TribePlay Event Karaoke HR in China 2

On April 29, 2011, in Company, HR, by Thijs
2

When I first entered China I had barely heard of the karaoke concept. To a Dutch person it sounds pretty strange to go to a place where you can hear each other sing. During my first times of karaoke I even felt embarrassed since I felt uncomfortable with the fact that other people are forced to listen to my terrible singing.

Then I found that this is really not what it is about and that it is actually kind of fun experience. Lucky that it headed this way because little did I know that when I started TribePlay in China that it would be our employees’ preferred activity for our 2 monthly company event.

Starting with a dinner at a fancy Chinese Restaurant

Starting with a dinner at a fancy Chinese Restaurant


Many people wonder why it is that Asian people like karaoke so much. Although I cannot be sure it could be because it gives people the chance to really express themselves and let go, something that that they cannot that easily do in daily Asian society life. Other people say it is about the music that Asian people are more open-minded to all kinds of music.
Besides that it is fun it will help your company as well. During and after these karaoke nights the team bond seems to have gotten stronger! The funny thing is that (so I hear) each time right after I leave the party really starts! People will still feel a bit uncomfortable with the boss around ;)

So if you are planning on starting a company in China, better start practicing your vocals and be sure to leave early ;)

Europeans learning Chinese drinking games

Europeans learning Chinese drinking games

Lily singing Madonna

Lily singing Madonna

Lily singing Madonna

The TribePlay Crew

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Mobile internet users and games

On April 1, 2011, in Flash, GameNext, Social Networks, by Gregor
0

Today Facebook announced that it now reaches 250 Million Mobile users, that is a increase of 150 Million until February 2010. Together with this, Facebook also announced a improved UI for Mobile Users as stated on TechCrunch.com. Mobile Phones have become an important device for online users. But Gaming-vise mobile access to Facebook is still limited, as the most popular device the Apple iPhone does not support Flash.
Most mobile gamers usually purchase apps through the different platforms and play the apps on their phone. The famous Angry Bird game as one of the first Mobile-to-Facebook games will be available on FB soon. RIO, the developers of Angry Bird from Finland, is still facing difficulties in the transition progress as Mobile Apps and Facebook Apps are two different areas.
Easier would it be if ones Smartphone supports Flash. In this way the gaming experience could be even more improved, as you can access a lot more casual games directly through Facebook and even play them for free. For Game Developers this will mean they will have to adjust, just as Facebook did, to two different markets using one channel. Mobile games will be the future of games in my opinion, as they are easy to access, fit most people time schedule of a short game for distraction and are quicker adjustable and less complex, so in result of that more affordable. What do you think will be the next Generation of Gaming? What role will Game Developers play? Please join our discussion on LinkedIn in the GameNext Group and share your thoughts.

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Social Network features in Battlenet for China

On March 29, 2011, in New Games, Social Networks, by Ethan
0

It’s a blockbuster for every single Blizzfan in China that Starcraft 2: Wing of Liberty is going to launch a Open Beta Test on March 29,2001 for free, namely today. Brood war is considered to be one of the most popular RTS games in China during the past decade. Due to the reason you probably all know, SC2 was launched in U.S. and regions of rest of the world a couple months ahead of China. Though a handful of feverish fans have tasted SC2 by landing severs of overseas, the terrible lag is really an unbearable torture. Late better than never, finally, we’ll unveil this phenomenon in front of our doorway.

Today I focus a bit on the brand new Battlenet. Battlenet was a system founded more than a decade ago when Blizz released Diablo. Since then Battlenet serves as a critical important player verses player feature in each blizzard game launched after. For years, Battlenet has just served as a platform of multiplayer games connection which merely shows the win and lost records plus a basic chat channel but not including a social network function. As year goes by, social network plays a more and more important role in game industry than ever. Let’s check out what kind of storm Blizz had brought into the new generation of Battlenet.

Starcraft
Always Connected
The new Battlenet and SC2 are designed to be seamlessly connected. That means even if you’re playing solo you will still view the latest news, receive game and content updates, and be able to see your friends’ status and chat with them. But this new interconnectivity between the game and the service goes even deeper than that. Now, each player will create a SC2 Battlenet character. This character serves as your single persistent identity across the service. Everything you do in the game will be saved to your character profile for you and your friends to see.

Always Competitive
One of the biggest improvements that the new Battlenet service brings to SC2 is smarter and more accurate matchmaking. While the legacy Battlenet service had good matchmaking, the standard experience for new players was usually a series of crushing defeats against seasoned Battlenet veterans until they either left or developed the skills necessary to thrive in Battlenet’s competitive environment. As a rookie, you won’t experience the embarrassment of being banned as you ever did in first generation of Battlenet.

Always communicated
Battlenet’s social networking and communication capabilities will be some of the service’s biggest new features. This new social backbone for the entire service will seamlessly integrate friends lists, matchmaking, messaging, and more. Text and voice chat are now seamlessly interwoven into and out of the game, enabling communication whether you are in Battlenet or in-game playing SC2. And as is the case with previous Blizz titles, you can form friendships with other characters on Battlenet while preserving your anonymity.

Ethan He is Game Tester at TribePlay and passionate gamer.

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A console gaming perspective on social gaming

On March 24, 2011, in GameNext, New Games, Social Networks, by Bart
2

I have been a console gamer since I received my first console, a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), from my dad. It was the start of a life of long days with little sleep, gallons of cola, wires, NTSC / PAL problems and an empty wallet.

