, and Ngmoco has a few, along with both Firemint titles). Art app Brushes and TUAW favorite Dropbox are there too, along with a bevy of other popular titles. This list definitely isn't definitive (iBooks is obviously ready for iOS 4, though it's not on there), but if you want to see what the Retina Display is like or check out multitasking on an app like Pandora, you can do so. One interesting note on what's not on there: Apple hasn't yet updated its official Remote app, and Texas Hold 'Em hasn't been updated since it first came out back on September 1st, 2008. So even Apple isn't worrying about compatibility with all of its apps -- if you have a favorite app that's not updated often, you might be waiting a while to get full functionality with the new OS. [via DF]
TUAW's Daily App: Twitterrific (and others!)
Ok, so we're kind of cheating with this one; you probably already know about Twitterrific, if you don't actually have it installed on your iPhone. But we're using our daily app spotlight today to point out that the folks at Iconfactory have released version 3.0 of the popular Twitter client. Along with making the app universal (which means it now works on both iPhone and iPad), they've updated the interface and code for iOS 4. That means that it's not only purdier, but it's faster and works with in-app switching as well. Twitterrific is a free app, with a US$4.99 in-app purchase to remove the ads and manage more Twitter accounts. That's not enough? Alright, we'll throw in a few more upgrades. Smule's popular I Am T-Pain app has also upgraded for iOS 4, making it not only ready for the Retina Display but also adding the ability to share auto-tuned videos on a few popular social networks. That one's on sale for only 99 cents right now, too. Finally, ngmoco has released Eliminate: GunRange, an iOS 4-specific app that makes use of both the gyroscope and the premium Retina Display in the new iPhone. It's just 99 cents, too. While it's just a shooting gallery, it'll be a nice demonstration of the new hardware's capabilities if you're into the firearm range thing. So, there you go -- three brand new apps to fire up on your new iPhone 4.
Gyroscope gunning on the iPhone 4 with Eliminate: Gun Range (video)
We'd heard earlier that ngmoco's new game Eliminate: Gun Range was one of the first apps to really take advantage of the iPhone 4's gyroscope, and now that we've had a chance to play with it, we've got say there's a ton of potential here. E:GR is itself just a simple shooter, but the gyroscope adds what seems like nearly 1:1 motion control to the proceedings -- and since you're moving the display itself, it almost feels like augmented reality. It's hard to explain, since it's so unlike any mobile UI experience we've encountered before, but as soon as we tried it our brains pretty much exploded with possibilities -- we're thinking drastic improvements to actual augmented reality apps like Layar, all kinds of crazy flight simulator games, much more refined GPS apps, you name it. Video after the break.
Canabalt now universal, Godfinger now available
Here's two big updates to big games on the App Store lately -- first up, the much-loved Canabalt has now gone universal, so if you have an iPhone and an iPad and have already purchased the app, you can now play it in full resolution on your iPad. Of course, if you haven't bought the app yet, what are you waiting for? It's a classic one-button app, dripping with ambience, that's just $2.99 for both platforms. Ngmoco has released their second big freemium title worldwide -- Godfinger is now available on the App Store for both iPhone and iPad. I got to play an early build of the app at GDC, and it basically combines Ngmoco's We Rule social and persistent functionality with some Pocket God-style gameplay. In other words, it'll likely be popular. I'm a little surprised the app didn't come out sooner -- Ngmoco is supposedly planning to release twenty new titles this year. If that's still true, they better get a move on.
Crazy usage stats from Ngmoco
Ah, ngmoco. You wacky purveyors of "freemium" games. I love you so. If you have any doubts, check out my account. Oh yes. See? I'm there. Playing two different versions of We Rule on my phone, and a version on the iPad. Don't even get me started on the Godfinger! Good heavens. Turns out I'm not the only one on the verge of needing an intervention. According to Neil Young, CEO of ngmoco, they are up to thirty MILLION minutes of playing time every DAY. This is up from the 20 million stated for April of this year. This would explain why my personal minutes of use vary widely: with that many people on every day, you need ten more servers than you actually have. ALL the time. And now I know why my crops keep going bad. My back-of-the-envelope math tells me that is something like eleventy squillion people (give or take) on the Plus+ network at any point, raising puppies or ordering rehabilitated criminals or flinging followers around a planet.
Ngmoco buys Stumptown Game Machine, EA and Gameloft report revenue growth
A few news items from the business side of iPhone games this week, courtesy of the folks over at Mobile Entertainment. Ngmoco has purchased developer Stumptown Game Machine, creators of their popular Touch Pets Dogs release. Unfortunately, there's no information on how much the deal was worth, but it's a pretty obvious pickup for Ngmoco, which is working on building a stable of freemium titles and developers to produce them. My money's still on an Ngmoco/Booyah deal at some point, too -- Ngmoco has the money to pick up a few other smaller developers thanks to funding, and Booyah has the app and the dedicated users that Ngmoco wants. The two companies have already collaborated with a MyTown promotion on Ngmoco's We Rule, but I can see it going farther eventually. Elsewhere, EA Mobile reported a big growth in profits over the last quarter, up 12% year-over-year. The company attributes revenues to the iPhone and, soon, the iPad -- EA had two of the top three grossing titles as the iPad launched in Need for Speed and Scrabble, even though those sales will count towards next quarter's profits. While indie games have found their own place on the iPhone, many of the biggest titles are still produced by larger studios like EA. Gamevil also saw a nice jump in profits (up a whopping 99% from last year), and also credits its growth to the App Store, supported by Android and other mobile phone markets. Zenonia and its sequel were drivers there, along with sales overseas and the company's Baseball Superstars title. Lots and lots of sales coming out of the App Store, and I'm sure a new phone in June won't hurt things at all.
