FunPlus

FunPlus
Industry video game industry
Founder Andy Zhong and Yitao Guan
Headquarters Beijing, China
Key people
  • Andy Zhong (CEO)
  • Yitao Guan (CTO)
  • Chen Qi (COO)
  • Dan Fiden (CSO)
Products
Number of employees
  • Increase200 (2014)
  • 400 (2016)
Website www.funplus.com

FunPlus (Chinese: 北京趣加科技有限公司) is a Chinese video and mobile game development company founded in 2010 by CEO Andy Zhong (Chinese: 钟英武) and Yitao Guan, with headquarters in Beijing, China.[1] Specializing on social gaming development and distribution, FunPlus has also offices in San Francisco, U.S.A, and has developed and published several games on Facebook as well as on Apple, Google, and Amazon Store.[1][2]

Some titles developed and published by FunPlus on Facebook are Family Farm and Royal Story, as well as Family Farm Seaside for mobile devices. The success of these games contributed to raising $12 million in Series A in 2012 and $74 million in Series B in 2014.[3]

According to an interview in 2014 to Chief Strategy Officer Dan Fiden, since its founding in 2010 FunPlus has achieved a yearly double revenue and to date continued to grow in revenue.[4] The company also doubled in size in 2 years, reporting 200 employees in Beijing and 10 in San Francisco in 2014, and 400 employees in Beijing and San Francisco in 2016.[3][5]

FunPlus appeared on the British media in 2016, after releasing a video made in collaboration with Dutch YouTubers Alexander Spoor and Sacha Harland, where the 2 famous YouTubers let people try organic food without mentioning it is food for birds, dogs and cats: the results of this social experiment showed that people would prefer to eat organic pet food rather than food made for humans, and several people also decided to eat more pet food after being told that it was not food for humans.[6]

After its success developing and publishing its own games on Facebook and mobile, FunPlus decided to invest on publishing games for game startups, and so in 2015 announced the opening of PublishingPlus. Its strategy is to provide game startups with a transparent system for publishing their games worldwide, and full support on game conceptualization and development.[7]

Games

Family Farm

One of the first FunPlus titles, Family Farm is a farming gaming published on Facebook.[8] Players start their game with a small farm, and through planting and harvesting crops and trees, feeding animals, and acquiring new machines and buildings, they can gain on Experience Points and level up, to unlock new features, missions, and game items. Family Farm has collected to date more than 3 million Likes on its Facebook fanpage, and is available in several languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, German, Thai, Dutch, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, and Arabic[9]

Family Farm Seaside

Another farming game, published for mobile devices on Apple, Amazon, and Google store, and available in 18 languages (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Korean, Dutch, Turkish, Thai, Indonesian, Russian, and Traditional and Simplified Chinese) Family Farm Seaside is not a mobile version of the aforementioned game Family Farm, but rather a standalone mobile version.[10]

Royal Story

With its combination of farming and RPG fantasy game, Royal Story differentiates itself from Family Farm and Family Farm Seaside by introducing an element of fantasy into its farming world. Starting the game with a small castle and the help from a gnome named Max and a turtle named Tortare, players have to complete quests where they fight the evil forces of the sorceress Altessa while expanding their kingdoms and unlocking new lands and game characters.

Available on Facebook, Royal Story can be played in 11 languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, and Thai.

In 2014, the studio lead of the time Gu Ji reported in an interview that since its launch in 2012, Royal Story reached by 2013 2 million Facebook Likes and by 2014 2 million DAU (Daily Active Users).[11]

Happy Acres

Fourth farm simulation game of FunPlus, Happy Acres is also published on Facebook and can be played in 12 languages, including Arabic, English, Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Thai, and Turkish. While the core elements of the game resemble those of the games previously mentioned, Happy Acres prides itself of having a bigger expansion system available, as well as comprehensive achievement system and a social system for trading raw resources with other neighbors.[12][13]

PublishingPlus

Established in May 2015, PublishingPlus has at its core encouraging independent game makers to contact FunPlus for development and/or publishing support. There is no requirements for team location or size, all free-to-play publishers are encouraged to apply to the resources provided by FunPlus. One the most attractive characteristics of collaborating with FunPlus is that startups retain their IP (Intellectual Property), as well as a 50% split of net revenue.[14][15]

CSO Dan Fiden reports that FunPlus will continue to make and publish games, and in 2016 FunPlus announced partnership with XII Braves, a mobile game developer based in Singapore and maker of Valiant Force, a Japanese-style strategy game where players use their heroes to fight against evil characters.[16][17] FunPlus will work on publishing Valiant Force worldwide, as well as manage the game localization, marketing, player engagement, customer support.[17]

FunPlus has also repeatedly appeared on the media due to another deal. In 2016 FunPlus announced a deal with Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville: FunPlus is cooperating with Margaritaville to release a mobile game for the latter on July 2016, during Comic-Con.[18] This will be Margaritaville's first casual game ever released and will target the existing 15 million physical visitors and 5 million online fans of the brand, while another game for Margaritaville was released in 2012 on Facebook, called Margaritaville Online, and closed after 2 years.[19][20]

Moreover, in order to bring game makers out and encourage them to showcase their games, PublishingPlus has organized since 2015 a yearly competition called IndiePlus, a Mobile Game Contest for developers to compete for a money prize of $10,000 and the fame of winning best indie game of the year.[21]

IndiePlus 2015

Winner of the 2015 IndiePlus competition is Progress by Tim Garbos. Progress, a puzzle game winner of several other competitions, namely Pocket Gamer's VBIP 2015, IGN's the Mix 2015, and EIG Showcase 2015, can be downloaded on the Apple Store and requires the latest iOS version.[22]

