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Frogster cuts senior management staff
Things at Frogster have been pretty busy lately with publishing projects like Runes of Magic, Mythos and TERA. Since Gameforge purchased a majority stake in the company early last month, it's made another offer to remaining Frogster shareholders in order to solidify its position. Things changed even more today. Three senior Frogster staffers have been relieved of their duties at the company, including two former Gameforge employees. CFO Ralf Kloppel, Frogster America CEO Lars Koschin (ex-Gameforge staff) and board member Bjorn Koschin have all been let go. There are no details forthcoming at the moment, but we'll keep you up-to-date on any developments. [via gameindustry.biz]
Frogster America gets a new CEO
No big company shake-ups here, folks. Although this is news nonetheless, as Frogster America -- publisher of Runes of Magic -- has selected Lars Koschin as its new CEO, replacing founding CEO Sean Kauppinen. The reason this isn't a big deal for the company is because Kauppinen's role was transitional in nature, and the appointment of a more permanent person was always the assumption.For those of you wondering who this Lars guy is, other than someone with an awesome name, let us point you to a little company called GameForge. Here is where Lars was previously in charge of such titles such as Ikariam and other yet-to-be-translated browser based online games were, um, forged. Sorry, we couldn't help ourselves.The move is an interesting one considering that Koschin likely had a firm hand in the creation and direction of several of these free-to-play titles. Runes of Magic continues to become curiouser and curiouser as time marches forwards.
Gamasutra interviews Ikariam's Gameforge
Coinciding with Gameforge's recent announcement that it will open a new studio in San Francisco as part of its push into the North American market, Gamasutra has interviewed Gameforge Productions Inc. President Lars Koschin. Some of the topics covered include the continuing perception that web-based MMOs are simple, mini-game affairs; and how Gameforge's games differ in essence from more traditional, accepted brands like World of Warcraft.It's not terribly lengthy, but there is some meat here to chew over. Certainly one of the barriers a web-based game initially overcomes is the sometimes-inaccessible system requirements a more 3D-heavy MMO might require of its players. Add to that the platform-agnostic nature of these games, and the potential audience can be much greater than many PC-only titles.