MyTown updates to version 3.1, adds collectibles and social features
MyTown is one of the hottest things going on the App Store right now in terms of social apps. As we mentioned in the interview with CEO Keith Lee a while back, they've actually got more users than Foursquare. The company has just released version 3.1 of the app, which introduces more collectible rewards earned by checking-in to certain local, real life locations (which you can then use to customize the properties you "own"), as well as more social features. You can now browse through the top trending properties, see your most frequent check-ins, and browse through where your friends are going out to and checking-in from. Additionally, Booyah tells us that the app is growing by over 100,000 players each week. They're suggesting that the average player of the game spends "more than an hour a day within the app." That's kind of incredible, but if it's true, that's one heck of an attachment rate. In fact, those are exactly the kind of usage stats that Ngmoco's Neil Young would drool over. Considering that MyTown just made an appearance in Ngmoco's We Rule splash screen, odds are that the two companies are at least sharing notes and, at most, possibly primed for a partnership. We'll have to wait and see what happens.
We Rule content update, server fixes incoming
Ngmoco CEO Neil Young posted another update last week about We Rule. That game is probably the biggest hit Ngmoco has come across yet with its freemium model, but unfortunately, the title has been plagued with service outages since the release. Young says that they simply underestimated the amount of people who want to play the game, and that they're working as quickly as possible to scale the server infrastructure on both the We Rule and Plus+ systems. The game is free-to-play, but in-game purchases still seem to be doing well for the company, as the app currently sits at number 40 on the Top Grossing list in the App Store, above a few $0.99 apps and even much more expensive fare. Young says the company is also pushing out content updates for the game -- there are new crops to grow and new buildings to buy and build on the farms. I'm playing We Rule (if a little reluctantly), and it seems like Ngmoco is playing around with the variations on crops and reward times -- some crops seem designed to bring people back to the app in as quickly as a few hours, while some promise a large reward daily (as if they're trying to at least drive people back in every day). I've experienced a few more bugs as well, like not seeing any of my friends' kingdoms on the main screen. Despite the bugs and the issues, it certainly seems like people are playing (and paying), and clearly Ngmoco is dedicated to support and producing content (Young says they're planning more updates for players who've reached level 25 already). Other freemium games like Godfinger haven't quite taken off as quickly, but as a flagship title for Ngmoco and a learning experience for their future releases, We Rule seems to be working well.
360iDev: Hands-on with Freeverse's Warpgate HD and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
We got to play two of Freeverse's current and future offerings this past week at 360iDev. Warpgate HD was the first -- it's out now on the App Store, and is due out for the iPhone and iPod touch. It was originally designed for the iPhone, but it ended up being a good fit for the larger device, so they readied it for a launch release. It's a fun title, although it doesn't quite take full advantage of the bigger hardware yet; as you play the space trading simulation, you get the feeling that there could probably be a little more to it on the iPad. It's still a fun title, though. We also got to play their upcoming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies iPhone game adaptation, and being that we've been buddies with Freeverse ever since they were developing games for the Mac, we talked a little bit with them about their heritage and how their recent merger with Ngmoco has affected their outlook. Read on for more.
Game Center sparks light reactions from competing iPhone social network devs
Yesterday, Apple announced Game Center, a social gaming service for iPhone. Pretty much everyone with an iPhone has reason to be delighted with this development, except for companies like OpenFeint and ngmoco, which already operate social network gaming services for iPhone in OpenFeint and Plus+, respectively. Are both companies freaking out? Not in public. In a statement, OpenFeint positioned the OpenFeint X service, which allows iPhone devs to sell virtual goods, as the next step for its business. "OpenFeint X is currently built on top of OpenFeint and in the future it will also sit on Apple's Game Center social graph, achievements and leaderboards so developers and gamers don't miss a step," said OpenFeint CEO Jason Citron. "Apple is a key partner and we are delighted that they have validated the first half of the OpenFeint vision and we can now fulfill the second half: OpenFeint X and Virtual Goods based Social Games." Citron also promised to "continue to invest in OpenFeint" for the benefit of the games using the platform now and in the process of adding it. ngmoco's Simon Jeffery released a statement indicating that Plus+ is also already moving in a similar direction. "ngmoco has anticipated this move from Apple for some time, and is happy to see a cleaner developer and consumer experience on the horizon," he said. "As we demonstrated at GDC 2010, Plus+ took a strategic shift in direction a few months ago toward being a service, and less about being a set of social gaming features." Plus+ is now focusing on "empowering monetisation and discoverability mechanisms for the development community," as evident in the service's support for player-created virtual item stores in We Rule. If both OpenFeint and ngmoco are to become virtual goods platforms, they stand to benefit from Game Center -- in essence, they can allow Apple to handle all the matchmaking and friend list stuff, while they focus on building marketplaces to interact with Game Center. At least until iPhone OS 5 introduces a virtual goods marketplace. [Via TUAW]
