The launch of the Facebook Platform at last year’s F8 set off a social development explosion. SGN started offering games on the FB platform in February 2008; our rapid growth is a perfect example of how powerful the social graph truly is. Gaming is a natural extension of social activity, and the ability to play and share games has gotten us 1 billion page views, 54 million installs and nearly 1.1 milion daily active users across Facebook, Bebo, hi5, and MySpace. That’s in 5 months.
I took part in a panel discussion on the topic of building a business on the Facebook platform which put this all in perspective. Going back to the beginning, when we released WarBook on Facebook, we saw that people were selling WarBook currency on Ebay. Our development strategy has always had a business case baked in - branding, virtual, advertising - they’ve all shown great results for us.
That said, I still feel that the most important way to grow a successful business is to always focus on the user. The happiness of the user, the user experience and engagement should be paramount. Looking at Facebook Connect - it has massive potential to invert the whole social graph. None of us can predict how this is going to alter the way we build businesses on the social web. Tremendous opportunity for developers and entrepreneurs is right around the corner - if the product you are developing isn’t helping your user, entertaining them or holding their interest you’ll miss out.
The Zuckerberg keynote at this year’s F8 promised more openness and more accessibility on and off the Facebook platform. Through Facebook Connect you will be able take your social graph with you, onto other sites, with a single login. Your actions there will show up in your Facebook news feeds, sharing your external and internal updates with everyone in your network.
But Zuckerberg also talked about new policies and restrictions on what outside products will be allowed to run on the platform, including certification procedures and ranking. Yes, it’s good for the users to have the best apps up front and center but then, there’s only so much room at the top. Mark did not address gaming at all in his keynote and we’ll be interested to see how the new FB system works for games. We support the young and innovative game developers who’s games are addicting - but if they have to deal with restrictive invite and sharing policies they’re at a disadvantage. SGN will be continuing the dialogue with FB to make sure that social games get top billing. The numbers say it all - give the people what they want.
I feel a hugh slap in the face from sgn now that you have said that you will not be focusing on Warbook Rise of the Infernals Most of us that play ROTI have come from Warbook Classic and made it what it is today and once you brought out a new version of this game in ROTI. We have falling in love with it, yet you have not allowed us to bring in the hoards of people that we did for Warbook Classic by not finishing the game the reason why there are not that many players on ROTI is simple you have not finished the game and didn’t fix invite to allow all the players to send invites out. I have suggested to all that are playing ROTI that if this is the case that We should never play another SGN game, this is not how a business treats its customer base the ones who are making you the money buy playing your games. Plain and simple, as others as soon as the thread went up are heart broken and have lost all faith in SGN and Loyalty to SGN
Why don’t you guys just release the copyright to Roti and let the players find another developer. Since you have no interest in the game and there are alot of players who have spent alot of time on the game.
ROTI needs to be worked on. I understand warbook classic has more players, but if ben focused on ROTI it would grow exponentially. Just look how much more active it has become since he made some minor changes only. ROTI has the potential to be 10 times the game of classic, and that means more players, and more money for you guys! FIX ROTI!
OR
let somebody else fix it and release the rights!
Personally, I find that focusing on warbook classic, a game that is a cheater’s goldmine, will only leave a sour impression for the people who enjoy playing the game for fun.
There is no skill in buying gold to rise up higher, however there is skill in finding ways to help your friends grow, and developing teamwork.
I have quit warbook classic because everyone there is too full of trying to be on top rather than playing the game as it should have been played.
Rise of the Infernals has so many anti cheating systems worked into it that it makes the game more of a test of skill and cooperation. That skill and cooperation is a valued aspect of the game to me, and in classic warbook, that is gone and dead.
If you are looking for profit maybe you should develop your unfinished games more than ones that have already died.
Please continue to develop ROTI. It is far superior to WBC, but as it is unfinished people are hesitant to play. Anyone who enjoys WBC would enjoy a finished version of ROTI.
I am very disappointed that Roti is not being developed like it should be. It is three times the game that WB is. Yet something as simple as invite friends does not work and no effort is made by SGN to have the programer work on this game. WB sure has some issues; but we mostly all come from WB and have mostly done all we wanted to on that game. We went to Roti looking forward to the more complex game we were promised and have stayed trying to deal with the broken game waiting for the fixes and improvements.
I for one will not be playing a new SGN game if Roti is not developed further
I think thats what classic is, it’s a very easy game, and leaves little to think about, click attack rise, alc click attack etc….
Roti is different its strategies, strength and weaknesses of each class hero items, power ups, it would be a shame to see a better game go to waste, why not entice people over to roti and allow Ben or ‘a n other’ to work on it
I know find classic boring, its bland and I get bored too easily with it..