About half a year ago I got the chance to make a living of my passion, by joining TribePlay as a lead developer. This job opened a new world of gaming to me, the world of social gaming. Different definitions about what social gaming is circulate on the internet. At this moment social games are the games that can be played on a social network. Although the industry is still in its baby shoes compared to the console gaming industry, the userbase of it already outgrows the console gamers. Everybody has a Facebook account. There are 100,000,000 players playing every month on Facebook alone. Farmville has more unique players (80 million) in a month then all the sales of biggest selling console game of all time, Wii Sports (75 million copies). Everyone, including me, wonders: “Where is this industry going to be in five years”?
Atari 2600

Neil Vidyarthi, posted an interesting perspective (3 Ways the Social Gaming boom Is Imitating The Atari Gaming Boom) that the social gaming boom is imitating the gaming boom of the Atari 2600, which is considered as the godfather of modern console gaming. He was able to draw a few parallels between that era and the current era.

• The most popular games are inspired by traditional games
• No centralized review publications
• Graphics are dramatically improving with each game

Graphics were and will always be important in games, and it is always a race by developers to see how much visual firepower they can generate with the current technologies. I think this race really has started now for the social games. In the newest generation of games fully animated cutscenes, real-time Flash gameplay and more can be found.
However, for console games, the graphics attract the players, but the gameplay keeps the players and sells the game. Every console generation has its little gems (like REZ (Dreamcast), Katamari Damacy (PS2, see video), Patapon (PSP)) games that offer the player a unique and creative gameplay experience, although they might lack the visual display. I think gameplay will become more important for social games to compete on, especially if more and more centralized review publications of these games will show up on the web.

I have not seen this social-game gem yet, but as a player, I look forward to play this social-game gem, and as a developer, I hope it will say “created by TribePlay” :-)
Bart, Lead Java developer

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Social games

On March 3, 2011, in Company, GameNext, Social Networks, by Gregor
1

Facebook games and other social games are truly on its way forward. Recently there where a couple of studies, emphasizing that the time of hardcore gamers are over and this decade will be the one of causal gamers. Indeed Social Games reach a wider audience, than “Classic” Games, according to the findings of Flurry, Social Games are mostly played in the age group of 18 to 49 years. Also among the so called casual gamers, women are the larger group of players, compared to men.

But what does this term Social games mean? And are Social Games really different from the old, usual… Games?

One of our competitor, the Norwegian company Playfish, describes Social Games as the following:

Social games are games designed to be played together with friends. [...] This is in some ways a return to the roots of games. You play with the same people you would play cards, board games or go bowling with in the real world. Sharing the game experience with friends makes it more compelling and fun.

Clearly, this is how most people receive the term Social Games. We use the technology given by Social Networks, to play games together. But how social are this games really? Is it Social when you have to invite another 200 so called friends to get into the next level? There is an interesting article on this topic on WhatGamesAre, about the selfishly social aspect in Facebook games. This topic seems to be making the round in the game development scene, as also on currently on-going Game Developers Conference, there was a discussion whether Social games are evil? I think evil is always a strong word, and to describe Zynga’s Farmeville as evil is not exactly getting the point, but still there are a lot of improvements that can be made to lay more emphasis on the Social in games.

Virtual Worlds already provide a more social aspect to gaming, because they let you meet people in games and together you can play certain games, chat or just walking around with the virtual space. As the technology is getting better, also this Virtual World get more advanced in their game play and design. Also Mobile integration can add to more Social aspects of gaming. Communication is a strong tool to connect players, beyond the classical multiplayer experience. We at TribePlay believe, that the next generation of games will have to take this aspect into account. Lets see what the future brings…

By the way, try this cool game, not really social, but fun anyway: Interlocked.

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Social Networks and Social Gaming in the Chinese Internet

On February 18, 2011, in Chengdu, Flash, New Games, Social Networks, by Gregor
1

It is not a secret that China is going to be the biggest market for (Social) Online Games. You can already see it in the Facebook Games statistics, where Chinese Gamers are becoming more and more active. Although Facebook is still blocked in Mainland China, its popularity constantly rises, but still it doesn’t reach the majority of 457 Million Chinese Netizen.

If you take a look on Mainland China, pages like Kaixin Wang, Renren and the Facebook like spin-off from QQ, Xiaoyou all massively increased their numbers of users during the past decade.

Kaixin Wang is traffic wise the second most popular page. According to Alexa it is rank #19 in whole mainland china. Kaixin got most of its success after Facebook, Myspace, Youtube etc. got block from the great firewall. What about the games on Kaixin? The hottest games on Kaixin001.com is Zhiwu Dazhan Jiangshi (Plants Vs. Zombies) with more than 1,6 Million players, followed by Fangkuai Zongdongyuan with more than 1,3 Million Players, a mini game where you have to match pairs of stones.

Ren Ren Wang is the most popular social network page. It is online for more than eleven years and is ranked #16 on Alexa in Mainland China. Relatively new is QQs Portal Pengyou.com. It is getting more and more users lately, currently they are ranked #43 traffic-wise in Mainland China. Most popular game here is Xiaoxiao Zhanzheng, made by 5Minutes with a setting, that plays during the Stone Age.

Generally you will find a lot more MMORP Games in the “Chinese Internet” compared to Western Games Portal, but also Farmville-like Games are becoming more famous. The best known one is HappFarm or Kaixin Nongchang also developed by 5Minutes, which can be played on QQ Space, as well as on Ren Ren Wang, where it was launched in 2008.

There are of course some hidden treasures in the Chinese internet, which have yet to be discovered. The Social Gaming Industry is booming, and also that currently a lot of Chinese companies lack innovation, as Joel Backaler wrote it, creative games will show up, and hopefully also reach the Western audience.

Authors choice of Online Game: Da Xiao Chuan Chuan Shao (大小串串烧), it is a good training for your local Chuanchuan Place (Chuan Chuan is a Chengdu specialty!), pick tree in a row by clicking with the mouse, the longer you click the more you going to skewer.

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