Q&A: SPARKPLAY READIES 'EARTH ETERNAL'
The success of the games industry has lead to a growing number of small studios forming with the help of venture-capital or private equity. One of those is San Francisco-based SparkPlay Media which is developing an unusual MMOG that is designed to use some of the more popular social networks as customer acquisition tools. DAM spent a few minutes chatting with CEO Matt Mihaly and VP of business development David Kaye to learn more about the new company’s focus.DAM: Matt, what was your inspiration for founding SparkPlay> Was it to build MMOs only?
Matt Mihaly: David and I were two of the founders of Iron Realms Entertainment back in 1996 which was a company dedicated to making niche text MUDs, the predecessors to today’s graphical MMOs. But business in that area kind of leveled off, and we felt the time was right to do something that was browser-playable with a very low barrier to entry for a quality 3-D product. Also, people were becoming a lot more accepting of micro-transactions in the West. So we started out trying to produce an MMO, which we called “Earth Eternal,” that used an isometric viewpoint. As time went on, we transformed the game into a fully 3-D environment. And that’s when we started getting approached by venture capitalists.
DAM: You must have been pleased about that.
Matt Mihaly: Not really. Our attitude was “no, not interested.” I’d always looked at VCs as “vulture capitalists,” having gotten a very negative impression of them during the dot.com boom when they made out like bandits and everyone else who bought stock on the public market suffered.
DAM: What made you change your mind?
Matt Mihaly: As I started meeting some of the VCs, I realized they were smart, competent people who were very convincing about what we would be able to do if we had more money … how we could accelerate our plans. And that started to get us excited. Then, with the growth of the Facebook platform, we realized that we could take the traditional MMO experience and …
use social networks to act as customer acquisition tools as well as opportunities to extend the game beyond the downloadable browser-based game into social networks as well.
At the time, not many people were thinking about that, I don’t believe, but it’s becoming an increasingly popular strategy. Gaia Online, for example, recently said that their social app is one of the top 10 traffic referrers for them now. And you’re seeing a lot of games companies looking to reach out to Facebook, to MySpace, and others in order to use them as customer acquisition tools.
DAM: What is the current status of the game? David Kaye: Well, we started looking for money for the game this last October, which was when we changed the name of our LLC to SparkPlay. We opened offices in San Francisco, started hiring, and the game is coming along. We expect to release it within the next year. But we’ll also be releasing other games before then. For example, we’ve released one social network app called “Super Villain” which frankly isn’t done all that well; it was really just a learning experience for us. We had never done a game on a social network before and we learned some lessons about how to build apps that take advantage of the native qualities of social networks as opposed to apps that are simply translating a multiplayer game onto a social network.
DAM: You’ve developed a proprietary technology called the Spark Platform. What does that do for your game?
Kaye: The Spark Platform essentially reduces the barrier of entry to a game. We can’t do strong 3D -- the kind of 3D we want to do -- without some sort of browser plug-in or without a download. Neither Flash, nor Java, nor Shockwave have the chops to do what we want to do. So the Smart Platform allows us to create MMOs that don’t stream but use what we call “anticipatory downloading.” There’s about a 4-meg install, which is very small compared to most 3-D games. That gets you character creation. As you’re creating your character, the first area is downloading in the background. As you’re running to that first area, the next area you’ll be going to will be downloading in the background. That allows the player to get into the game without experiencing the barrier to entry that large loadtimes present.
DAM: There are so many MMOs on the market right now and I’m sure you’re struggling to differentiate yours from the rest. What hurdles have you had in this over-saturated market?
Mihaly: There’s no question that there are a ton of competitors in the MMO market. But we’ll be giving gamers a place where they’ll want to hang out online; each player will receive a private space called a “grove” that will be theirs to customize with buildings, outdoor props, forests, even dragons. Players can group together if they want and create shared groves that act as a “base” for their “pack” or guild activities. We want players to feel that this is their space and this is where they can assert their independence with a place where they can let their personalities develop. So, aside from the RPG aspects of the game, that’s our focus -- a place that can be customized, where friends can create a sort of trophy case for what they’ve achieved in “Earth Eternal,” in our Facebook games, in our Flash games when we release them, and so on, because everything that we’re developing is connected together. There will be common currencies, common avatars …
DAM: Sort of a combination social network, RPG, MMO …
Mihaly: We call is a massively distributed world. You’ll have this world of games … but the experience will be distributed across multiple entry points so you can touch part of the game through a Facebook application, you can touch a much larger part of the world through “Earth Eternal,” you can choose just to use the social aspects of the game by hanging out in your grove, customizing your grove, engaging in mini-games with your friends in your grove … and then eventually you’ll be able to get into the game through Flash devices, through mobile, etc. We want to be on any method of communication that people are using to access content.
DAM: How do you intend to monetize this whole concept? Are we talking about just micro-transactions … or will there also be subscriptions, advertising …
Kaye: There will be some advertising but the vast majority of our revenue will come from virtual asset sales. We’ll never have subscriptions in the sense that you have to have a subscription to access the game. A subscription would be more like a recurring virtual asset sales purchase. In other words, you commit to buying X amount every month and you get it slightly cheaper for doing so. But not a subscription in the sense that it unlocks a game that you can’t play otherwise.
DAM: If someone actually wants to see “Earth Eternal,” is there a beta available yet?
Mihaly: Not yet. But you can got to our Web site where there are a few videos and some concept art. DAM: Anything else you’d like to tell the DAM readership?
Mihaly: Absolutely. Tell them we’re hiring.
Salary negotiations are a dance. There are times when the sparks fly and you're making out with your dance partner right there on the dance floor. And, sadly, there are other times when you're stepping all over each other's feet.
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