Meteor Games

Meteor Games
Type Private
Industry Computer and video game industry
Founded 2007
Headquarters Beverly Hills, CA, U.S.
Key people Zac Brandenberg (CEO)
Adam Powell (Co-Founder and CCO)
Donna Powell (Co-Founder and President)
Gary Cooperman (CFO)
Barry Collier (CTO)
Products Serf Wars, Island Paradise, Ranch Town, Neopets: Treasure Keepers
Employees 100
Website www.meteorgames.com

Meteor Games is an independent online gaming studio committed to developing fun, immersive, and innovative games spanning the web, social networks, and mobile devices. Formed in 2007 by Neopets founders Adam Powell and Donna Powell. [1]

According to a statement released by the company, its games will "cross the appeal of social networks, web-based casual games and traditional massively multiplayer online games." [2]

Contents

Company Overview

Meteor Games is an independent online gaming studio committed to developing fun, immersive, and innovative games spanning the web, social networks, and mobile devices. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Meteor Games was founded in 2007 by the creators of the Internet phenomenon[3] Neopets.

Meteor Games is headquartered in Los Angeles and has 100 employees.[4]

History

Meteor Games' first project was the MMO Twin Skies. A public demo of the game was shown at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle. [5] The game was originally planned to be in 3D, but was later changed to become a 2D Flash game.[6]

In the company's shift to the rapid growing social gaming market[7] it released several games based on internal intellectual property including: Island Paradise which became a large commercial success[8], Serf Wars, and Ranch Town.

Management Team

Games

Twin Skies

Meteor will be recommencing work on the game once Treasure Keepers is out of beta.[9]

Serf Wars

Serf Wars encourages players to transform their land from a rotten borough into a thriving fantasy kingdom. Gamers play arcade-style minigames, train an army, raise their population, and take part in quests as they expand their domains. Players can ally with their friends or wage war against them.

Island Paradise

Island Paradise is a social network-based application currently available on Facebook, where players create their own tropical island escape to play with friends, tend crops, plant trees and raise animals. In addition, players can visit other islands to help their neighbor's level-up faster – or to steal untended crops. Island Paradise was launched 25 August 2009. As of November 2009, Island Paradise had roughly 6.8 million monthly active users.[10]. After two years the game continues to be a commercial success.[8]

Ranch Town

Named one of the top gaining Facebook apps in early June 2010[11], Ranch Town gives desperados a chance to live – and play – in the iconic Gold Rush era of American history. Using popular “farming” game mechanics, players start with their own plot of land, a lonely cow and a handful of mining nodes and can stake claim to, cultivate and mine for gold to grow their wealth.

Neopets: Treasure Keepers

In conjunction with Neopets, Meteor developed a new game based in the world Adam and Donna first created. You can do quests on a board game-like map, sell items to NPCs in your shop, and earn achievements. These achievements sometimes come with a code for a free item on Neopets.

It was confirmed due to money loses and a plummet of users over the last few months along with laying off 90% of Meteor Games staff, Neopets: Treasure Keepers was shut down on Wednesday, December 14, 2011. [12]

Discontinued Games

References

  1. ^ "New MMO games startup, Meteor Games, to target youth demographic". Venturebeat.com. 2008-07-01. http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/01/meteor-games-founders-hope-to-duplicate-neopets-success-with-new-online-world/. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  2. ^ "Q&A:Neopets Creators Found Virtual World Dev Meteor Games". Gamasutra.com. 2008-07-01. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19236. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  3. ^ "NeoPets invade the Internet world". Cnn.com. 2003-01-07. http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/01/06/hln.hot.buzz.neopets/index.html. Retrieved 2011-06-23. 
  4. ^ "About Meteor Games". Meteor Games. 2010-10-29. http://www.meteorgames.com/about/. 
  5. ^ Twin Skies at PAX 08
  6. ^ "Twin Skies to change from 3D to 2D Flash MMO". 2009-05-31. http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/01/04/twin-skies-to-change-from-3d-to-2d-flash-mmo/. 
  7. ^ "Social Gaming Market to Surpass $1 Billion". 2011-01-12. http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008166. 
  8. ^ a b "How an Older Social Game Keeps Making Money". The Wall Street Journal. 2011-02-24. http://allthingsd.com/20110224/how-an-older-social-game-keeps-making-money/. 
  9. ^ "MINOR Twin Skies Update (From fan page)". 20 June 2011. 
  10. ^ "Neopets Creators See New Success on Facebook With Meteor Games". Inside Social Games. 2009-11-24. http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/11/24/neopets-creators-see-new-success-on-facebook-with-meteor-games/. 
  11. ^ "Madden Leads This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games". Inside Social Games. 2010-09-24. http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2010/09/24/madden-leads-this-weeks-list-of-emerging-facebook-games/. 
  12. ^ "Meteor Games axes almost all staff, shutters social Neopets". 2011-12-14. http://blog.games.com/2011/12/14/meteor-games-layoffs-neopets-closes/. 
  13. ^ "My Sweet Shop Will Close on June 30th". 2011-06-02. http://forums.meteorgames.com/showthread.php?8206-My-Sweet-Shop-Will-Close-on-June-30th. 
  14. ^ "Little Rock Pool Will Close on June 30th". 2011-06-02. http://forums.meteorgames.com/showthread.php?8207-Little-Rock-Pool-Will-Close-on-June-30th. 

External links