Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer. It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2001 and operated as an internal studio until 2009, when its development capabilities were officially disbanded. Ensemble developed many real-time strategy games, including the Age of Empires game series, Age of Mythology, and Halo Wars. In addition to game development, Ensemble Studios also made the Genie Game Engine used in Age of Empires, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. The studio sold 20 million games and was worth an estimated $500 million.
NaturalMotion Limited is a British video game development company with development offices in London, Brighton and Birmingham. Founded in November 2001 as a spin-out company from Oxford University, NaturalMotion specialises in creating animation technology for the game and film industries. In January 2014, NaturalMotion was acquired by Zynga for US$527 million.
Topple is a game by American developer Chris DeLeon and published by ngmoco for the iOS platform. It is available for download on the iPhone and iPod Touch on the App Store or iTunes. A sequel entitled Topple 2 was released on March 8, 2009.
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.
Zynga Dallas was a video game development company based in Dallas, Texas. After Ensemble Studios was shut down by Microsoft in 2009, Bonfire Studios was one of four companies founded by former Ensemble employees. Bonfire's co-founders were Bill Jackson, David Rippy, Scott Winsett, and Stephen Rippy.
Zynga Inc. is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games".
Ngmoco, LLC 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.
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.
FarmVille is a series of agriculture-simulation social network games developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to Happy Farm and Farm Town. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plowing land, planting, growing, and harvesting crops, harvesting trees and raising livestock. The sequels FarmVille 2 and FarmVille 3 were released in September 2012 and November 2021, respectively.
Café World is a defunct multiplayer restaurant simulation social network game created by Zynga and launched in September 2009. It quickly became the fastest growing social game ever, reaching 8 million users in seven days, and peaked at over 10 million daily active users, which made it Zynga's third-largest game after FarmVille and CityVille. Available on Facebook, players strive to become master chefs and build a food empire by completing catering orders.
We Rule was a free-to-play mobile game developed by Newtoy and published by ngmoco for iOS and later on Android. It was available for download on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad on the App Store or iTunes, and attracted many users since its release in March 2010. Although a free app, customers were able to buy in-app purchases; as of April 2010, it was the highest-grossing free-to-download game for the iOS. Within weeks of release, We Rule was estimated to have been downloaded millions of times, with approximately two million user sessions per day. Its gameplay was in part inspired by the Zynga game FarmVille.
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.
GodFinger was a god game developed by Wonderland Software and published by ngmoco foriOS. It is no longer available for download on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad on the App Store or iTunes. Although a free app, customers are able to buy in-app purchases.
MazeFinger is a game developed and published by ngmoco for the iOS platform. It is available for download on the iPhone and iPod Touch on the App Store or iTunes.
Touch Pets: Dogs was a game for Apple's iPhone. It was a social, virtual reality game where players could create their own pet dogs and take care of them like real pets, including introductory material to basic canine budgetary politics. Producer Rod Kiewiet reportedly assigned each student in his political science class, PS 141a, to play Touch Pets: Dogs for homework in order to drive up popularity in its waning years. In 2013, Ngmoco shut down the servers for Touch Pets Dogs and the game was removed from the App Store.
Zynga with Friends was a video game developer founded in 2008 by brothers Paul Bettner and David Bettner, and their cousin Michael Chow. In November 2008, Newtoy, Inc. released its first game for the iPhone and iPod touch, Chess with Friends, an asynchronous multiplayer game released for the Apple App Store. In August the following year, it released its second game for iPhone and iPod touch, Words with Friends, another asynchronous multiplayer game with gameplay similar to Scrabble, which ultimately became their best known game. In November 2010, the company was acquired by Zynga for $53.3 million and an undisclosed amount of stock. Following the acquisition, the studio would be rebranded to Zynga with Friends in December of that year. Newtoy would be the company's fourteenth acquisition within its peak years.
Words with Friends is a multiplayer computer word game developed by Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game Scrabble. The rules of the two games are similar, but Words with Friends is not associated with the Scrabble brand. Up to 40 games can be played simultaneously using push notifications to alert players when it is their turn. Players may look up friends either by username or through Facebook, or be randomly assigned an opponent through "Smart Match". Players can also find potential opponents using Community Match.
Chess with Friends was a multiplayer asynchronous chess game developed by Zynga with Friends, which also developed Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends. It was one of the first iPhone games to take an asynchronous approach to multiplayer. Released in November 2008 and published by Zynga, the game is available on iOS and, since 2014, Android.
CityVille Hometown is a defunct social city-building simulation game. Based on CityVille and developed by Zynga, the mobile game was released in June 2011 and is available on iOS.
Small Giant Games is a mobile game development company based in Helsinki, Finland. It was founded in 2013 by former employees of mobile game maker Sulake. After producing two casual games, Small Giant found success with a match-three role-playing game entitled Empires and Puzzles. After the success of Empires and Puzzles, Small Giant was acquired by Zynga in December 2018.