Enhance roti PLEASE…
Hello,
I find it disconcerting that you as an organization have decided to essentially abandon all development on Warbook:Rise of the Infernals. Sure, numbers and especially profit are what drives a market. However, in essence the reason why Rise of the Infernals has been in decline is all your own doing. You promise weekly updates, at least a soundboard to have players give their input, and it is abandoned within a few weeks, and we as a collective see no sign of activity by a developer for over a month and a half. All of the dynamics that you promised in Rise of the Infernals to both differentiate it from Warbook, and enhance the overall experience have been abandoned. Even the developer you tasked in creating and refining Rise of the Infernals abandoned the application long ago, and when you tasked another developer to develop the same application, you essentially pull his support as well within a few weeks.
Every user has been exceedingly patient with SGN as a whole, and the developers in particular about this application. There is plenty of support for Rise of the Infernals, and if you are so driven by profit, there are many ways to gain this. First, advertising and marketing. Even though it’s unpopular, you can use banner ads on ROTI to generate revenue. You can expand the application to other sites such as Bebo, or even Myspace. This would generate new users (numbers). One of the main things you can do is market ROTI to the War Book Classic (WBC) community. ROTI is a dynamic application, with much more potential than WBC. Offer incentives for existing WBC users to create and maintain ROTI accounts. Promise that you will update regulary, listen to your consumers, and deliver on your promise. Users will flock to ROTI if you simply advertise, maket and support it. Us users can only do so much to keep it afloat, you, Social Gaming Network has to maintain a product worth playing.
Hoping you give serious thought to my recommendations,
Justin Bucurel
In my opinion, SGN’s current decision to abandon all work on ROTI and direct the developer’s energies to Warbook Classic is extremely disappointing, and slightly disconcerting. As others have said, even an unfinished ROTI is twice the game Waarbook can possibly be. It has the potential to be something even greater, and would be by now if it had not already been abandoned once. If you want evidence, look at the fact that the game still has players, even after a few months of empty promises and absolutely no development.
That being said, I do realize that in the interest of maintaining revenue, work must be done on the original Warbook. But to forsake something with such potential as ROTI simply reeks of a lack of creativity and interest in anything new. If this temporary abandonment of ROTI becomes permanent, I will not be playing any new SGN games, and will look elsewhere for new games.
I left Warbook Classic the minute ROTI came out and even in its unfinished state I still enjoy ROTI daily. I have not been able to go back to Classic because I find it to be a tremendously inferior game impregnated with cheaters and multi accounts.
Multiple accounts are the main reason why so many people are breaking the Facebook policy of having a single account. I will also add that there is little to no benefit for multiple accounts in ROTI
ROTI has much more potential than Classic ever will and I find it very disappointing that SGN has removed the programmer from developing the game further.
If you want a social networking game such as your company name implies. Please continue to develop ROTI because it is much more geared towards friends helping friends over your Classic platform which is more geared towards cheaters cheating on cheaters.
I have tried all of your other games and all fail in comparison to the unfinished game of ROTI. Please don’t abandon it.
Quiet Simply YOU GUYS SUCK.
1/ A business DOES NOT and SHOULD NOT EVER treat their customers like this, it is a disgrace!
2/ ROTI started with soo many DAU, but they dropped due to NO UPDATES to the GAME.
3/ Since BEN came along and has updated some changes the DAU increased. Its quiet simple, FINISH THE GAME and you will see DAU increase.
4/ Dont leave your ‘LOYAL’ customers hanging for dead.
5/ WBC is all about cheating your way to the top, and due to that i have seen many players (including myself) stop playing WBC.
6/ ROTI is by far a better game, all it needs is some work put into it to a/ fix current bugs and b/ expand on the game!
SGN would be unwise to abandon Warbook: Rise of the Infernals. If SGN management is concerned about the decline in active users in ROTI, it should look closely at what CAUSED that decline. It was NOT because the app was no good. It was not even because it was unfinished. The decline in users is due to the lack of commitment by the then developer, TJ. Promises were made and broken, and that is possibly the worst thing a developer can do to a game player.
If work on ROTI was resumed, with a clearly laid out roadmap, and a reasonable update schedule, players would return.
The community has very good ideas about how to improve the game. There are huge lists of spells and features to choose from, submitted by the players.
At the VERY least if ROTI is killed, it would be nice to see some of it’s better features implemented in Classic, and current ROTI players could be enticed to return to Classic with some kind of ingame reward.
the biggest complaint I hear from Warbook Classic players regarding ROTI and why they’re not playing it is simply because they’re waiting for it to be finished.
finish the game and make it a success.
