Kixeye

Last updated
Kixeye
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Video games
GenreMassively multiplayer online real-time strategy games (MMORTS)
FoundedJuly 2007 (2007-07)
FounderPaul Preece
David Scott
Will Harbin
Headquarters
Victoria
,
Canada
Key people
  • Colin How
  • (CEO)
  • Tim Holland
  • (CFO)
  • Ben Cann
  • (EP; Head of Marketing, CS, Community, Art, Product)
  • Alan Freemantle
  • (EP; Head of Design, QA)
  • Peter Henry
  • (EP)
  • Dan Hayhurst
  • (EP; Head of Analytics, Product)
  • Neil Petrick
  • (Technical Director)
  • Jeff Platt
  • (GM of VN Office)
ProductsWar Commander, Battle Pirates, Vega Conflict, War Commander: Rogue Assault, Backyard Monsters, Desktop Defender, Tome, Rise of Firstborn
Number of employees
50
Parent Stillfront Group
Website kixeye.com

Kixeye (stylized as KIXEYE, formerly known as Casual Collective) is a video game company founded in July 2007 and headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, 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. [1] Following their initial launch, Kixeye's games generated twenty times more revenue per daily active user than other social games, retaining active users five times longer on average. [2] [3]

Contents

Titles include Rogue Assault, Battle Pirates, War Commander , Vega Conflict , and Rise of Firstborn.

History

Kixeye office reception in 2012. Kixeye (7517753148).jpg
Kixeye office reception in 2012.

Beginnings

Developers David Scott and Paul Preece founded Kixeye as Casual Collective in Berkshire, England to "make games that we grew up playing and that we love playing." [4] [5] [6] They initially started by developing thirteen Flash games. [2] [7] [8]

In mid-2009 when searching for new venues for their strategy games, Scott and Preece decided to move their Flash knowledge to Facebook. [7] [9] [10] After developing Minions on Ice and TSG: Missions as Casual Collective, they hired Will Harbin (co-founder of Affinity Labs) as CEO and moved the company's headquarters to San Francisco from Berkshire, England. [6] They developed Desktop Tower Defense , a tower defense game for Facebook. [11] [8] After its release in December 2009, the game reached 675,000 monthly active users and produced more revenue in one day than their previous games made in one month. [8]

In 2010, Casual Collective released Backyard Monsters. After three months, it had 500,000 monthly active users, and by July 2010, it had 4.5 million monthly active users. [8] [9] The game reached 2.5 million active users per month, 580,000 active users per day, with a 23 percent retention rate. [8] [12] An average play session lasted greater than 30 minutes, players averaged between three and four sessions a day, and retention was over seven months. [13] [2] [8] The game earned a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, with over 500,000 votes. [7] Gamezebo gave Backyard Monsters 4.5 out of 5 stars, and said, "To release a game of this calibre for free on Facebook is a real achievement." [14] Backyard Monsters won the Mochi Award for Best Social Game of 2010. [15]

2011-2014

After a company name rebrand in late April 2011, Kixeye launched War Commander and Battle Pirates on the Facebook Games platform. These games stood as the only midcore action games with real-time combat at the time. Both games grew immensely, with a majority of users joining organically in a six-month window between 2012 and 2013.

In 2011, VentureBeat stated that Kixeye's game War Commander "Represents a big step forward in the evolution of Facebook games." Facebook banner ads continue to draw in new players. [9]

In 2012, the company sparked a small controversy after they released a video advertising for programmers that an article interpreted as sexist, and which the article argued represented a common problem of sexism in tech industries. A response from their female vice president of engineering stated that the video was misinterpreted by the journalist, and was not intended as sexist. [16]

Later that year, Kixeye took action against racism by laying off employees reported for misconduct, following a former contractor post on Tumblr. [17]

In 2013, Vega Conflict, a spiritual successor to Battle Pirates set in space, launched on Flash but was quickly rebuilt in Unity. The game became Kixeye's first cross-platform title, with players able to play on mobile, Steam, and browser.[ citation needed ]

2015-present

In 2016, Kixeye launched mobile game War Commander: Rogue Assault , the prequel to War Commander . [ citation needed ]

In 2019, Kixeye headquarters moved from the San Francisco office (now closed) to the Victoria, British Columbia office, and Clayton Stark was appointed CEO.[ citation needed ]

On June 3, 2019, Kixeye was acquired by the Stillfront Group for US$90 million. [18] [19]

List of games

As Kixeye (April 2011- onward):

Battle Pirates

Released in May 2011, [8] [20] Battle Pirates is a real-time strategy game.

