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Archive for January, 2009

Social Games Industry Overview (08/09)

Posted by Alan O'Dea | Jan 26, 2009 | Filed under News, Personal, Research, Social Games

The social game industry is quickly becoming a significant sector of the games industry and is experiencing explosive growth: $75M was invested in the top three social game companies in 2008 and the top twenty games across MySpace and Facebook recorded over 100M Daily Active Users in January 2009 alone. This article is a quick overview of the sector and we hope serves as a fact sheet for those new to it and interested in what all of the fuss is about. 

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Startup Diary – Bootstrapping a Games Company

Posted by Tadhg | Jan 23, 2009 | Filed under Startup Diary

You have to be prepared to kill your babies. One of the key lessons of creating a startup company, regardless of its size or purpose, is that you have to be able to change and refocus all the time. Startups have the advantage of being flexible, sure, but they also have the reality of having very little money behind them. This is a short article about the tug of war between passion and perspective and how it shapes how we as a company operate.

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What is a ‘Social Game’?

Posted by Tadhg | Jan 19, 2009 | Filed under Social Games

This is the first in a series of blog articles exploring social games and social gameplay, the ideas behind which form the core of the Simple Lifeforms development strategy and ideals.

In this article, I start at the start, talking about what constitutes a social game and making some reference to existing games which, although they may have a presence on social networks, aren’t really what we would consider social games as such. I introduce the idea that social games are defined by what you do in them rather than where they are distributed, and explain a little of where we think they are going to go.

Enjoy reading it, and please leave feedback.

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Startup Diary – Tadhg’s Story

Posted by Tadhg | Jan 14, 2009 | Filed under Personal, Simple Lifeforms, Startup Diary

And lo! It begins!

A few weeks ago, I resigned my position as Senior Game Development Manager working for British Sky Broadcasting. It was a good position, working with good people, as a producer over a whole line of interactive TV games, working with great clients such as Denki. I was leaving behind career prospects, a great salary and a benefits package, to join up with a tiny new company named Simple Lifeforms. Simple Lifeforms was formed under the most interesting financial circumstances that have been seen for a generation, with banks collapsing, vast Ponzi schemes being unearthed and the entire world terrified by the prospect of President Palin. It was not what any sane person would regard as a normal time for starting up a company.

There never is a normal time. Alan O’Dea (my oldest friend, harshest critic, soon-to-be best man and co-partner) and I spent many years working on, dreaming of, and occasionally trying to start a company. Yet there was always something in the way:  A realisation that the target market was too small, a lack of skills, a lack of confidence, lack of financing, etc. The time was never right. We knew that we wanted to form a company, control our own destiny and make great games. It was a question of how and when.

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