Ngmoco

Last updated
Ngmoco, LLC
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Video games
FoundedJuly 2008
FounderJoe Keene
Bob Stevenson
Neil Young
Alan Yu
DefunctOctober 18, 2016
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
United States
Area served
International
Key people
Neil Young (CEO)
Products Rolando
Rolando 2
Eliminate Pro
Number of employees
26 [1]
Parent DeNA Co., Ltd. (2010-present)
Website www.ngmoco.com

Ngmoco, LLC (stylized as ngmoco) was an American-based publisher of video games for the iOS and Android platforms, and a subsidiary of DeNA Co., Ltd. The company was founded by former Electronic Arts executive Neil Young in July 2008. Since its founding, ngmoco has had more than seven million combined game installs. Venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Norwest Venture Partners, among others, have financed the company with a combined total of US$40.6 million. The company is most well known for their publishing of the Rolando game series and Eliminate Pro .

Contents

History

In June 2008, Electronic Arts Games label president Frank Gibeau announced to the media that executive Neil Young was leaving the company to form a company of his own. [2] Young had managed Maxis, EA Los Angeles, and EA's Blueprint division. The next week, Young announced that the company, co-founded by Bob Stevenson, Alan Yu and Joe Keene, would be named "ngmoco" (short for "Next Generation Mobile Company"), and would focus on game publishing for the iPhone platform. [3] [4] [5] It was also announced that the company had achieved funding from venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (as part of the iFund), and that partner and former Chief Creative Officer of EA Bing Gordon had joined ngmoco's board of directors.

In October 2008, the company released their first three games. They consisted of Topple, MazeFinger , and Rolando . [6] In March 2009, ngmoco's games on the App Store had received over seven million installations. [7] The company's board was joined by Tim Chang, whose investment firm Norwest Venture Partners invested $10,000,000 in ngmoco's second round of funding.

On 15 June 15 2009, ngmoco launched a social networking, game discovery and multiplayer platform called the "Plus+ Network", combined with a third-party channel for independent developers. The "Plus+ Publishing group" is headed up by former Sega of America and LucasArts executive Simon Jeffery. [8]

On November 4, 2009, ngmoco announced it had acquired iPhone and Facebook developer, Miraphonic, whose games included Epic Pet Wars and Epic Soldier Wars. [9] [10]

In February 2010, investors Institutional Venture Partners, and existing shareholders Kleiner Perkins, Norwest Venture Partners, and Maples Investments led another fund-raising campaign in a series C venture round to raise an additional $25,000,000. [11] Soon thereafter, ngmoco acquired long-time Mac OS and iOS developer Freeverse. They also acquired Stumptown Game Machine.

On October 12, 2010, Japan-based DeNA announced its decision to acquire ngmoco for $400,000,000. [12] After this, ngmoco LLC became the regional headquarters for all Western subsidiaries of DeNA, including studios in Vancouver, Santiago de Chile, Stockholm and Amsterdam.

On October 18, 2016, DeNA Co., Ltd. announced the closure of all Western subsidiaries, [13] shortly after announcing a new strategy for the West in collaboration with Nintendo. [14]

Games

The following is a list of games that have been published under the ngmoco name:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic Arts</span> American video game company

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die! The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.

Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs in over 900 ventures, including America Online, Amazon.com, Tandem Computers, Compaq, Electronic Arts, JD.com, Square, Genentech, Google, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Nest, Palo Alto Networks, Synack, Snap, AppDynamics, and Twitter. By 2019 it had raised around $9 billion in 19 venture capital funds and four growth funds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friendster</span> Social gaming site

Friendster was a social network 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Huge Games</span> American video game developer

Big Huge Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Timonium, Maryland since 2000, known first for real-time strategy games such as Rise of Nations, later for the console RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and more recently for mobile games such as DomiNations and Arcane Showdown. Throughout most of its history the company has been associated with its best-known founder, Brian Reynolds, whose prior career already included work as lead designer of Civilization II and Alpha Centauri, and co-founder of Firaxis Games. The studio's ownership has changed hands several times over the years, and it became briefly defunct in May 2012, but it was revived by Reynolds along with several original alumni and new partners. The company is presently owned by Nexon, and actively runs its mobile titles DomiNations and Arcane Showdown, while continuing to develop new games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Doerr</span> American businessman (born 1951)

L. John Doerr is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the President and his administration with advice and counsel in trying to fix America's economic downturn. Forbes ranked Doerr as the 40th richest person in tech in 2017 and, as of 1 August, 2023, as the 146th richest person in the world, with a net worth of US$11.9 billion. Doerr is the author of Measure What Matters, a book about goal-setting, and Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graeme Devine</span> Scottish game designer and programmer

Graeme Devine is a computer game designer and programmer who co-founded Trilobyte, created bestselling games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, and helped design id Software's Quake III Arena. He was Chairman of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) from 2002–2003. One of Graeme's trademarks is his Scooby-Doo wardrobe. He has said of his work that "I've not stuck to any one genre, platform or IP throughout my career, and I hope people eventually work out that's just fine."

Freeverse Inc. was a developer of computer and video game and desktop software based in New York City which was acquired by Ngmoco in 2010. Ngmoco was itself acquired later that year, and shut down in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bing Gordon</span> American video game executive

William "Bing" Gordon is a video game executive and technology venture capitalist. He served ten years as Chief Creative Officer of video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts (EA) prior to his current partnership with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). He was a founding director of Audible.com and has served on several high-profile Boards of Directors including Amazon, Ngmoco, Duolingo, and Zynga. He designed the video games Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier's SimGolf and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.

