VentureBeat » Moshi Monsters

GamesBeat weekly roundup: GLaDOS in Pacific Rim, more Black Ops II zombies, and Portal on a calculator

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:46:24 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, the voice of GLaDOS from the Portal series shows up in the trailer for the movie Pacific Rim, Disney buys South Korean game developer Studio Ex, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II gets more zombies, now on the Nuketown map.

You’ll also find reviews for Uncharted: Fight for Fortune and Guardians of Middle-Earth.

News:

Mobile News:

Previews:

Interviews:

Reviews:

Pieces of flair:

Filed under: Games

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McDonald’s includes toys of Moshi Monsters’ virtual pets in Happy Meals

Jeffrey Grubb — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:32:56 +0000

Nothing marks the success of a children’s franchise quite like earning the coveted position as the toy included with a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

Today, virtual-pet website Moshi Monsters is announcing that collectible figurines of its characters are part of the fast-food restaurant’s famous children’s meal. McDonald’s will offer one of eight “Moshlings” beginning Friday. The gaming site is also planning to introduce its newest character during this promotion.

Each Happy Meal also comes with a free three-day membership to the Moshi Monsters website.

Moshi Monsters is the modern reincarnation of the Tomagotchi phenomenon from the 1990s. MoshiMonsters.com has over 70 million registered members who have adopted a monstrous pet to raise as their own. The franchise extends beyond the web, with books, games for the Nintendo DS, and musical albums all aimed at children 6 to 12.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat Weekly Roundup

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:14:53 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, game developer 38 Studios laid off its entire staff after ongoing financial troubles, BioWare laid off a number of people working on Star Wars the Old Republic, Take-Two faces a larger than expected financial loss, and Blizzard announces its first patch for Diablo III.

You’ll also find previews for Defiance, Kingdom Hearts 3D, and When Viking’s Attack.

The DeanBeat: Playstudios launches myVegas social casino games with MGM as a partner

Blizzard announces first Diablo III patches and delays the real-money auction house

Kingdom Hearts 3D welcomes casual fans back into the series (hands-on preview)

Bringing back Tomb Raider: Our need to fill the old archeologist’s shoes

38 Studios lays off its entire staff

Sony’s When Vikings Attack offers goofy street combat (hands-on preview)

Konami kicks off pre-E3 character battle (gallery)

GameFly buzzes into mobile publishing

GREE mobile gaming platform enters open beta, plans two new Moshi Monsters games

Diablo III sets launch-day record

ShootMania Storm is geared for mass, competitive gaming

Take-Two CEO says product delays signal an “unwavering commitment to quality”

Marvel Heroes’ online game world will let you smash evil for free

SOE announces free-to-play shooter, Bullet Run…which sounds a lot like Super Monday Night Combat

What does a game “producer” do, exactly? (exclusive)

Plant a money tree in Farmville as Zynga and American Express launch new rewards program

ArenaNet president discusses careful monetization of Guild Wars 2, the least greedy Western MMO

Twilight Zone table to rise again in Pinball Arcade with the help of crowdfunding

Origin offers 90 days of free distribution to successful Kickstarter games

VentureBeat:

Video game series contract will be tough for Bungie, easy for Activision

Square Enix’s Mike Fischer says Activision was “crazy” to abandon True Crime: Hong Kong (interview)

Gaming art for your Facebook Timeline (Part 5: Social and Mobile)

Nvidia expects a “breakout year” for mobile chips

Nvidia CEO describes strategic importance of cloud graphics

THQ releases Metro Last Light cinematic story video

Seagate agrees to acquire LaCie for at least $186M

Take-Two disappoints Wall Street with larger-than-expected loss

Activision reacts to fan response to Call of Duty: Black Ops II (video interview)

BioWare lays off staff on Star Wars: The Old Republic, EA to shift employees [updated]

Trion’s Defiance is one story told in an online game and SyFy TV show (hands-on preview)

YoYo Games unveils GameMaker: Studio for cross-platform development

RocketFrog wants to revolutionize online gambling with real-world prizes

How Ghost Recon is gunning to take over the hardcore and social markets (interview)

Are You a Human replaces annoying CAPTCHAs with games

Game of Thrones Ascent aims to please fans with a Facebook game (exclusive)

Filed under: Games

GREE mobile gaming platform enters open beta, plans two new Moshi Monsters games

Omri Petitte — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:26:23 +0000

Tokyo-based mobile gaming company GREE announced today the open beta launch of its social network tool suite for iOS and Android devices.

GREE’s existing Japanese platform, which reaches 230 million players worldwide, provides developers a plethora of social features for their mobile titles, such as leaderboards, Achievements, and a friend invite/request infrastructure.

In April 2011, GREE acquired social platform OpenFeint for $104 million. In early May 2012, it bought San Francisco, Calif.-based developer Funzio for $210 million. Both purchases signified GREE’s move for a stronger international presence.

“The GREE platform has been built with the goal of creating a worldwide developer and player community,” GREE senior vice president of product Ethan Fassett said in a statement. “We believe the GREE platform offers developers the tools to deliver unique and customized games to an engaged, global player base. We are looking forward to seeing the adoption of these new mobile-social features and helping innovate the mobile games space.”

GREE plans a bilingual English and Japanese launch of its platform in over 60 games by September 2012.

London-based developer Mind Candy also announced the upcoming release of two new Moshi Monster titles using GREE’s platform in the last quarter of 2012. The kid-friendly monster-collecting game touts more than 60 million registered users since its April 2008 release.

“Our fans love tablets and smartphones, so we’re really excited to take our much loved characters and stories to these platforms,” Mind Candy founder Michael Smith said. “GREE has achieved phenomenal success, and we’re looking forward to working with them on these two games.”

Filed under: Games, Mobile

With 32M kids online, Moshi Monsters invade toy market (video)

Dean Takahashi — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:00:58 +0000

Hybrid models of online games and toys are getting fashionable. Yesterday, Mind Candy announced that its Moshi Monsters online game characters are now moving into the real world in the form of toys.

Michael Smith, chief executive England-based Mind Candy, said in an interview that more than 32 million kids have registered to play Moshi Monsters since the company launched the online game in 2008.

Akin to Pokemon, Moshi Monsters are cute and collectible monsters that children can adopt as pets. They’re targeted at youngsters ages 7 to 12. The phenomenon has grown so big that Mind Candy decided to authorize a line of toys to be launched later this year.

Other hybrid online-toy companies include FunGoPlay, which was announced on Monday. Rovio, maker of the popular mobile game Angry Birds, has also launched a line of toys based on the bird and pig characters in its games. That’s good for branding, but it’s usually not a huge contributor to the bottom line. Eventually, though, the most popular franchises can be turned into TV shows or movies, which are more lucrative.

With Moshi Monsters, Mind Candy has had its hands full. But it’s actually the company’s second business effort. The first one was Perplex City, an alternate reality game that combined trading cards and online puzzles. It turned out to be a failure. So Mind Candy “pivoted,” (like Jason Calacanis talked about in shifting Mahalo into a new business) into a new business.

Check out our video interview with Smith, who attended the Digital Life Design conference in Munich.

Disclosure: The Digital Life Design conference paid my way to Munich so I could moderate a panel. Our coverage of the conference remains objective and independent.

Filed under: Business, Games