Zigging While Others Zag Andrew Sheppard, Chief Product Officer
March 1, 2011
Who is this guy (Andrew Sheppard)?
Who is Kabam?
• Leading developer of Massively Multiplayer Social Games
• 7.5mm monthly active users across 3 games
• Offices in San Francisco, Redwood City and Beijing
• 275 employees
How is Kabam different from Zynga?
Audience Soccer Moms Core Gamers
Game Style Casual Games Core Games
Interaction Model Asynchronous Synchronous
Design Focus Chance-Based Skill-Based
Social Model Resource Transfers/Unlocks Collaboration
Session Length 15-30 minutes 15 minutes to 3 hours
Monetization Quick, Shallow Slow, Deep
• Launched in Dec. 2009
• First massively multiplayer social game on Facebook
• Received the IGN Reader’s Choice Award for Facebook Games in 2010
• The largest strategy game on Facebook
• Currently running at 430k DAUs
"It's well worth checking out if you've been waiting for a Facebook game that involves more than farming." IGN, April 16, 2010
"I have played role playing and strategy games all my life and Kingdoms of Camelot for Facebook is as good if not better than many of the consoles games on the market.“ Gamezebo, September 12, 2010
How did a small web startup build a game that would later win an IGN Readers’ Choice Award?
Let’s start from the beginning.
The Facebook Ecosystem in 2009
• The advertising market was reeling from the economic crisis
• Facebook traffic expands to 350mm MAUs
• Zynga’s footprint rumored to be 100mm MAUs
• Facebook revenues clock in at $700mm
• Zynga revenues at $200mm
Kabam (Watercooler) in 2009
• $8.5mm raised from Betfair and Canaan Partners
• Leading developer of Fan and Entertainment Community Applications
• 26mm MAUs across 800+ applications on 6 social networks
• Fundraise used to pivot into fantasy sports and games
• 100% advertising supported revenue model
How We Selected Kingdoms of Camelot
Step 1 Believe in the Power of Facebook
Step 2 Identify the Target Audience
Step 3 Deconstruct the Competitive Set
Step 4 Anticipate the Competition
Step 5 Execute
Step 1 Believe in the Power of Facebook
Development Begins
• Social functionality redefining web services
• MySpace taught us that a social network could power content distribution
• Believed Facebook was fast approaching a tipping point in adoption
Step 2 Identify the Target Audience
• 83mm Facebook users in the U.S.
• 43% of U.S. Facebook users were Male
• 90% of U.S. Male Facebook users were
old enough to have a credit card
• Farmville was the largest application
with 62mm MAUs
• Mafia Wars was the 3rd largest
application with 26mm MAUs
Step 3 Deconstruct the Competitive Set
• Product launches driven by ‘massive’
marketing investments
• Cross promotion bars used to amplify
the optical footprint of game developers
• User interfaces designed to drive virality
• Game designs tailored for quick, short
gameplay sessions
• Monetization focused predominantly on
aesthetic virtual goods
Step 4 Anticipate the Competition
Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2009
Mar Apr May
CASUAL
CORE
Development Begins on Kingdoms of Camelot
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Step 4 Anticipate the Competition
Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2009
Mar Apr May
CASUAL
CORE
Happy Aquarium Happy
Pets Happy Island
Step 5 Execute
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100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
800,000
900,000
1,000,000
Blazing a new trail isn’t easy.
Biggest Challenges
• Significant uncertainty around core games on Facebook
• Doubts about mass market appeal
• Concern over team size and experience
• Worry about the next round of platform changes
• Fear of ever-climbing customer acquisition costs
We did well, but not without some hard learning along the way.
Team Formation
• A small, tight-knit cross functional team was absolutely the right way to go
• Project benefitted greatly from having core gamers on staff
• Team would have slept better with more QA and Art
Team Structure
• Executive Producer, Art Lead and Development Director are peers
• Each function is responsible for driving decisions within their area
• Producers ultimately have the tie-breaking vote
• EPs/GMs are expected to be excellent at: – Strategy Planning – Product Management – Project Management – Game Design – Creative Direction
• We have no Product Managers or Game Designers (gasp!)
Game Development
• Should have allocated more time to prototyping
• Did a good job of scoping our MVP
• Should have included more robust instrumentation in our MVP
• Did a reasonable job of balancing speed and quality
• Correctly assumed that virality would be irrelevant
Game Design
• Introduced a novel approach to managing status/progression
• Launched with a totally imbalanced resource economy
• Should have spent more time playtesting battle
• Should have prepared users for frequent, thoughtful change
• Should have planned for more PvE
Merlin
Character Illustration
City 1
City 6
Battle Reports
Service Operations (1/2)
• Listen to your users
• Be honest and transparent about mistakes
• Never underestimate the importance of staffing
• Don’t underestimate the value of experience
• Regularly establish reference points for core flows and KPIs
Service Operations (2/2)
• Use promotions to force-multiply the value of content releases
• Leverage every messaging channel possible
• Keep a close eye on cheating and abuse
• Invest in communicating business goals across the team
• Don’t underestimate the importance of community
Summary
• We learned an incredible amount from Kingdoms of Camelot
• We are incredibly excited to be the leader in MMSGs
• We look forward to pushing the envelope in 2011 – 9 games planned to launch this year
– 100% focused on massively multiplayer strategy and role-playing games
– Aggressively staffing up our San Francisco, Redwood City and Beijing offices
Thank you for your time!
http://careers.kabam.com