Author: openfeintcrew

Since OpenFeint launched on the Android platform 9 months ago, they have seen a powerful growth. The company is now adding over 3m new Android users per month as well as top iOS game developers such as HandyGames, Invictus and Glu, who began to rapidly launch games on our platform. The team behind OpenFeint also revealed that it will be launching 16 brand new titles on Android, which will make the company’s catalogue include a total of 460 live games.

OpenFeint has managed to add 145 new games for Android in only two months. This grew the company’s arsenal by 46% to a total of 460 games, as we stated above. Game developers of all stripes are using the platform, both massive brands and small indie studios.

The CEO of HandyGames, Markus Kassulke stated that OpenFeint continues to make excellent investments in the Android gaming industry. They are a very good partner for HandyGames and Kassulke strongly believes in OpenFeint as well as the company’s social features to boost HandyGames’ top titles such as their newest action puzzle Happy Vikings. OpenFeint accredits its enormous success on Android to a mix of increased developer interest in building cross-platform games as well as the growing popularity of the Android devices in the world.

The SVP of Marketing at OpenFeint, Eros Resmini stated that developers want tools that will better the engagement as well as more ways to make money and of course effective distribution channels to reach players. We at OpenFeint are happy that developers continue to see value in our cross-platform feature set. OpenFeint is committed to building the best possible tools in the business.

Here are the newest OpenFeint titles for Android ordered by the name of their respected developer:

• Adult Swim – Robot Unicorn Attack
• Deep Byte Studios – Abyss Attack
• Distinctive Games – Dead Runner
• Fishing Cactus – Woof the Dog
• Glu – Big Time Gangsta
• Glu – Contract Killer
• Godzilab – Stardunk
• Handy Games – Happy Vikings
• HyperBees – ShakyTower
• Invictus – Froggy Jump
• Joaquin Grech – Dogfight
• Triolith – Wisp
• TuneWiki – Lyric Legend 1
• Unit9 – Nano Panda
• Vector Unit – Riptide GP
• Angry Viking, Zaxis Games

A few weeks ago, OpenFeint started powering free to play games on Android by launching a private beta. By using OpenFeint, Android developer will have the opportunity to manage virtual stores for goods, issue client content updates as well as sell downloadable content.

OpenFeint currently boasts over 85m total users both on iOS and Android.

While the Facebook-style developers are rapidly moving their games to mobile; the traditional mobile game providers are adopting the same old model, which is giving games for free and making their money from in-app purchases. The IAP system allows developers to process in-game transactions. However, most of them lack the virtual economy management system that is necessary to build profitable games.

Since OFX launched its private beta for Android, the game developers can now create and manage productive virtual economies in a simple and easy manner. Moreover, all of this without having to operate and build the servers themselves. OFX helps game providers to run complete virtual stores while selling and stocking virtual goods and currency, and at the same time analysing real-time performance, and even modifying inventory in a hurry.

The CEO and founder of OpenFeint, Jason Citron stated that IAP systems are similar to credit card machines, they are necessary when it comes to processing transactions, but they are somewhat useless if there is no store around it. Thus, OFX makes it very easy for any game developer to create that store and have confidence that it will be able to scale as they manage to snag millions of DAUs.

For the selected games to participate in the beta, OFX will be using Google’ IAP to process all of the payments. The future updates will be including support for alternative providers such as direct to carrier billers.

The CEO of Halfbrick Studios, Shainiel Deo stated that they would prefer to focus on creating better games rather than a very complex scalable server infrastructure. The iOS use of OFX is very easy, so they are excited to implement it on their upcoming Android games.

OpenFeint wants to build more games for Android. Last week the company announced that they will be launching a new distribution channel in China for Android games. It will be called The9 Game Zone. A few months ago OpenFeint announced a brand new strategic partnership with The9 to deliver games of excellent quality to Android through the $100m Fund9. OFX’s private beta will be open for a limited amount of time, and it will close as soon as every slot is filled.

