eGaming Review are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2013 Operator Innovation Awards, and Fresh Deck Poker and Idle Games are nominated in the categories of ’Innovative gaming start-up’ category and ‘Poker’. Congrats!
You may see the list of all of the nominees at ERG Magazine
Idle Games CEO Jeffrey Hyman discusses branding, innovation, and what makes Fresh Deck Poker stand out among today’s competitive social poker space in the latest issue of Social Casino Intelligence Magazine.
Read the full article at Social Casino Intelligence
Idle Games CEO Jeff Hyman explains the reasons why the industry should do more to protect consumers.
“The game’s graphics are impressive – possibly the best I’ve seen in any poker game.”
“This is social/mobile poker with five-star potential.”
Sean Ryan, Facebook’s Director of Games says Fresh Deck Poker is 1 of his 6 picks for new games that could become very popular in the near future.
Facebook’s Director of Games, Sean Ryan, touts Fresh Deck Poker as an up-and-coming title to watch.
“Upcoming games for the fourth quarter that look promising, Ryan said, include(s)…Fresh Deck Poker from Idle Games.”
Fresh Deck Poker mentioned in a short list of games that Facebook is excited about.
Idle Worship selected by a group of 400 leading game creators as 1 of 5 nominees for most innovative new game for the GDC’s award show.
“Idle Games, the indie studio that brought us the wonderful Idle Worship, is coming back with something completely different: Fresh Deck Poker, a cross-platform, social and mobile poker game that will create an “ultra-realistic, authentic” poker experience with drop-in, drop-out gameplay, fantastic art, multiple game types and, someday, real-money cash to be won.”
“Facebook games are ugly. We all know this. Dissatisfied with the low production values of Facebook games, (Idle Games) decided to take on a possibly suicidal mission: to inject a higher quality free product into the social gaming world, rather than just continuing the proud tradition of derivative communal farm-mafia solicitation.”
“Idle Worship developer Idle Games is gearing up to launch its next social title and get into the social gambling scene with Fresh Deck Poker.”
“The game is a social and mobile poker game that the company created a new studio to develop and is poised take advantage of real-money gambling’s impending legalization.”
The One Show, the premiere international advertising award show, sets the industry standard for creative advertising, design and entertainment. Each year, work is judged by an international jury of award-winning art directors, copywriters and creative directors.
Judges for this year included creative executives from NBC, CAA, Interscope, HBO & UTA to name a few.
“Most gamers cringe at the thought of playing games on Facebook, and who can blame them?
Idle Worship is a funny, pretty game … in the innovative Idle Worship you’ll compete or cooperate with other would-be deities in real-time. ”
“Idle Worship is an ambitious project with much higher production values than most other Facebook games out there, and its success or failure will tell us a lot about the future of the space.”
“It’s asking some pretty essential questions about the future of Facebook gaming, and as it turns out, human nature as well.”
“It’s true that the majority of social titles are largely asynchronous experiences, where players take turns making moves in games like Words With Friends or Draw Something, but synchronous or online multiplayer gameplay certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility for the social space. There are companies out there right now, like Idle Games, who are pushing for real-time gameplay in the social space.
“Fundamentally I don’t believe you can have a social game without at least offering up the ability to play in real-time with others,” Jeffrey Hyman, CCO of Idle Games said recently.”
“In Idle Worship, the entire point of interaction is to have fun.”
“It is fun. The animations are lively, and there really does feel like there’s an interaction with other players that other Facebook games just can’t match.”
“Idle Worship represents two years of work, four patents and the most ambitious gaming project on the Facebook platform yet.”
Idle Worship® is a god game, (technically it’s a polytheistic god game) where you try to build the biggest religion of friends, strangers, and the rather dim indigenous population called Mudlings.
Artistically & technically, we at Idle Games® are doing things that have never been attempted on Facebook and we’ve got the 5 patents to prove it.
Besides having art and animation that is second to none on Facebook, Idle Worship® allows you to play synchronously, meaning together with friends & strangers, all in real time.
Idle Worship® also features a completely “unsharded” universe which is just a fancy way of saying … no matter what server you are on, you can still play in real-time with everyone.
Idle Worship® – rule over millions as the god of facebook.
(Narcissists Welcome)
“Idle Worship is the most ambitious game ever to hit Facebook.”
“Everything is animated, everything is detailed — attention has been paid.”
“The systems of interaction are what define Idle Worship, and what Idle Games done has the potential to revolutionize social games.”
