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Z2Live picks up former AAA execs, rebrands as Z2
Z2Live is the company behind some really big freemium hits on the iOS App Store, including Battle Nations and Trade Nations. The company has today announced that it's rebranding itself as Z2, dropping the "Live" and premiering a new brand identity on its new website. Beyond the rebranding, Z2 is also announcing a number of additions to its executive team, including some developers formerly from some very large gaming companies. Glen Pryer is joining the company as VP of Operations, and he's a former director of global planning at Blizzard Entertainment and former VP of 38 Studios. Adam Flanders is a new senior VP of sales and marketing, who previously worked with both Glu Mobile and THQ. And Shanis Windland is the new senior director of finance, and formerly worked with Big Fish Games. Those are definitely some notable pickups, and they show that Z2 is doing fairly well at pulling in talent with the few titles it has running so far. The company was originally put together to create a multiplayer community on Apple's iOS platform (similar to OpenFeint and a few other networks that were floating around back then), but since the inception of Trade Nations, it's put together a solid reputation as a studio building popular freemium MMO-style titles. It'll be interesting to see what Z2 has coming up next, given this new spin on the brand, and all of the growth it's experienced lately.
Trade Nations dev picks up new funding, former Xbox exec Ed Fries
Here's another iPhone dev hitting the jackpot. Developer Z2Live is the company behind the hit iPhone social game Trade Nations, and it's picked up what's probably a nice chunk of change in a round of funding from VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Unfortunately, the actual total of funding hasn't been disclosed, but given the popularity of the game and its in-app purchase business model, there's likely six digits or more of money changing hands here. It's enough to attract some talent, too -- the company has also picked up Ed Fries to join the board of directors. Fries was originally a Microsoft executive who co-founded the Xbox Project and helped put together Microsoft Games Studios. More recently, he's been working on 3D printing at FigurePrints, a company that makes real-life printouts of in-game avatars. This position sounds like it will overlap with that one, but even so, Z2Live will most likely benefit from the experience.
Space Miner Blast and Trade Nations lead the freemium charge
Freemium isn't just for Ngmoco anymore -- the model of "free with in-app purchase" has been spreading across the App Store for a while, and because "free" opens up a developers' audience to so many more people. Here are two more titles that have taken the freemium route. First up, Space Miner was chosen as our Daily App a while back -- it's a very cute, well-written arcade/sim title that has you flying around collecting ore from asteroids to build up your uncle's space mining business. Now, Space Miner Blast brings the title to the freemium realm -- it's a free download with ads, and you can pay for premium ships to both boost your abilities and get rid of the ads. There's also Game Center integration and full Retina Display graphics, so even if you haven't tried the Space Miner series before, this one's worth a try. Trade Nations is also making some waves lately -- it's a city-building game in the vein of Farmville and We Rule, with a little more mature art style than either of those. You can create jobs for your own villagers, and even participate in an online marketplace, where prices for goods rise and fall according to supply and demand. Seems like fun -- the whole thing is driven by Mojo-style in-app purchases that just shorten the amount of time it takes for a project to complete. Freemium as a concept is really coming into its own on the App Store, and the more quality titles we see that use this model, the more customers and audiences grow accustomed to how it all works.