The leading social gaming platform for mobile devices in Japan – GREE, announced earlier today that it will be entering the global market by acquiring OpenFeint’s outstanding securities for approximately $104m as well as an additional capital for the rapid growth of the OpenFeint platform. The company and its team will keep being OpenFeint, and its team will remain with long-term incentives, including the founder and CEO Jason Citron, who managed to grow the company to 75m users and 19k game developers in only two years. By working together, OpenFeint and GREE will build a worldwide ecosystem of distribution channels to ease game developers.

The combined gaming ecosystem of OpenFeint and GREE will reach 100m users worldwide. Since GREE is the fastest growing tech company in Japan, the organisation will use its social gaming platform expertise to increase OpenFeint’s growth and take social gaming on mobile to the next level.

The two companies are currently expanding internationally at a rapid speed, and soon they will open offices in London, Beijing and Singapore. Both of the organisations are looking to hire a lot of personnel, and OpenFeint wants to double in size during this year.

The CEO and founder of GREE, Yoshikazu Tanaka stated that at their company they are socialising the next evolution of games and since OpenFeint is the best US-based social network in the industry, they are the perfect partner for GREE to offer the best possible mobile social games to the largest audience worldwide.

The CEO of GREE International, Naoki Aoyagi added that this acquisition will further emphasise GREE’s commitment to providing the first as well as the best possible global gaming ecosystem with both the consumer and developer in mind. He works for the subsidiary that just opened its office in in San Francisco.

OpenFeint currently manages the world’s biggest cross-platform social gaming network for smartphones and tablets. Over 19k free to play, and traditional game developers are taking advantage of the system’s features to retain, acquire, and even monetize users.

Jason Citron, the founder and CEO of OpenFeint stated that we at OpenFeint are excited that GREE is sharing our belief in our network and are even ecstatic to be able to partner with such a renowned global leader to create a multi-billion dollar business. Together, the two companies will be able to deliver the strongest ecosystem of gaming networks worldwide to our combined 100m users.

There is no need to mention that more than 5,000 games use OpenFeint, including #1 Google Play and Apple App store hits such as Tiny Wings and Fruit Ninja. OpenFeint has also established partnerships with top mobile carriers that hold more than half of the market share in the US.

Acquisition Overview

GREE acquired OpenFeint through a triangular merger. This means that a new subsidiary was recently established in the United States under GREE International for the sole reason of OpenFeint’s 100% acquisition. GREE contributed funds to GREE International for the purchase as well as they subscribed for extra shares in GREE International. Moreover, this new subsidiary merged into OpenFeint. So, GREE International will be paying cash consideration to OpenFeint’s shareholders as well as warrant holders in connection with the merger. The completion of the merger and the execution of the agreement was completed on the 21st of April, 2011.

About GREE

GREE offers the leading social networking as well as social applications in Japan. They have over 25m users and are currently at the forefront of mobile technology. GREE began their global expansion by creating GREE International in San Francisco, which is a 100% fully-owned subsidiary of GREE. GREE is a multi-billion company which is trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The code is 3632.

GREE continues to maintain a strategic alliance with conspicuous international partners like Tencent, which is one of the biggest Broadband providers in China. Another company is Project Goth, which currently manages mig33 which is a mobile SNS with approximately 47m users from emerging countries like the ones in Southeast Asia in order to build a common platform specifications for all mobile devices. GREE wants to provide an entirely global social platform for users from all over the world by looking for further collaboration with the already established Japanese and international partners. The company also wants to enable a deeper person-to-person interaction in the games.

Burlingame California – OpenFeint is continuing to make strategic and key partnerships during this year to bring games of the highest quality to Android. Initially, we announced that we are going to bring our cross-platform social gaming network to the Android devices from AT&T. Then we formed a valuable partnership with the network The9 as well as the $100m Fund9 to allow iOS developers to port their games to the Android OS. Now, OpenFeint is revealing the latest 14 hit games we have brought to our Android users.

