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).
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?
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
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
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!