2 Million players after three weeks: Goodgame’s most successful game launch ever
Hamburg,
Goodgame Studios proudly announces that the recent release of the mobile version of browser hit, ‘Big Farm’, has been the best game launch the company has ever experienced. Even though it has only been available globally for three weeks, 2 million players have already installed ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ on their phone. And even more importantly, people are really enjoying the gaming experience. “In terms of both play and pay activity, these are the highest numbers we’ve ever seen from a game in our entire history.” says Kai Wawrzinek, founder and CEO of Goodgame Studios.
Instantly loved by players worldwide
After only three weeks, millions of players from 234 countries joined the game to build and manage their own farm and team up in cooperatives to help each other as best as they can. Since ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ has lots of cooperative features, thus a big and vibrant community is a key to success. “We are very happy to see that so many players have fallen in love with the game already. The team will regularly add more content to the game to provide our farmers with exciting events and tasks,” said Head of Studio Simon Andrews, whose team is responsible for ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’.
Eagerly awaited success after a hard time
The successful launch of ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ is a very important milestone for Goodgame, following many failed launches in the recent years. The new company strategy established at the beginning of the year is already coming to fruition. “After having managed to stabilize our live game revenues, ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ now offers a high chance of solid growth again.” says Kai Wawrzinek, CEO and founder of the company. “I’m especially delighted for our employees, who have all worked hard to achieve this milestone. They deserve the success and I want to thank everybody who stayed with us to contribute to this great turnaround.”
Next big launch early 2018
There’s not much time to celebrate. The next new title, ‘Empire: Millennium Wars’, is expected to go live as soon as early 2018, and in terms of complex features, it will be even larger than ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’. “There’s still a lot to do, but the team is on track to meet the timeline.” says Head of Studio, Simon Andrews. “With the tailwind from this year’s turnaround, I see plenty of chance for us to bring another successful game onto the market.”
Goodgame Studios back on track, two new games early 2018
Hamburg,
Goodgame Studios, a leading developer and publisher of gaming software, announced today a return to consistent profitability following a recent strategic restructuring of its operations. In addition, the Company announced that two new mobile titles are in development, expected to launch in early 2018.
Company Expects Long-Term Financial Stability After Difficult but Necessary Reorganization
Since the beginning of the year, founders of Goodgame, Kai and Christian Wawrzinek returned to their executive positions of CEO and CSO respectively, and reflect on the recent changes at the studio. “The restructuring was definitely one of the toughest periods of the company’s history,” said Christian Wawrzinek, CSO of Goodgame Studios. “Nearly everybody in the company had to say goodbye to talented colleagues who will be missed and to whom we thank for their dedication and service. As painful as it’s been to undergo this process, there is no doubt that we were doing what we believe necessary to ensure long-term growth and financial stability.”
Commenting further, Christian Wawrzinek reflects on how gratifying it is to see Goodgame Studios return to constant profitability. “Before the reorganization, we focused our efforts heavily on creating new games in new genres while neglecting the needs of our loyal audience who are playing our current titles. Following the strategic realignment, two of our blockbusters ‘Goodgame Empire’ and ‘Big Farm’ have our full attention and have also been switched to a more user-centered development approach since the beginning of the year.”
Positive operating result expected for 2017, potential increase in 2018
“Goodgame Empire is six years old now, and we’re proud that the title is still the most successful game franchise ever produced in Germany,” emphasizes Kai Wawrzinek CEO of Goodgame Studios. Commenting further, Kai notes that the four-year-old Big Farm brand still delights millions of players worldwide every month. “We have the responsibility to continue the success of these blockbusters, for our players, for our employees and for the whole company. Based on solid revenue, Goodgame wants to build new, sustainable growth.”
Goodgame Studios is expecting a positive operating result for the 2017 financial year, and due to upcoming releases the upward trend might even accelerate in 2018.
Two new games for mobile devices are planned to be released in the first quarter of 2018, and gamers who are fans of web based titles can also expect some exciting news from Goodgame Studios to be announced in due course.
Goodgame Studios establishes “Brain Trust”
Hamburg,
Due to the company’s rapid growth and transition into Germany’s leading game developer in recent years, Goodgame Studios’ founders, Kai and Christian Wawrzinek, have increasingly had to deal with organizational matters, resulting in less availability to directly influence the core business of game production. In the future, the founders will focus solely on the development of strategy games for browsers and mobile devices.
Together with Dominik Willers, former CIO, they will form the “Goodgame Brain Trust”. This think tank joins the studios in developing new, innovative game concepts and counsels the studios concerning implementation. Thus, Goodgame Studio’s founders return to their original role as creative advisors. Their know-how and passion for gaming enabled the brothers to celebrate success with gaming hits like Goodgame Empire, Goodgame Big Farm, and Empire: Four Kingdoms, the latter having remained the world’s most successful app from a German developer since 2013.
With this decision, Goodgame Studios follows a model which is well-established in the creative industry. For example, Pixar Animation Studios (Toy Story, Finding Nemo) established a small group of creative heads, who focus solely on developing new movies.
“My brother, Dominik Willers and I are very happy to again work with the products themselves in our new roles. We’ll use all our energy to add to the game development process, so we can follow up the success of our previous hits as fast as possible. We are convinced that we can push Goodgame Studios at the best possible rate in this solely product-focused role,” says Christian Wawrzinek, founder of Goodgame Studios.
