An inside look at how Kabam separated itself from the pack of casual social games by developing a social game for core gamers: Kingdoms of Camelot. Provides insight on strategic steps that led to creation of a new segment, massively multiplayer social games (MMSGs).

1. Zigging While Others Zag
Andrew Sheppard, Chief Product Officer
March 1, 2011

2. Who is this guy (Andrew Sheppard)?

3. 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

4. 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

5. "I have played role playing and
• Launched in Dec. 2009 strategy games all my life and
• First massively multiplayer social game Kingdoms of Camelot for Facebook is
as good if not better than many of
on Facebook the consoles games on the market.“
• Received the IGN Reader’s Choice Gamezebo, September 12, 2010
Award for Facebook Games in 2010
• The largest strategy game on Facebook "It's well worth checking out if you've
been waiting for a Facebook game
• Currently running at 430k DAUs that involves more than farming."
IGN, April 16, 2010

6. How did a small web startup build a game that
would later win an IGN Readers’ Choice Award?

7. Let’s start from the beginning.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Step 1 Believe in the Power of Facebook
Development • Social functionality
Begins redefining web services
• MySpace taught us that a
social network could
power content distribution
• Believed Facebook was
fast approaching a tipping
point in adoption

12. 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

13. 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

14. Step 4 Anticipate the Competition
2009
Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
CORE ??? ??? ???
???
???
CASUAL ???
Development
Begins on
Kingdoms of Camelot

15. Step 4 Anticipate the Competition
2009
Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
CORE
CASUAL Happy
Aquarium Happy
Pets
Happy
Island

16. Step 5 Execute
1,000,000
900,000
800,000
700,000
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
-

18. Blazing a new trail isn’t easy.

19. 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

20. We did well, but not without some hard learning
along the way.

21. 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

22. 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!)

23. 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

24. 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

25. Merlin

26. Character Illustration

27. City 1

28. City 6

29. Battle Reports

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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!

33. http://careers.kabam.com