Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It currently serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016.
Friendster was a social networking service based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003. Later the company became a social gaming site based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Before Friendster was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands and hobbies. Users could share videos, photos, messages, and comments with other members via profiles and networks. It is considered one of the original social networks.
Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., doing business as Harmonix, is an American video game development company based in Boston, Massachusetts, best known for its music video games.
NCSoft Corporation is an international video game developer and publisher headquartered in Pangyo, Seongnam, South Korea, primarily known for the distribution of massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Lineage and Guild Wars.
Satoru Iwata was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo. He was a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.
Paul Michael Slayton, better known by his stage name Paul Wall, is an American rapper and DJ. He has spent much of his career affiliated with Swishahouse Records, and has released several albums under the label and collaborated with numerous other rappers signed to the label. He began his career performing alongside Chamillionaire with whom he released several albums, including 2002's independently released Get Ya Mind Correct, which went on to sell over 350,000 copies despite no major label distribution. In 2005, he was signed to Atlantic Records and became successful with his major label debut The Peoples Champ. Get Money, Stay True followed in 2007. He has been nominated for one Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance as a Duo or Group for the song "Grillz", his 2007 collaboration with rapper Nelly.
Myspace is an American social networking service. From 2005 to 2008, it was the largest social networking site in the world.
A video game clone is either a video game or a video game console very similar to, or heavily inspired by, a previous popular game or console. Clones are typically made to take financial advantage of the popularity of the cloned game or system, but clones may also result from earnest attempts to create homages or expand on game mechanics from the original game. An additional motivation unique to the medium of games as software with limited compatibility, is the desire to port a simulacrum of a game to platforms that the original is unavailable for or unsatisfactorily implemented on.
Donald Allan Mattrick is a Canadian businessman best known for being the former CEO of social gaming company Zynga, as well as a member of its board of directors. Previously, Mattrick was the President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. In this role, he was responsible for a collection of consumer businesses including Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox One, Kinect, TV Music and Video services, Microsoft Mediaroom, PC and Mobile Interactive Entertainment as well as the manufacturing and supply chain for Microsoft. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2007, Mattrick served as the President of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts, where he worked for 15 years. At only 17, Mattrick founded Distinctive Software, which was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1991 and subsequently became EA Vancouver.
King.com Limited, trading as King and also known as King Digital Entertainment, is a video game developer based in St. Julian's, Malta that specialises in social games. King gained fame after releasing the cross-platform title Candy Crush Saga in 2012, considered one of the most financially successful games utilising the freemium model. King was acquired by Activision Blizzard in February 2016 for US$5.9 billion, and operates as its own entity within that company. King is led by Riccardo Zacconi, who has served in the role of chief executive officer since co-founding the company in 2003. Gerhard Florin took over Melvyn Morris's role as chairman in November 2014. As of 2017, King employs 2,000 people.
Zynga Inc. is an American social game developer running social video game services and founded in April 2007 with headquarters in San Francisco, California, United States. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games."
A social network game is a type of online game that is played through social networks. They typically feature multiplayer gameplay mechanics. Social network games were originally implemented as browser games. As mobile gaming took off, the games moved to mobile as well. While they share many aspects of traditional video games, social network games often employ additional ones that make them distinct. Traditionally they are oriented to be social games and casual games.
DeNA Co.,Ltd. is a Japanese provider of mobile portal and e-commerce websites headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo. It owns the Mobage platform, which is one of the most popular cell phone platforms in Japan. It also operates many other services, including a popular e-commerce website DeNA Shopping.
J Peezy, is an American rapper, song writer and entrepreneur. J Peezy started in the rap group called The Odyssey, alongside American actor Mahershalalhashbaz Ali. As an independent solo artist, J Peezy has worked with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and performed or recorded with Ne-Yo, Ice Cube, Too Short, and Baby Bash. On June 10, 2011, J Peezy's single "It's My Time" was the "Most Added Urban Track" along with Rihanna's single "Man Down" according to the DJ Times National Club Charts.
KIXEYE is a video game company founded in July 2007 and headquartered in Victoria, B.C., Canada. The company creates, develops and publishes massively multiplayer online real-time strategy games (MMORTS) for PC and mobile devices. KIXEYE gained popularity as a pioneer in midcore action games featuring real-time combat on the social networking website Facebook. Following their initial launch, KIXEYE's games generated 20 times more revenue per daily active user than other social games, retaining active users 5 times longer on average.
Supercell Oy is a Finnish mobile game development company based in Helsinki, Finland. Founded on 14 May 2010, the company's debut game was the browser game Gunshine.net, and after its release in 2011, Supercell started developing games for mobile devices. Since then, the company has fully released five mobile games: Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Clash Royale, and Brawl Stars, which are freemium fast-paced games and have been very successful for the company, the first two generating revenue of €2 million a day in 2013.
Battle Rap Stars is a mobile rap battle game for iOS created by Jump Shot Media that uses inputted audio to evaluate and score.
Machine Zone, Inc. (MZ) is an American privately held technology company, founded in 2008 and based in Palo Alto, California. The company is best known for its widely advertised freemium mobile MMO strategy games Game of War: Fire Age and Mobile Strike, which have both simultaneously been ranked among the top ten highest-grossing mobile games.
Nintendo, a Japanese home and handheld video game console manufacturer and game developer, has traditionally focused on games that utilize unique elements of its consoles. However, the growth of the mobile gaming market in the early 2010s led to several successive fiscal quarters where they were running at a loss. Nintendo, led by president Satoru Iwata at the time, developed a strategy for entering into the mobile games market with development partner DeNA, as a means of introducing their franchise properties to mobile players with a goal of bringing them to buy Nintendo's consoles later. Since 2015, Nintendo has internally developed a number of mobile games, while also publishing games with other developers, including games outside of the initial DeNA partnership. Several of them have been entered the top-downloaded games list on the iOS App Store and Google Play stores, earning over US$100 million in revenue in total.
Hardlight is a British video game development studio based in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. It is owned by Sega as one of five studios under Sega Europe, the others being Creative Assembly, Sports Interactive, Relic Entertainment, and Amplitude Studios. As a developer, Hardlight is focused on mobile games for smartphones.