In the year 2067, a terrorist-sparked world war has wiped out 95% of life on Earth. Survivors are split into five factions [21] that engage in bloody battle on the high seas.

War Commander

War Commander is an MMORTS that entered exclusive beta access to IGN readers in September 1, 2011, and soon after in open public beta in September 13, 2011. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape thirty years after civilization and governments have collapsed. In the game, people are divided into small, warring factions fighting for control of Earth's remaining natural resources. [9]

Vega Conflict

Vega Conflict is a real-time strategy game launched in August 2013. Originally built in Flash, Vega Conflict was rebuilt in Unity in 2014 and became Kixeye's first cross-platform title. Users all occupy the same server but can play on browser, on mobile, or via Steam.

The game focuses on the Vega Federation, a space empire that subjects miners to harsh working conditions in an attempt to find valuable Blood Amber. The miners begin to rebel, drawing more enemies and allies into the fray. Players seek out blueprints to unlock more powerful ships and weapons, forming the ultimate fleet of spaceships to bring to events or PvP combat.

War Commander: Rogue Assault

War Commander: Rogue Assault is a mobile-based massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game. It takes place in a hypothetical post-apocalyptic World War III era. Players build and train their armies in an effort to take control of the remaining world with the help of their alliance.

War Commander: Rogue Assault was released in December 2016 and developed with the help of Command & Conquer creator Louis Castle. [22] War Commander: Rogue Assault is a free-to-play game available on both iOS and Android platforms.

Siege: Apocalypse

Siege Apocalypse is a free-to-play real-time strategy video game. It is a prequel to War Commander: Rogue Assault. [23] Players enage in PVP battles with the objective to destroy the opponent's base. Players can earn and deploy units and tactics via collectible cards.

Siege: Apocalypse was released in January 2022 [24] and is available on iOS and Android platforms.

Rise of Firstborn

Rise of Firstborn is a free-to-play 4X strategy mobile game originally developed by Netmarble and published by Kixeye in 2021. [25] The game was previously known as Iron Throne. [26] Players collect heroes and build a kingdom where they can ally with other players in world PVP.

Discontinued games

Kixeye has developed multiple titles in its time that either made it to live and have since been shelved. This list includes the original tower defense game, Desktop Defender; a browser-based MOBA called Tome: Immortal Arena; and the game Backyard Monsters, which inspired much of the base-building RTS genre that followed.

Backyard Monsters

Development of Backyard Monsters started in 2009, but the game was not released until January 2010 as Desktop Creatures before being renamed by fan vote to Backyard Monsters. Backyard Monsters was released as a real-time strategy game on Facebook with "destruction and gore and mayhem", [7] [27] unlike other Facebook games at the time. In Backyard Monsters, players build a yard for their monsters, designed so that essential buildings are protected by defensive towers. If the player's yard is designed correctly, the defenses stop invading monsters who try to damage the buildings and loot resources. [14] [28] [29] Backyard Monsters: Unleashed was a port to iOS released in October 2013.[ citation needed ]

Executive producer David Scott said he designed the game to "be able to play a [real-time strategy] game in short sessions." [30] An expansion for Backyard Monsters titled Inferno was released in January 2012 and in November 2012 a new world map was released. [30] In addition to this, Backyard Monsters also had outposts in the new world map when the new world map update came. [30]

On February 18, 2013, the Kongregate version of Backyard Monsters was shut down. [31]

Backyard Monsters is no longer supported and player numbers have fallen significantly since its inception shortly after the final Hell-Raisers event held on March 26, 2013. [32] It was closed down at the demise of Flash on December 31, 2020.