1st Runner Up is Dwelp by Alex Blaj. Dwelp is another puzzle game, where players have to connect dots of the same color to progress in the game. Dwelp is available on several stores, such as the Apple Store and the Microsoft Store.[23][24]

2nd Runner Up of IndiePlus 2015 is Prune by Joel McDdonald. Available on the Apple Store, Google Store, and Amazon Store, Prune also won TIME Game of the Year in 2015 and Best of 2015 by the Apple Store.[25][26]

IndiePlus 2016

After the success of IndiePlus in 2015, PublishingPlus organized the second IndiePlus in January 2016, and followed the same patter as the year before to award the winners during the GCD.[27] Winner of the 2016 IndiePlus Competition is Rodeo Stampede, by Featherweight Games. As of May 2016, the game is not available yet on any stores but is expected to be released on iOS and Android.[28]

1st Runner Up is Crashlands, by Butterscotch Shenanigans. Crashlands is an adventure game available on iOS, Android, and Steam.[29]

2nd Runner-up is Plug & Play, by Etter Studio. Plug & Play is short, surreal game that can be downloaded on iOS, Android, or Steam.[30]

References

  1. 1 2 CrunchBase (2016). "Funplus". CrunchBase. Retrieved 20 May 2016
  2. ↑ Amazon (2016). "AWS Case Study: FunPlus Game". Amazon Web Services. Retrieved 20 May 2016
  3. 1 2 Johnson, Eric (18 March 2014). "With Global Ambitions, Chinese Gaming Company FunPlus Raises $74 Million". Recode. Retrieved 9 May 2016
  4. ↑ GDC (February 2014). "Game Network Newsletter - February 2014". Amazon Web Services. Retrieved 5 April 2016
  5. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (February 17, 2016). "After the gold rush, FunPlus is starting a $50M game investment fund". VentureBeat. Retrieved 29 January 2016
  6. ↑ Logan, Ross (February 6, 2016). "YouTube stars trick public into eating organic produce - that's actually pet food" Mirror. Retrieved 25 May 2016
  7. ↑ Business Wire (May 11, 2015). "FunPlus Set to Change Role of Mobile Games Publisher via PublishingPlus". Business Wire. Retrieved 13 January 2016
  8. ↑ Facebook App Center (2016). "Family Farm". Facebook. Retrieved 7 May 2016
  9. ↑ Facebook (2016). "Family Farm Fanpage". Facebook. Retrieved 7 February 2016
  10. ↑ appPicker Reviews (27 June 2015). "Family Farm Seaside app review: become a successful farmer who runs the family farm". appPicker. Retrieved 12 March 2016
  11. ↑ Bantayan, Christine (28 October 2014). "Interview Social game company FunPlus shares about the impact of live-events, organic growth, and player feedback" Mobile Game Hive. Retrieved 7 May 2016
  12. ↑ Farm Games Free (2016). "Happy Acres" Farm Games Free. Retrieved 10 February 2016
  13. ↑ G. Cherie (2016). "Happy Acres" Girlsgames.com. Retrieved 10 February 2016
  14. ↑ Schick, Shane (September 8, 2015). "FunPlus explains its approach to bringing greater transparency to developer programs with PublishingPlus" FierceDeveloper. Retrieved 17 January 2016
  15. ↑ Tegos, Michael, edited by Meghna Rao (May 17, 2016). "Global mobile games publisher invests in young Singaporean studio" TechInAsia. Retrieved 23 May 2016
  16. ↑ Gerichhausen, Kim (May 17, 2016)."Funplus Announced Investment In Singapore Mobile Game Studio XII Braves" InsideGamesAsia. Retrieved 20 May 2016
  17. 1 2 Kongbakpao (May 17, 2016). "XII Braves Partners With FunPlus To Publish Valiant Force" Kongbakpao. Retrieved 20 May 2016
  18. ↑ Sutrich, Nick (February 21, 2016). "Margaritaville Mobile Game Launching This Summer" AndroidHeadlines. Retrieved 24 May 2016
  19. ↑ Reuters Media (February 20, 2016). "Faces & Names: Buffett’s Margaritaville to launch mobile game" Duluth News Tribune. Retrieved 22 May 2016
  20. ↑ Spangler, Todd (February 19, 2016). "Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville to Launch Mobile Game (Exclusive)" Variety. Retrieved 22 May 2016
  21. ↑ Yahoo! Finance (January 22, 2016). "Calling All Indie Game Developers: FunPlus Seeks the Best to Win the 2016 IndiePlus Award" Yahoo!. Retrieved 17 March 2016
  22. ↑ Progress (2016). "Progress" Progress. Retrieved 17 March 2016
  23. ↑ iTunes Preview (2016). "Dwelp" iTunes. Retrieved 10 January 2016
  24. ↑ Microsoft Store (2016). "Dwelp" Microsoft. Retrieved 10 January 2016
  25. ↑ IndiePlus (2016). "IndiePlus Hall of Fame 2015" IndiePlus. Retrieved 10 February 2016
  26. ↑ Prune (2016). "Prune" Prune. Retrieved 23 April 2016
  27. ↑ Dotson, Carter (January 21, 2016). "FunPlus' IndiePlus 2016 Mobile Game Contest Submissions Open" Toucharcade. Retrieved 23 April 2016
  28. ↑ Rodeo Stampede (2016). "Rodeo Stampede" Featherweight Games. Retrieved 23 April 2016
  29. ↑ Crashlands (2016). "Crashlands" Butterscotch Shenanigans. Retrieved 30 April 2016
  30. ↑ Plug & Play(2016). "Plug & Play" Etter Studio. Retrieved 29 April 2016
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