“Most social games hope to make money by badgering and frustrating the player to the point that they pay a tiny amount of money. Idle Worship hopes to engage and entertain the player to the point where they happily pay for new powers. For the future of the medium, I hope they’re right.”
“Idle Worship is one the most technologically advanced and conceptually ambitious Facebook games to date.”
“That’s the real crux of Idle Worship: not just playing with your friends, but meeting new friends.”
“It’s nigh impossible to describe everything that Idle Worship has to offer without writing some 2,000 words. It’s something that just has to be seen (and played) to be believed. There are so many different, new ideas pumped into Idle Worship, and in such a hilarious and pleasant presentation.”
“Idle Worship combines some of the most refreshing ideas ever seen in a Facebook game, all wrapped in a chuckle-worthy package that just screams, “Play me!”… Idle Worship is a social game so brimming with fresh concepts and laugh-out-loud humor that you simply must play it to believe it.”
“Idle Worship takes the god game genre and bring it to Facebook with hilarious results. And we really do mean hilarious.”
“It’s well polished, has a good deal of variety, is fall down funny at times, and really manages to evolve the notion of what multiplayer on Facebook means.”
“There’s been a lot of talk about the next generation of Facebook games, and Idle Worship is a title that mostly lives that ethos of evolution. With plenty of charm, polish, and humor – and more things to do than you can shake a stick at – Idle Worship seems to be the answer to our god-gaming prayers. Even with its fast energy-depleting ways, this is one altar you’re going to want to worship at.”
“Every now and then developers claim that their latest game marks a ‘new era’ for social games – in the case of Idle Games this isn’t just trash talk.”
“If the company pulls it off, it could wind up with a much more engaging mass market game than the Zynga titles that currently dominate the top ranks of Facebook. As such, Idle Games is one of the biggest bets in social gaming.”
“The Idle Worship user interface is well conceived.”
Games of the Month – Social and Online – Idle Worship
“What would you get if you took the god-style gameplay of titles like Black & White, the humor of Pocket God, and put it all on a social platform? That’s Idle Worship in a nutshell. Not only is the game fall down funny and adorably addictive, but it makes big strides in advancing the concept of multiplayer gaming on Facebook.”
Idle Games CEO Jeffrey Hyman on his competition with Zynga, social gaming and what’s ahead for the company.
Idle Games CEO Jeffrey Hyman on his new Facebook Game Idle Worship. Live as a god in a poly-thiestic world and vie for the most popular religion in the new Facebook game, Idle Worship.
“The casual gaming market has a new heavyweight contender with Idle Worship”
“Every once in a while a casual game catches out eye and demands for us to pay attention.”
“The things that sets Idle Worship apart from many other similar games is the polish and technical sophistication on display.”
Michael McCormick, a former game designer at Zynga and now director of design at Idle Games, speaks with Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” Bloomberg’s Jon Erlichman also speaks.
“Since launching at Disrupt, Idle Games has been testing and tweaking Idle Worship to get it into fighting shape, and we’ve learned today that the Disrupt alum will officially be launching its flagship game into the wild on March 14th, after giving a sneak-preview of the game next week at GDC. Idle Games CEO Jeff Hyman told us that early engagement for its beta has been better than expected, with players logging an average of 20 minutes per session, with nearly four sessions per day.
What sets Idle Worship apart from other social games is that it offers synchronous gameplay, in which players can interact in realtime, collaborating with millions of other players. The team has also done away with the “friends bar,” so that players can connect with people they actually want to play with, instead of spamming friends with requests.
In anticipation of the launch of Idle Worship, the startup is also announcing today that it has hired Michael McCormick as Director of Game Design. Idle Games was able to steal McCormick away from Zynga, where he was Lead Game Designer for CityVille, which currently ranks second among social games, with nearly 47 million monthly active users (according to AppData).”
“Idle Games, creators of upcoming Facebook game Idle Worship, have tapped Michael McCormick as Director of Game Design. McCormick joins Idle Games from Zynga, where he was Lead Game Designer on CityVille.
McCormick has more than 20 years of experience in game design, having worked with industry stalwarts like Electronic Arts, Backbone Entertainment, Playfirst and HumaNature Studios, where he was Design Director on MMOs based on DreamWorks’ movies.
“I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the industry’s biggest players on the frontiers of emerging genres and platforms,” McCormick said. “To say that Idle Games is doing new things in the social space is an understatement, and I couldn’t be more excited to join the team.”
