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’s web hit ‘Big Farm’ goes mobile
Hamburg,
With more than 50 million registered players ‘Big Farm’ is one of the most successful farm simulation games worldwide. Its creators Goodgame Studios, Germany’s most successful game app developers, are now releasing a mobile version of the game onto the market. ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ is optimized for mobile gaming behavior and therefore a completely new, independent game. The player inherits an old farm, and with a little economic skill and hard work, the farm can be turned back into a flourishing business once again.
Apple, Google and Amazon already love it
‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ is now available to players worldwide, on iOS, Android and Amazon devices. “The overwhelmingly positive feedback from test users gives us high hopes for the mobile version of ‘Big Farm’.” says Head of Studio, Simon Andrews, whose team created ‘Big Farm. Mobile Harvest’, “After all the effort we’ve put into it I’m convinced people will love the mobile ‘Big Farm’ as well.” At least Apple, Google and Amazon already do, as they’ve all decided to feature the game on their stores over the coming weeks.
Its successful sister browser game, ‘Big Farm’, provided a template for the mobile version. The game’s unique cartoon style and basic mechanics have been carried over. But a lot of functions from the browser version have been adapted or even completely changed to deliver the best mobile experience possible.
Not just another farm game
‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ is mostly about economic skill. Crops can be harvested and turned into animal food in the mill, animals and other products can be sold at the organic market, and fertilizer for the orchards can be gained from dung. Of course, to do all that takes some manpower, which on the one hand requires living space, and on the other requires pleasant working conditions for the staff; unhappy workers perform worse and thus production costs increase. Careful planning is necessary to manage everything you need to take into account.
To help the player pave the road to success, Tessa, Benny, and their friends are there to give the player hints and tips, as is the player community. ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’ players also have the chance to form cooperatives. This allows players to meet farmers all over the world, share strategic tips with them, and even send cooperative members loyalty points, which can be exchanged for farm items in the cooperative loyalty shop.
Lots of content and events right from the start
A harvest year is full of exciting challenges. Every week sees the start of a fun new event. It could be organizing the Fairy Tale Festival, taking a tour through the Big Farm estate, or even planning a gruesome Halloween party.
Cultivating crops, selling handmade goods to prove their business acumen, caring for animals, and making sure that workers are happy: players can expect all this as well as exciting events and quests when they play ‘Big Farm: Mobile Harvest’.
“Goodgame Empire” hits $800 Million in Lifetime Revenues
Hamburg,
Just in time for its sixth anniversary, ‘Goodgame Empire’ has given its developer, Hamburg-based Goodgame Studios, a truly special gift. The highly popular medieval strategy game hit $800 million in lifetime revenues, becoming Germany’s most successful game of all time and one of the top games worldwide.
More than 250 content updates within six years
“We are extremely proud and we thank all the players who have helped make it happen. The financial success has given us the freedom to expand ‘Goodgame Empire’ into one of the most complex strategy games ever,” says Nina Mueller, who runs the studio responsible for the game’s ongoing support and development. “We are especially proud of all the players who have been with us for many years. With over 250 content updates since the game launched in 2011, we have obviously kept the fun factor high.”
Nevertheless, there are still many ideas in the pipeline. “Yes, we have lots of interesting stuff in the backlog to look forward to. At the same time, we want to take requests from the community into account even more,” promises Mueller. “Our long-term goal is for Goodgame Empire to be running successfully ten years from now.”
Transition to HTML5
One requirement for reaching that goal is to successfully transition from the soon discontinued Flash technology to the new web standard, HTML5. “It’s a mammoth task, we are talking about one million lines of code that have to be transferred,” explains Benjamine Constantine, who is responsible for this strategic project for Goodgame Studios. “Nevertheless, we are aiming for a seamless transition for our players, meaning the complete feature set as well as regular content updates.” The project is well underway and the switch is planned for no later than mid 2018.
Expanding the Empire
2018 promises to be an exciting year for Goodgame Studios and the Empire brand anyway. Besides continuing development of Goodgame Empire itself, from early 2018, the Empire franchise will be expanded with the addition of the new game, ‘Empire: Millennium Wars’, where players can compete to dominate the mining industry on Mars. Unique support from Google will start this Thursday. Despite not being released yet, ‘Empire: Millennium Wars’ will be featured prominently in the Google Play Store for pre-registration.