Mean Hamster Software, Inc. was a video game developer founded by John Swiderski in 1985. Mean Hamster Software created several games for the Atari 5200 from 1999-2004. They then created Myst for Windows Mobile in 2005, and after the release of Riven: The Sequel to Myst for Pocket PC in 2006, Mean Hamster began work on its first casual games. The company was located in Deer Park, Washington.

Playphone is a mobile gaming platform founded in 2003 headquartered in San Jose, California that provides direct-to-consumer mobile content distribution. It is funded by Menlo Ventures, Cardinal Venture Capital, and Coral Capital Management, and is a subsidiary of GungHo Online Entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MocoSpace</span> Mobile social network

MocoSpace is a mobile social network. The features of the site are similar to other social networking sites. Features include mobile games, chat, instant messaging, eCards, and photos. Mocospace was created during the popularity of and based on Myspace.com.

The iFund is a US$200 million capital fund. Developers may enter into equity deals for the creation of applications, services, and components for Apple Inc.'s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad platform. It is being offered and managed by venture capital company Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB).

<i>Rolando</i> (video game) 2008 video game

Rolando is a puzzle-adventure video game developed by studio HandCircus and published by Ngmoco. It was released for iOS on December 18, 2008, and uses the Box2D game engine.

Playfish was a developer of free-to-play social network games. Playfish was founded in 2007 by Kristian Segerstråle, Sebastien de Halleux, Sami Lababidi, and Shukri Shammas. It closed in 2013. Playfish in the past had attracted up to 55 million users a month, with over 37 million users coming from Facebook users. In October 2008, they secured US$17 million in venture capital funding from Accel Partners and Index Ventures. The company was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2009, with the last of Playfish's games being retired in 2013.

Booyah was a social web and mobile entertainment company. The development team drew its experience from the consumer web and social gaming space and entertainment studios such as Blizzard Entertainment, Activision, EA, and Insomniac Games. Booyah was financed by Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers iFund.

<i>Rolando 2</i> 2009 video game

Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid is an adventure video game developed by HandCircus, published by Ngmoco, and distributed by Apple Inc. for iPhone and iPod Touch. Rolando 2 was released on July 3, 2009. It is the sequel to Rolando, which was released in 2008. The game follows creatures called "Rolandos" who can be moved around the playing areas by players via the iPhone's accelerometer and the multi-touch features. The game features artwork by Mikko Walamies and music by Mr. Scruff. The game features nonlinear gameplay where players decide how the story plays out.

Plus+ was a social networking, game discovery and multiplayer platform launched by Ngmoco in June 2009. The network was similar to Xbox Network and allowed users to interact with other players while playing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apperian</span> Defunct software company in Boston, USA

Apperian, Inc. was a Boston-based software company. The organization provided a mobile application management platform that did not require app code modifications or software development kits (SDKs).

Dropcam, Inc. was an American technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company is known for its Wi-Fi video streaming cameras, Dropcam and Dropcam Pro, that allow people to view live feeds through Dropcam's cloud-based service. On June 20, 2014, it was announced that Google's Nest Labs bought Dropcam for $555 million, a decision Dropcam co-founder Greg Duffy later described as a "mistake". In June 2015, Nest introduced the Nest Cam, a successor to the Dropcam Pro. Support for Dropcam services ended on April 8, 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quirky (company)</span> Company

Quirky was an invention platform that connected inventors with companies that specialized in a specific product category.

References

  1. ↑ Madway, Gabriel (2009-03-23). "iPhone Apps mean money for game publisher ngmoco". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2009-03-26. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  2. ↑ Pigna, Kris (2008-06-19). "Neil Young Leaving Electronic Arts". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  3. ↑ Nutt, Christian (2008-06-30). "Q&A: EA Vet Young Reveals iPhone Publisher Ngmoco". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  4. ↑ Ali, Rafat (2008-07-31). "iPhone Game Start-Up Ngmoco Gets Funding from Kleiner Perkins". mocoNews.net. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  5. ↑ Schonfeld, Erick (2008-07-31). "Kleiner Perkins' iFund Invests In Stealth Gaming Startup ngmoco". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  6. ↑ "ngmoco Reveals Its First Three iPhone Games". IGN. 2008-10-16. Archived from the original on October 20, 2008. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  7. ↑ Morrison, Dianne See (2009-03-23). "mocoNews - IPhone Games Publisher Ngmoco Raises $10 Million In Second Round". mocoNews.net. Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  8. ↑ "ngmoco Unveils Its Social Networking Plus+ Network". PocketGamer.biz. 2009-06-16. Retrieved 2009-06-16.
  9. ↑ "Ngmoco Acquires Miraphonic, Creator of 'Epic Pet Wars'". Touch Arcade. 2009-11-04. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  10. ↑ Kee, Tameka (2009-11-05). "ngmoco's First Acquisition: 'Epic Pet Wars' Developer Miraphonic". mocoNews.net. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  11. ↑ Schonfeld, Erick (2010-02-22). "iPhone Game House ngmoco Raises $25 Million Series C, Buys Freeverse". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2010-02-22.
  12. ↑ Buchanan, Levi (2010-10-12). "DeNA Buying ngmoco for $400 Million". IGN . Archived from the original on 2010-10-15. Retrieved 2010-10-13.
  13. ↑ "DeNA shutters Western business as games "did not meet expectations"". GamesIndustry.biz.
  14. ↑ "Nintendo Partners With DeNA To Bring Its Games And IP To Smartphones". TechCrunch.
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.