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MMObility: Innogames' Fabio Lo Zito details Tribal Wars 2
Tribal Wars 2 is the successor to Innogames' oldest title, Tribal Wars. The original is (to put it gently) ugly as sin, but that has never stopped it from being one of the most popular titles the German publisher produced. As a matter of fact, 2013 was the biggest year for the original game... after a decade in existence! You might have heard of some of the other titles in the Innogames lineup or watched an advertisement for two of its largest games, Grepolis and Forge of Empires. So how does Tribal Wars 2 compare to these other games? First of all, it offers much of the same intense gameplay as the publisher's other, larger titles. Grepolis is sort of the spiritual successor to Tribal Wars and features water-based gameplay that makes ships and deities an integral part of play. Grepolis also offers a more wide-ranging playerbase, thanks to television advertising that helped to pull in more casual players. Tribal Wars is much more hardcore, and Tribal Wars 2 will be no different. It will look a heck of a lot prettier than its earlier sibling, though! I sat down with Fabio Lo Zito of Innogames to talk about the changes.
Official Grepolis client coming soon to iOS
I met with the German company Innogames a few years ago at GDC, where the company told me it was eventually planning to bring out some of its browser-based strategy titles to iOS. I haven't heard much from Innogames since, until today: The company has announced that its next mobile title will be a client for Grepolis, one of the most popular games in its lineup. Grepolis is enormously popular overseas, especially among European gamers (the title claims over 20 million registered users), and in addition to Innogames' other mobile-enabled title, Tribal Wars, it should significantly grow the company's audience on iOS. There's already an app from Innogames called the Grepolis Toolbox available on the App Store, but it's really just a companion app for the game, and this upcoming app will be a full client, allowing users to log in and play directly on the iPhone and the iPad. Innogames hasn't announced a release date for the app just yet, but it's scheduled to show the client off during E3, so we can probably expect it to be available on the App Store soon after that.
MMObility: Innogames' Fabio Lo Zito on cash shops, quality, and PvP
One of the greatest parts of my job is having the ability to take a peek into the minds of some of the industry's most creative developers. If an interview goes really well, I come away from it with not only a deeper understanding of mechanics or policies but some knowledge about the creative process. For me, MMOs represent a perfect storm of writing, music, art, and math; they click my creativity into hyperdrive. I couldn't write about MMOs if I didn't love them so much. I'm not sure why I didn't notice German-based developer Innogames until relatively recently, but its lineup is more varied, challenging, and immersive than many of its rivals. It makes titles that offer a variety not only of gameplay but of accessibility. All of its titles can be played in a browser, and now a handful are available even on mobile. I sat down with Innogames' Fabio Lo Zito during a livestream earlier this week to discuss what makes it all work.
MMObility: The Chromebook 'All In One' project - Ten MMORTS titles
Last week I introduced you to my newest device, the Samsung Chromebook. Yes, that's the official way to refer to the newest $249.00 Chromebook, according to my contact at Google. I have pined after one for a while, but the price point finally became too tempting and I nabbed one at my local Best Buy. Why? Why didn't I just spit out a few more bucks and get a "real" laptop or netbook, one that runs Windows 7 or 8? Well, it runs silently and almost without heat. It's essentially a keyboard attached to an 11-inch tablet that runs Flash. The Chromium OS is very secure, and it auto-updates every six weeks. But you're here to read about games. This week I am going to talk about the MMORTS genre and why it works so well on the Chromebook. I'll list 10 of my favorites -- a drop in the bucket for all the MMORTS games out there, but these are easily some of the best and run well on the Chromebook. Stay tuned for future columns, where we'll look at even more Chromebook-friendly MMOs and pseudo-MMOs as well.
InnoGames claims over 100 million players served
You may or may not have dipped into the welcome waters of German browser-based MMOs lately, but if you did, you'd have plenty of company. F2P developer InnoGames announced that it's about ready to roll over to its 100 millionth player any day now. InnoGames' roster includes Forge of Empires, which accounts for five million of those players alone. The company hopes to add three more titles next year and grow its staff from 200 to 280 people. [Source: InnoGames press release]