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 Big Farm – With the new updates to a new level
Hamburg,
Goodgame Studios, one of the leading developers of gaming software in Germany, has embellished and expanded its successful simulation game Big Farm. With the new updates for the cooperative village and the expansion of fishing opportunities, Big Farm offers players a completely new area and gives them the opportunity for greater cooperation, thereby satisfying players’ wishes.
Big Farm has once again introduced a seasonal favorite, the popular Easter egg search event. This year, however, the event has expanded and Easter eggs can now be found hiding all over the Big Farm world.
Goodgame Big Farm is currently updating its Cooperative Village. The feature was initially introduced last year and the first playable elements will be released with the upcoming update. At the request of the players, it is now possible for them to work together even more closely. Thus they now have the chance to construct a village together and to donate their own plants and resources to their cooperative. The new update also adds further aspects. There will be opportunities to manufacture building materials in order to build and expand the cooperative village, as well a horse meadow, a village league where they can compete in tasks as a team against other cooperatives, and even a new character. The latter is the adventurer Yarnacle, the twin brother of the well-established character Captain Barnacle. He tells the players many stories about his love, Matilda MacMuffin, and about his exciting voyages to the mysterious volcano island. At the same time, Yarnacle will offer the player great opportunities when they help him with his tasks. But that’s not all; additional features will be added in the coming months, and players can look forward to a new permanent farm, which is planned for the end of summer.
Last year, the integration of fishing gave players a whole new environment and the chance to not only work hard harvesting their farms, but also to take to the water and fish. At the end of the month, this area will be enlarged and extend to the open sea. The player will see several areas they can send their boats to. In the background, they will also see the mysterious volcanic island that they’ve heard so much about in Yarnacle’s tales. Players have the chance to own their very own fleet of vessels, which they can send out fishing. These boats can be upgraded in order to increase performance, and by hiring a crew and having several people on the boat, players will have a better chance of catching newly introduced fish and seafood.
Big Farm is evolving steadily and is more than just a typical farm game. It offers players several different areas to explore and has a variety that satisfies all preferences. We can continue to look forward to new updates and expansions to Goodgame Big Farm in the future.
GOODGAME STUDIOS SPEEDS UP FOCUSING ON CORE BUSINESS AND REPOSITIONS ITSELF
Hamburg,
- Further development of successful titles such as “Goodgame Empire” and “Big Farm”
- Live game players can look forward to many new updates
- Adaption of Goodgame Studios’ capacities and structure to the volatile market environment
- Million-euro investments in HTML5 strategy
Goodgame Studios, a leading developer and provider of free-to-play games, speeds up focusing on its core business as started last summer. The company has decided to focus its efforts on its most successful games worldwide, this includes the titles “Goodgame Empire” and “Big Farm” in particular. In doing this, the company ensures serving its very large, loyal, and global Goodgame player community and to further develop its high-quality live games. Along with this strategic realignment, the management team will also be restructured. The two company founders Kai and Christian Wawrzinek will return to the top of the company. As CEO and CSO they will be in charge of the operative business.
Increasing competition in volatile market environment
The market for free-to-play games is under high and constantly increasing competitive pressure. It has also proven difficult for other market players across the industry in Germany. The industry is fighting for market shares with rapidly increasing marketing budgets, the success of new games is increasingly difficult to predict. At the same time, new developments could not achieve the desired successes yet.
Adaption of capacities and corporate structure
Facing these challenges, the management team and founders have initiated an adaption of the company’s capacities and structure. Along with this, Goodgame Studios will downsize its management team and cut about 200 jobs in all corporate departments. The employees were informed of this.
Among others, present CEO, Maximilian Schneider, will leave Goodgame Studios by the end of February by mutual agreement. He remains very closely affiliated with both the founders and the company.
“The decision we took last summer, to concentrate more on our core brands – “Goodgame Empire / Empire: Four Kingdoms” and “Big Farm” – and to place our customers at the heart of our activities, is still the right thing to do. Moreover, we will invest some million euros in our HTML5 strategy and see further chances for growth there. With shorter decision-making processes, our new, clear focus and investments in the HTML5 strategy, the foundation for the long term company success of Goodgame Studios is laid”, says Kai Wawrzinek, the company’s founder and CEO.
Social plan for affected employees
Together with the in-house codetermination council Goodgame Employee Committee (GEC) company management has developed a social plan. It includes a social package which goes beyond gaming industry standards. Employees can choose between a compensation model, which is varied according to duration of employment at the company, or a supplementary payment to their unemployment benefits. Redundancies follow all criteria of socially responsible selection.