Idle Worship, coming to Facebook on March 14, is a god game where players build the biggest religion of friends, strangers and the rather dim indigenous population called Mudlings. The game sets new standards for Facebook game design, with rich animations and synchronous multiplayer gameplay. Artistically and technically, Idle Games is doing things that have never been attempted on Facebook, and has five pending patents to prove it.”
“One of the main folks that Zynga has to thank for its most popular Facebook game has moved on to the island life. Michael McCormick, lead designer on CityVille and veteran of companies like EA and Playfirst, has joined Idle Games as director of game design. The developer’s first Facebook game, Idle Worship, is set to land on March 14, so we imagine McCormick will work on this game and future projects.
‘I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the industry’s biggest players on the frontiers of emerging genres and platforms,” McCormick said in a release. “To say that Idle Games is doing new things in the social space is an understatement, and I couldn’t be more excited to join the team.’”
“Michael McCormick, a 20-year game industry veteran and Zynga’s lead game designer on CityVille, is leaving the company to become director of game design at San Francisco-based start-up Idle Games, creators of upcoming Facebook game Idle Worship. The move comes on the heels of the departure of Zynga ad exec Manny Anekal to join Kiip, a mobile games rewards company, as chief operating officer.”
“…This new generation is legion, climbing out of (the) Facebook onto PCs and mobile devices independent of any one client. At its worst, this generation bears cookie cutter copies of the villes, Mafia Wars and even lightweight StarCraft. There is a glimmer of hope, however, as some developers are looking passed what social gamers are comfortable with and pushing the social platform forward…
Sure, Idle Games’ upcoming Idle Worship picks up on the already explored theme of player-as-god. The key difference, however, is that it’s not trying to be anything like the recent From Dust or the more dated Black & White. Also, they seem to be treading new ground in the social gaming space given the player-as-god concept has not been tried to any avail with social channels built in. Indeed, Idle Worship can be seen as innovative as they take a new look at what it means to be a social game…
Instead, Idle Worship takes special care to incorporate social in a way that makes sense for the gameplay, rather than conforming to what has already been done, or what is in the player’s comfort zone. Case in point is the vast amount of things you can do to affect a friend’s game. Each player gets an island where they are tasked to build and rule over a civilization of mudlings. With faith as the game’s currency, you must make sure they are properly worshiping you. This is done by benevolently showering them with gifts like fluffy, pink bunnies, or malevolently striking them down with lighting and tossing them into volcanoes. It is in this way you get more power and more opportunity rule over your realm the way you please.”
“Idle Games has spent the past two years developing its first Facebook game as part of the belief that social games will require the same high production standards more commonly found on today’s consoles.
Of course, higher quality means bigger budgets. To that end, the San Francisco company is announcing today that it has raised $10 million in a second round of capital.
The investment comes from Idle co-founder Rick Thompson, the former chairman and co-founder of Playdom, the social games company Disney acquired last year. Thompson previously led Idle’s initial round of $9 million.
In a recent interview with Thompson, he told me, ‘I think developers are having to retire old practices and will have to provide experiences that people do enjoy. What I am saying is that the bar is being raised and the established players are having a harder time reacting to the environment, and it’s hard to let go of that. The innovation is coming from emerging players.’”
“Rick Thompson, co-founder of Disney-owned social game studio Playdom, is not happy with the lot of social games. During an interview with All Things Digital (ATD), Thompson was asked if he finds many Facebook games enjoyable. ‘I think they are fairly scarce,’ Thompson told ATD. While he did shout out to games like Kixeye’s Backyard Monsters and Gardens of Time by his own former company, Thompson said that the established powers in social games are having a hard time raising the bar.
‘I tend to think that those will not be very interesting in another two years, and they aren’t social games,’ Thompson said to ATD, referring specifically to the myriad of Facebook games that insist on farming mechanics. ‘They are single-player games with the possibility of visiting your friend’s aquarium – that’s not social.’”
“Thompson: I am helping develop exciting opportunities in social and mobile.
My thesis is that the rules are different now than they were back in 2008 to 2009. Back in those days, the viral channels were wide open, and lots of folks were competing. The reality is that the best companies at exploiting the channels — those companies, which had their DNA in Web marketing — were the ones who had the winning strategy.
Then, of course, there was the over-exploitation of those channels, which led them [Facebook] to dial them back, so that they were inaccessible by all. It got rid of the noise and the signal. These communication channels were largely app to user, they weren’t user to user.
When the rules changed, they changed radically, but they also changed slowly. They slowly turned the valve, so some companies rather than reinvent themselves, tried to apply band-aids to 1,000 cuts that were coming.
Here we are now in 2011, with the viral channels greatly reduced. And, some are still executing against the playbook that was used in 2008 and 2009.”