Desktop Defender

In Desktop Defender, players defended their desktop from creatures called "creeps." [33] [34] Players deployed defensive turrets to attack anything in range. Each defeated creep rewarded players with coins, which players could use to unlock new towers that shot frost, ink, swarms of missiles and other defenses. Players could also purchase special bonus powers that slowed down enemies, sped up tower guns and caused damage.

Desktop is no longer supported by Kixeye long before the demise of Flash on December 31, 2020.[ citation needed ]

Minions

Minions briefly entered beta testing and was then fully released on November 18, 2008. [5] The game was discontinued with the demise of Flash on December 21, 2020. The MOBA game was played by two teams of one to six players. In the initial phase of the game each player selected or was randomly assigned one of eight "minions" to play as, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Two of these minions require the purchase of a "Bonus Pack" to be selected. Settings were customizable, including the number of players, and manual or automatic minion selection.

After minion selection, players advanced with the goal of destroying enemy minions and towers. The field was two dimensional, and scrolled vertically, with the two teams spawning in bases at opposite sides of the map. A team was victorious when it destroyed the tower at the heart of the enemy's base.

Tome: Immortal Arena

Tome: Immortal Arena was a Multiplayer online battle arena. Development ended February 5, 2015. The game was shut down on May 17, 2015. [35]

As Casual Collective with their defunct web portal (2008- early 2011):
Seventeen original Flash games on old Casual Collective's online web portal in 2008 to early 2011. [36]

  • Attack of the Buggles (AotB)
  • Backyard Monsters
  • Battle Pirates (Beta version on old site before company's name change & new site)
  • Buggle Connect (Formerly called Buggle in January-November 2008)
  • Buggle Stars
  • Desktop Armada (Single player title: DA: Missions in January-November 2008)
  • Desktop Defender (New version of Desktop Tower Defence)
  • Desktop TD Pro (Formerly called MPDTD in January-November 2008 - probably being "Multi Player Desktop Tower Defence")
  • Farragomate
  • Flash Element TD (Old title in January 2008. Closed before December 2008.)
  • Flash Element TD 2 (FETD 2)
  • Minions
  • Minions on Ice
  • Push
  • Splitter 2
  • The Space Game (TSG)
  • TSG: Missions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roguelike</span> Subgenre of role-playing video games

Roguelike is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most roguelikes are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting their influence from tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.

Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to play. The term "real-time strategy" was coined by Brett Sperry to market Dune II in the early 1990s.

A massively multiplayer online game is an online video game with a large number of players on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are games that differ. These games can be found for most network-capable platforms, including the personal computer, video game console, or smartphones and other mobile devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Castle</span> American video games designer

Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios, designing the PC game Blade Runner, and collaborating with Steven Spielberg on the Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party video games for the Wii console based on Spielberg's design ideas.

A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessions, and require less learned skill. They do not expect familiarity with a standard set of mechanics, controls, and tropes.

<i>Desktop Tower Defense</i> 2007 video game

Desktop Tower Defense is a Flash-based tower defense browser game created by Paul Preece in March 2007. The game had been played over 15.7 million times as of July 2007, and was one of Webware 100's top ten entertainment web applications of 2007. Desktop Tower Defense is available in an English, Spanish, German, French, or Italian interface. In May 2009, a commercial Nintendo DS version became available.

Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive structures on or along their path of attack. This typically means building a variety of different structures that serve to automatically block, impede, attack or destroy enemies. Tower defense is seen as a subgenre of real-time strategy video games, due to its real-time origins, even though many modern tower defense games include aspects of turn-based strategy. Strategic choice and positioning of defensive elements is an essential strategy of the genre.

Strategy is a major video game genre that emphasizes thinking and planning over direct instant action in order to achieve victory. Although many types of video games can contain strategic elements, as a genre, strategy games are most commonly defined as those with a primary focus on high-level strategy, logistics and resource management. They are also usually divided into two main sub-categories: turn-based and real-time, but there are also many strategy cross/sub-genres that feature additional elements such as tactics, diplomacy, economics and exploration.