We will also be releasing some of our game growth stats. Since November last year, we managed to add 215 games to the Android ecosystem which totals up to 315 titles. That is more than 200% increase in less than 5 months.

The CEO of OpenFeint, Jason Citron stated that by the end of the day, he should be able to destroy his brother’s high score in Fruit Ninja, no matter if he is on Droid X or iPad. Both the developers and gamers agree that this is the reason for why they want to use OpenFeint. Our company associates the significant surge in the Android titles to the growing number of developers who are discovering their platform as well as the benefits of the decision to go cross-platform.

The VP of Marketing at OpenFeint, Eros Resmini stated that at first, the indie game developers were choosing iOS since it was the easiest and simplest way to distribute their product. However, since Google improved the Android OS Marketplace, and we managed to introduce porting opportunities with The9 and AT&T and game discovery, iOS developers are becoming more interested in Android. Our new titles that were released in March include:

• 2 Infinite Dreams – Can Knockdown
• Angry Mob Games – Guerrilla Bob
• Art of Bytes – Grave Defense Siver
• Clapfoor Games – Tank Hero
• GameResort – Stupid Zombies
• Glu – World Series Poker Hold’em Legend
• Feelingtouch Inc. – Ninja Rush Deluxe
• GameResort – Doodle Bowling
• Hyperbees Ltd. – Pyxidis
• Hyperbees Ltd. – Speedx 3D free and full
• Orange Agenda – Stellar Escape
• Orange Pixel – Meganoid
• Sandlot Games – Snail Mail
• We came from Mars – Return Zero BETA

Currently, OpenFeint has over 73 million registered users. Thus, the company’s growth is turning into a global phenomenon more or less. Players that Android users are playing its games in 214 countries. The largest audience is currently in North America, but the network is rapidly growing its popularity in Asia as well.

As you already know, OpenFeint is the leader in cross-platform social gaming networks. Now, The9, which is an online game developer and operator in China, announced earlier today that they have found a new way for the top game developers to fund their way to Android. This initiative is going to get backed by the $100m Fund9, which is a Chinese mobile internet development fund. The9 and OpenFeint will review and choose the top games and will support their port to OpenFeint and Android integration. The two organisations will also pick the selected games to expand their Chinese presence and will facilitate their localisation.

The games will be selected based on the past download performance in the other app stores, the overall quality of the game as well as the game developer’s strength. If you are a developer, and this sounds interesting to you, you can email [email protected] to learn more about the opportunity and apply.

OpenFeint’s VP of Marketing, Eros Resmini stated that the company has launched on Android in order to bring gamers better content. OpenFeint has already helped with the launching of 250 incredible games, but there is still a lot of work to do. Resmini added that there is a treasure trove of exclusive games in iOS, which are waiting for the rest of the world to discover them. The main idea of this fund is to help make this possible for the indie game developers.

Fund9 is a development fund based in China, which invests in game engines, mobile apps and platform technology developers around the globe. Last December, the fund announced that there is a collaboration among Chengwei Ventures, The9, China Renaissance K2 Ventures and China Rock Capital Management.

The Vice President of The9 stated that the company is focused on bringing the top mobile apps as well as platform technologies to China. According to him, Fund9’s partnership with OpenFeint is a great start. They are very excited to see more incredible games on Android devices.

OpenFeint is currently the largest cross-platform social gaming network. We have more than 68m players in over 4,800 games. The platform launched on Android last September, yet it has already spawned a few top 10 hits. These include Super KO Boxing 2, Fruit Ninja and Flick Kick Field Goal Kickoff.

The9 was established back in 1999 as a leading game operator and developer in China. Until now, it has managed to step into the internet field, and it is currently working with the largest telecom carriers as well as app distribution channels in China with rapid growth.