“Gamezebo: So what is it about the Facebook and social games space that interests you guys so much?
Jeffrey Hyman: I very much believe that it’s a form of the entertainment industry. John Lasseter, the great creative director at Pixar, put it best when he said in any form of entertainment the only stable business plan that works is quality. And I firmly believe that the social/casual games industry is the entertainment industry and therefore should be driven by quality. And also your number one goal you should be driving towards should be to provide an entertaining, enriching, and interactive experience for the end user. And quality can be defined as not only art and animation, it should also be the level of engagement and the entertainment experience that you provide to the user, as well as the engineering of what we’re trying to do behind the scenes.
When Rick and I started talking about co-founding the company we really focused, and I said in the advertising world, and specifically the interactive advertising world, the only thing that a creative director or firm has its originality and the originality of the concept. And the worst insult someone can levy against you is to be “derivative.” What we’ve said is that if we’re going to do this we’re going to create everything from the ground up and we’re going to need the time to do this right.”
“Since co-founding social game hit maker Playdom, Rick Thompson has grown tired of the friend bar beneath Faecbook games. No, scratch that: He’s grown tired of the way traditional Facebook games operate … period. His contempt for this arguably tired form of Facebook game has helped spawn Idle Games and its first ever Facebook game, Idle Worship.
We first heard word of the potentially revolutionary social game way back in April, and Idle Games has launched the game into a closed beta test before presenting it to the audience of TechCrunch Disrupt, an event in San Francisco celebrating tech startups ran by TechCrunch. The overall gameplay of Idle Worship hasn’t changed since we first heard about it, but now we have fancy video that reveals more of what the game is all about.
Through Idle Games’s Idle Engine, Idle Worship does away with the friend found in almost all social games. Instead, your island of Mudlings (the people you oversee with either benevolence or tyranny) will be surrounded by not only your friends’ islands, but players’ islands based on how their Facebook profiles match up with your own.”
“Idle Worship is a casual yet massively multi-player synchronous game where every player is a god, vying for the adoration and worship of both real players and the rather dim indigenous population called “Mudlings.” Players build up their dominion and reveal their powers to their faithful while competing with other gods for followers. New followers are won by performing divine acts such as conversions, miracles, blessings, and curses.
“Make no mistake, social gaming is the entertainment industry and in the entertainment industry, quality is the only sustainable business plan. We lead with creativity and innovation, while others are led by analytics and the previous actions of their competitors,” said Jeff Hyman, Idle Worship’s CEO and Co-founder. “The industry is almost 4 years old and we’ve spent half that time crafting the most ambitious game ever to see a Facebook canvas – we are pioneering a new model,” said Hyman.”
“The game is powered by the “Idle Engine,” a social recommendation engine that connects players that they otherwise might not know. The game recommends new social connections for players by analyzing a player’s Facebook profile. It creates “social context,” like flicking Mudlings from one gamer’s world to another gamer’s world, to start conversations and create social connections.
It results in a much larger world than a game made by a company like Zynga, which relies on bringing friends in externally, Idle Games chief executive Jeffrey Hyman said. Part of the reason is because of the engine, but the other part is because the game connects gamers that are playing at the same time and creating a reason for them to talk to each other, Idle Games chief executive Jeffrey Hyman said.”
“If you were into PC gaming in the early 2000s, you know what Black & White is. Peter Molyneux’s 2001 classic published by EA gave every gamer the role they wanted: God. A new startup is aiming to bring that style of game into the social space. And more broadly, they aim to be the “Pixar of casual games”.
Idle Games is launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt. Their first title is Idle Worship, a Black & White-esque game for Facebook. You play the role of a god, controlling villagers on an island to do certain tasks for you. While that may sound ominous, you can choose to be either good or bad in your actions. And overall, the game is light-hearted and fun. We’ve been playing with a beta version of the game for a few weeks; it’s solid.
This first title by Idle Games, a startup founded by Rick Thompson (a co-founder of Playdom) and Jeffrey Hyman, aims to disrupt the casual gaming market by being an “anti-Zynga” of sorts. They believe social gaming is more about entertainment, interaction, and quality — not just button-mashing or mindless clicking. In many ways, they’re also going after the MMO market too. While the games will start on Facebook, you can imagine that they could quickly spread to other platforms as well.
Like other casual games and MMOs, the emphasis for the business will be on virtual goods. But again, the Idle Games team is determined to create goods of the utmost quality so that users feel compelled to buy them and happy when they do.”
