DECEMBER 23, 2010 • As both the Free-to-Play (F2P) and mobile game segments are both firmly established and generating revenue growth opportunities, the ongoing challenge has become how best to leverage content across various platforms. Today, a successful F2P franchise needs to live well on mobile platforms such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, as well as on social networks like Facebook that operate on PCs and Macs. One recent player in this category is California-based Sibblingz, which grew out of the YouWeb incubator with a cross-platform engine designed to quicken mobile distribution.
Initially Sibblingz had intended on making its business marketing its engine to other developers, but after its success with the game Happy Island, the decision was made to keep the technology closer to home for further in-house development. Since the Android platform is picking up substantial mobile market share worldwide, DFC was very interested to speak with Sibblingz founder Ben Savage to how his technology is easing his platform migration.
DFC: So give us the big picture overview of Sibblingz. What are your primary products? How long have you been around? How many employees do you have? How many clients do you have?
BS: Sibblingz was founded in May of 2008. We began by building a kids-focused virtual world. As the virtual world era was ending, and social gaming was really starting to take off, we took the platform we had developed and used it to start making Facebook games. We worked with Crowdstar to release and grow “Happy Island” on Facebook, which reached more than 3 Million Daily Active Users (DAU). After that, Sibblingz developed an advanced mobile technology that allowed us to put Happy Island on iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and other web portals like Bing. We rolled out these platforms one by one while improving our technology platform. Most recently we again collaborated with Crowdstar to create and release “It Girl” on Facebook. The iPhone/iPad/Android companion product is slated to launch soon.
DFC: How many games use your engine?
BS: Happy Island and It Girl are the two major released titles currently using the engine.
DFC: To what extent can multi-platform game developers secure cost efficiencies using your engine, and why?
BS: Our business model has changed. Our focus is no longer on creating a tool for developers, as much as in-house development with specially selected partners.
DFC: For those titles that use your engine, what percentage of users play the same game on multiple platforms? Are there any stats you can share about usage of a game on both a PC and a mobile platform?
BS: Happy Island did not launch on mobile until long after the game had passed it’s peak. It Girl mobile has not yet been launched. In the future, as we begin simultaneous development of the mobile and Facebook titles – which we have not done up until this point – we will have better data.
DFC: How does it feel going from incubator to profitability within two years?
BS: It’s been a wild ride. I have had a fun time learning all kinds of new technologies and getting to watch the Social Gaming and Virtual Goods markets grow and evolve. I’ve also had the chance to learn a lot about business, leadership, and management.
DFC: Is your revenue sufficient to fund growth and R&D?
BS: We are going to take a bit more funding to assist with future growth and R&D.
DFC: What did it take to develop your in-app micro-transactions feature for multiple platforms? Was it easier than we think, or a bear to accomplish?
BS: Apple didn’t make things easy. Android was significantly easier, and more flexible. The most difficult parts were navigating the maze of requirements from Facebook regarding the use of their credits, Apple’s requirements about in-app transactions, and abiding by prior agreements that we and Crowdstar had made regarding those payment systems. It took creativity and flexibility.
DFC: Given that both Sibblingz and CrowdStar came out of the same YouWeb incubator, how much input did you have on the creation of their Happy Island title?
BS: Happy Island was designed, drawn, and developed exclusively by Sibblingz for the first three months of it’s life. At that time we came to Crowdstar to discuss a rev-share-for-promotion scheme and they were more interested in buying it. From then on we began a co-development effort that lasted for about four months. In slightly less than a month of working together we launched the game, after incorporating many game design alterations from Crowdstar. After this point Crowdstar added developers and artists to the project and took it from there.
DFC: Please walk us through how revenue and user growth trends changed after Happy Island switched from a purchased game to free-to-play model.
BS: Number of downloads increased dramatically, of course. I think we got 10 times the downloads after going freemium.
DFC: Using that game as an example, what’s different about Happy Island on Facebook/PC, versus mobile platforms?
BS: The mobile version is a companion-product. It was not designed to be played solely from the mobile device, but more as a helper app that allows you to log in and collect money, pick up trash, etc. Since launch we have continued to flesh it out, adding more and more functionality. We are currently in the process of building a second application that will be a more complete experience.
DFC: Do mobile users play Happy Island for longer hours per month, or Facebook/PC users?
BS: I will venture a guess, no, mobile players play for much shorter time durations.
DFC: What development limitations are necessary to impose to facilitate your engine’s cross-platform features?
BS: Currently our engine requires OpenGL 2.0. This means games on the engine will only work on iPhone 3GS or better. It also excludes certain older Android devices. However, we are working on this limitation right now and may be able to overcome it.
Also, the engine currently does not support offline play. You must be connected to the web to play. We are also investigating ways to try and overcome this limitation.
DFC: Your engine utilizes an agnostic data server that is available to answer requests from the various platform clients of the same title. In practice, how does that operate? Does the server maintain separate data libraries for each client, or do the clients share much of the same library resources?
BS: In practice, the server is mostly identical, but is slightly different for mobile devices. Mobile phones use different art resources for example. We have an asset pipeline that can automatically create the different artwork.
Authentication/Logging in is done differently. The Facebook version is a canvas application, which the mobile version uses Facebook connect. The server has to handle this slight difference. The database is identical though. The items available in the store are instantly updated across all devices when these items are changed via an admin panel.
There are other slight differences to provide backward compatibility for mobile versions that cannot update as quickly as the Facebook version.
DFC: What social data and features does your engine support?
BS: Anything supported by Facebook Connect.
DFC: Have you added integration to AuroraFeint mobile social network yet? If not, when will this feature go live?
BS: The Happy Island Standalone product that I mentioned earlier will incorporate Open Feint.
DFC: Who are your competitors, and which firms do you really have to watch carefully in the rear-view mirror?
BS: There are no other firms that I feel are really competing with us.
DFC: What sets Sibblingz apart from firms such as Heyzap and J2Play?
BS: Neither Heyzap nor J2Play have native iPhone or Android support.
DFC: What new features are coming next for your engine?
BS: HTML 5 Support.
DFC: What other products are you working on?
BS: We are porting Happy Island LE to Japanese, where it will allow Hangame users to play from their iPhones as a companion product to the Hangame Social Networking title. We are also working with Microsoft to put Happy Island into the Bing search engine. We also have a few secret projects.