A newly established management team will handle the daily operational tasks. All members of the new management board have known the company very well for a long time. Maximilian Schneider will be the new Chief Executive Officer. He has been a member of the management team and Chief Strategy Officer for Goodgame Studios since August 2014. Before joining Goodgame Studios, he was a banking and finance lawyer in a leading international law firm in Frankfurt am Main. A four-man team will be joining Maximilian Schneider on the management board: Fabian Ritter, founder, as CFO, Sebastian Frank as COO, Thomas Zimmermann as CMO and David Lee Ellis as CPO.
“We are convinced that Max Schneider is the right person to handle all operative tasks at Goodgame Studios in the future. During the current phase, it has been extremely important to us to give the responsibility to a manager who knows our company inside out and can begin tackling our current challenges without needing any induction,” says Kai Wawrzinek, founder of Goodgame Studios.
The changes take immediate effect and come promptly after the recently announced reorganization of the company in order to accelerate the speed at which the company can return to focusing on its core competencies.
Goodgame Studios focuses on core competencies
Hamburg,
Goodgame Studios, a leading developer and provider of free-to-play games will focus more on its very profitable core business, strategy games on mobile and browser based platforms. The restructuring effort will lead to discontinuing the production of casual and PC client games. Additionally all central functions which are not part of the gaming development departments will be reorganized. In a joint decision with the employee representatives, the plan entails to reduce the workforce by the end of September 2016.
Strategy games and performance marketing
The main objective of the restructuring is to reinstall a clear focus on the core competencies of Goodgame Studios, in particular through the development of strategy games for browsers and mobile devices. Moreover, the company will further leverage its strong expertise in performance marketing. With the new structure, Goodgame Studios is in a good position to swiftly achieve further successful results. Goodgame Studios is ready to launch new promising games at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017.
Since Goodgame Studios was founded in 2009, it became Germany’s largest computer games developer with regards to the number of employees and revenues. In the past years, the organization invested heavily in new genres and platforms. However, so far none of the new releases has been as successful as earlier top games.
Restructuring with highest priority on social considerations
In a joint effort with the employee representatives of the Goodgame Employee Committee, the company’s management has developed a comprehensive social compensation plan. The scope of measures includes a voluntary redundancy program which exceeds normal market levels, non-renewal of temporary contracts and, if necessary, compulsory redundancies for operational reasons in combination with high severance packages. All employees affected by a termination for operational reasons will also be offered to change to an employment transitional company, which will receive additional funds from Goodgame Studios. In addition, Goodgame Studios will create a fund to reimburse the relocation costs for expat employees. The number of employees to be dismissed for operational reasons will depend on the acceptance rate of the voluntary redundancy scheme. The downsizing will be by a lower three-digit number.
„The success of Goodgame Studios in the recent past was only possible with our outstanding employees who deserve our sincerest gratitude. All the more we deeply regret to be forced to implement these profound changes. They are unavoidable to secure the successful future of Goodgame Studios and sustained job security of the remaining employees. By focusing our strengths on our profitable core business, we will be even better positioned in the future. Now, more than ever, we are committed to our overall goal to develop games which will fascinate our users all over the world for years to come”, says Christian Wawrzinek, founder and COO of Goodgame Studios.
„We had intensive talks about the restructuring plans with the management team, in order to enforce and safeguard the interests of our co-workers. Our overarching goal for the social plan was to include an optimal balance between high levels of freedom in choosing individual solutions and to ensure good financial security for all affected. After constructive, but tough negotiations, the agreed package now balances these aspects and does justice to our diverse workforce’s needs. We hope this will help pave the way to new opportunities beyond Goodgame Studios for all affected colleagues”, says Alexander Brüne, spokesperson of the Goodgame Studios Employee Committee (GEC).
Goodgame Studios presents upcoming portfolio of titles at E3
Hamburg,
Hamburg-based developer uncovers details on US market, Legends of Honor and future games
Goodgame Studios, Germany’s leading developer of gaming software will present multiple new titles for iOS and Android at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) from 14. to 16. of June in Los Angeles – one of them is already being tested on select markets: Legends of Honor will be released on tablets and smartphones this summer. The game attracted over a million players in browser since its launch earlier this year. Another, yet unnanounced mobile-RPG title will be shown exclusively at the show.
With the launch of Legends of Honor as an iOS and Android app, Goodgame Studios plans to conquer smartphones and tablets during the summer months. Development using the Unity engine is currently in its final stages. Unity will allow Legends of Honor to impress players with high-quality 3D graphics, especially when run on a high-performance device, and will guarantee a first-class gaming experience.
Under the umbrella of Goodgame Studios, the Strategy Games Studio, responsible for developing Legends of Honor, hopes to channel the success of the browser version into the mobile version. The team last entered app stores with the strategy hit Empire: Four Kingdoms, the most successful app from a German developer worldwide.
The game focuses on collecting honor and joining the conflict between three factions. Players must face their opponents on a giant interactive world map, which they can explore in real-time using their heroes. The fighting spirit is already well established, with more than 70 million battles fought on the world map since the browser version of the game was launched.