<i>eRepublik</i>

eRepublik is a free-to-play, web browser-based massively multiplayer online game developed by Romanian studio eRepublik Labs which was launched outside of beta phase on 14 October 2008 and is accessible via the Internet. The game is set in a mirror world where players, referred to as citizens, join in local and national politics where they can help formulate national economic and social policies as well as initiating wars with their neighbours and/or tread the path of a private citizen working, fighting and voting for their state. It was developed by Alexis Bonte and George Lemnaru. eRepublik is programmed in PHP using Symfony framework and runs in most modern browsers. eRepublik has spawned a number of similar games due to the commercial success.

Flash Element TD is a Flash-based tower defense browser game created by American developer David Scott and launched in January 2007. The game had been played over 140 million times as of March 2009.

Playdom was an online social network game developer popular on Facebook, Google+ and Myspace. The company was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area by University of California, Berkeley graduates Ling Xiao and Chris Wang and Swarthmore College graduate Dan Yue. In 2009, the market for games played on social networking sites was valued at $300 million, consisting mostly of online sales of virtual goods.

Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that improve over the course of a game and which contribute to the team's overall strategy. The typical objective is for each team to destroy their opponents' main structure, located at the opposite corner of the battlefield. In some MOBA games, the objective can be defeating every player on the enemy team. Players are assisted by computer-controlled units that periodically spawn in groups and march forward along set paths toward their enemy's base, which is heavily guarded by defensive structures. This type of multiplayer online video games originated as a subgenre of real-time strategy, though MOBA players usually do not construct buildings or units. Moreover, there are examples of MOBA games that are not considered real-time strategy games, such as Smite (2014), and Paragon. The genre is seen as a fusion of real-time strategy, role-playing and action games.

Kunlun Group or their alternative name KoramGame, is a Hong Kong software developer and publisher.

<i>Vainglory</i> (video game) Multiplayer online battle arena video game

Vainglory is a free-to-play video game with in-game purchases, developed and published by Super Evil Megacorp for iOS, Android and PC. The game is a version of the MOBA wherein two opposing teams of three or five players fight to destroy the enemy by controlling the path between the bases, which is lined by turrets and guarded by AI-controlled enemy creatures called minions. Off the path, players battle for control points that provide resources. The game was released for iOS on November 16, 2014, after being soft-launched for over half a year, with the Android version being released on July 2, 2015. A Mac and Microsoft Windows version of the game was released in July 2018. Through cross-platform play, players on all four platforms can play together simultaneously.

Imperia Online JSC is a Bulgarian game production and publishing company founded by Moni Dochev and Dobroslav Dimitrov. Based in Sofia, Bulgaria, the company originally concentrated primarily on browser-based games with their main title being Imperia Online, but later started developing mobile games as well.

<i>Jolly Jam</i> 2015 puzzle video game

Jolly Jam was a mobile tile-matching puzzle video game, developed by Magic Tavern and published by Rovio Stars. It was released on February 18, 2015, for Android and iOS devices worldwide. The game features different gameplay mechanics, drawing a box around similar objects, compared to most other tile-matching games.

<i>War Commander</i> 2011 video game

War Commander is an online multiplayer game developed by Kixeye. The game has 30,000 active users every day. Made in September 2011, the game is still one of Kixeye's biggest hits, receiving regular updates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plarium</span> Video game software company

Plarium Global Ltd. is a video game developer, publisher and subsidiary of the Australian gambling machine manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure. It is known for creating mobile, desktop and browser games in various genres including MMO, RPG, action, strategy, and casual.

<i>Pirates: Tides of Fortune</i> 2012 web browser video game

Pirates: Tides of Fortune is a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game developed and published by Plarium. The game was released for web browser in 2012. The game is set in on fictional desert island where players build their own pirate bay, ships and fight against each other in sea-based battles.

War Commander: Rogue Assault is a real-time strategy mobile game developed and published by Kixeye. It was released for iOS and Android on December 21, 2016. The game is set in a dystopian future where players must build and defend their own military base against enemy attacks while also attacking other players’ bases to gain resources and climb the ranks.

References

  1. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai. Kixeye Is The Lucrative Dark Horse of Facebook Gaming. TechCrunch. April 18, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Gaudiosi, John. Kixeye Kicking to the Curb Notion of Boring Facebook Games Forbes. April 5, 2012.
  3. ↑ De Vere, Kathleen. "Monetizing Social Games on Facebook". Inside Social Games. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
  4. ↑ Ayzenberg A-List Summit John Getze Kixeye Interview. GamerLiveTV. March 1, 2012.
  5. 1 2 Jason Kincaid (November 18, 2008). "Guys Behind Ridiculously Addictive Flash Games Launch The Casual Collective". TechCrunch . AOL. Archived from the original on June 20, 2010. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
  6. 1 2 Dean Takahashi (November 18, 2008). "Casual Collective aims to develop addictive casual games". GamesBeat . Archived from the original on February 4, 2023. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Social Games Don't Have to Suck YouTube. August 18, 2011
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mike Thompson (March 20, 2012). "Two Years Later Backyard Monsters Continues to Thrive on Facebook". Inside Social Games. Archived from the original on November 12, 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Takahashi, Dean. Kixeye's War Commander brings real time strategy to Facebook gaming. Venture Beat. September 13, 2011.
  10. ↑ Simon Slangen (January 15, 2009). "The Casual Collective - Fun Online Multiplayer Flash Games". Make Use Of. Archived from the original on March 23, 2009.
  11. ↑ Takahashi, Dean. Kixeye re-brands and pivots into hardcore social games with Battle Pirates. VentureBeat. April 28, 2011.
  12. ↑ Hyman, Paul. Gaming the New Era of Facebook Gamasutra. February 9, 2011.
  13. ↑ Takahashi, Dean. Kixeye quietly makes big bucks on hardcore Facebook games. Venture Beat. March 16, 2012.
  14. 1 2 Ashby, Alicia. Backyard Monsters Review Archived 2012-07-30 at the Wayback Machine GameZebo. May 7, 2010.
  15. ↑ Lemaire, Elodie (3 January 2011). "Le Mochi Award du meilleur jeu social 2010 est attribué à..." Picabum (in French). Retrieved 2 August 2011.[ permanent dead link ]
  16. ↑ "The Real Problem with This Sexist Video Game Hiring Strategy". The Atlantic . 3 August 2012.
  17. ↑ "What Can be Done About Racism in Technology? • EBONY". 22 July 2016.
  18. ↑ "Forums".
  19. ↑ "Stillfront acquires Kixeye to expand its portfolio of games". 3 June 2019.
  20. ↑ "Battle Pirates on Facebook". Facebook .
  21. ↑ Rao, Leena. Gaming Startup The Casual Collective Rebrands as Kixeye; Launches Battle Pirates on Facebook. Tech Crunch. April 28, 2011.
  22. ↑ Venture Beat
  23. ↑ "'SIEGE: Apocalypse', KIXEYE's Military-Themed PvP Card Game, is Out Now on iOS and Android".
  24. ↑ "SIEGE: Apocalypse is KIXEYE's new 1v1 military battler that's out now on iOS and Android".
  25. ↑ "Stillfront acquires Netmarble's Iron Throne: The Firstborn".
  26. ↑ "Stillfront acquires mobile strategy game Iron Throne: The Firstborn".
  27. ↑ "Ravenwood Fair Crosses 10 Million Players on This Week's List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU".
  28. ↑ "Gamasutra - Features - Gaming The New Era Of Facebook". Gamasutra . UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
  29. ↑ "Backyard Monsters on Facebook".
  30. 1 2 3 Gibbons, Pat. An Interview with Dave Scott, Backyard Monsters' Executive Producer Archived 2012-06-25 at the Wayback Machine . Gamers Daily News. March 18, 2012.
  31. ↑ "A Message from Kongregate" . Retrieved 24 February 2013.
  32. ↑ "Backyard Monsters usage". Archived from the original on January 8, 2013.
  33. ↑ Meunier, Nathan. "Desktop Defender Review". GameZebo. Archived from the original on 30 May 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  34. ↑ "Desktop Defender on Facebook". Facebook .
  35. ↑ "WrongThinker Thinks #10 - In Which We Say Goodnight".
  36. ↑ "The Casual Collective's original web games portal". The Casual Collective. 2009. Archived from the original on March 19, 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
  1. ↑ "The Casual Collective's site redesign (1 month before name change)". Casual Collective's site redesign. 2011. Archived from the original on March 21, 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.