Well done, SGN, on taking such a bold step forward. It is indeed a wise move to stop developing ROTI:Rise of the infernals altogether. Given that there are only 2300 people playing it, I really don’t think that it is capable of generating any revenue whatsoever for you guys. In fact, I’d think that it is doing the reverse really. As TJ has already once told us, ROTI is running on the revenue that WBC has made, ie, it hasn’t actually made any money on its own.
In my opinion, however, WBC should also be eventually scrapped, since the numbers there are dropping as well. You could, of course, in the final few moments of WBC’s existence, rake out all the cash that you can from it before letting it die. Yes, let it be a cash cow.
After these two games have died, the next good move would then be to sunder take all that money that you guys have earned and run, sundering apart the entire SGN in the process.
Just like in a casino, where one needs to know when to walk away from the table, you guys should too before its too late.
Oh, and don’t sell the rights to the game to anyone else… unless of course their willing to fork out large sums of money for it. Otherwise, just kill both games and put an end to this once and for all.
I couldn’t imagine a better finale myself.
I am quite disappointed to hear that ROTI will not be finished. I came from WBC excited and expecting a wonderful game in ROTI. It is already so much better that WBC will ever be. More complex and has a ton of really great ideas to it. The ROTI family has hung on threw all of the broken stuff, all of the changes and undeveloped stuff, and even staff changes. And NOW we hear it won’t be finished?? What a crock. I will not go back to playing WBC, and I will not be playing any other games from you guys if you don’t finish ROTI. I would hate to devote so much time and effort in to something your likely to change your minds on. If you aren’t loyal to the players, don’t expect loyalty from us. Many more classic players would come over when ROTI is complete. Many of them have tried it and like it so far, but don’t have the patience to try to build a kingdom based on what MIGHT happen in the future. We pioneers on the other hand are enjoying putting our ideas in, kind of like were helping to build something that has the potential to be great.
Please continue this game. Let all of our hard work and our excitement not be for nothing.
I left Classic once roti was released. ROTI has a lot of potential and it is far more interesting than Classic. I know a lot of players will start/ continue playing ROTI if SGN would take some thought into completing this game. As u can see, the number of players have increase since there are updates coming in.
I did try and play Classic again. Frankly, I will never play Classic anymore. Roti is far more challenging and exciting than Classic. Many has left ROTI due to the lack of updates and felt this game was abandoned by the developer.
Develop the game as I know a lot of players that r waiting to play ROTI once it is completed. I will definitely not be playing anymore SGN games if SGN decides to abandon ROTI.
What you guys are doing to RotI is obscene.
RotI has greater potential than any of your other games.
Saving RotI = More players = Money for you… I mean that’s why you’re focusing on WBC, and ditching RotI, right?
Heck I downloaded Firefox just so I didn’t have to put up with the stupid ads with the ad blocker.
In short: Work on RotI more, or you’ll lose revenue.
ROTI was supposed to be the type of game that was to bring warbook in general to a new level of popularity. What ever happened to all the hype for this game? The reason of having trouble finding a replacement is bogus. When a social network let alone a gaming social networks fails to deliver for their fans, it just makes their argument look so weak. If SGN really cares about their fans, then ROTI would have already been completed given all the hype it received. I am a fan of warbook but failing to deliver like this and with those reasons just makes your reasonings very weak. The only people that really loose here are us, the fans.
Warbook RoTI had it’s run, and failed miserably.
U should scrap RoTI completely, and begin development of a different game, similar to Warbook and Warbook RoTI, but superior to both
I’ll continue playing ROTI even if the developer stops working on it. I’ll never ever go back to WBC even if there is a restart. It is just because ROTI is a far far superior version of warbook and all it needs is just a week’s dedicated work from the developer to fix the ‘invite friends’ features. Alliance banks and nexus et al can wait. The game can be played without these. But invite friends is something which needs to be fixed to bring in more people to ROTI.
I’m sure that the ROTI community will continue playing this game and will not go back to WBC at all, whatever be the developments happening there.
It only needs a small investment from SGN to make this game bigger than WBC in terms of active players and it is a shame that SGN is not able to think in these lines.
If there is a need, SGN can give up the rights over ROTI and have someone else take over. I too will definitely not be playing anymore SGN games if SGN decides to abandon ROTI.
I have played WBC for a year and was a beta tester for ROTI. Many of the good players have quit WBC and are now playing ROTI. In WBC my character is in vacation. WBC is a game with simple mathematics behind it and it’s too easy to cheat and ruin the game. If you google on warbook and scripts you can start cheating within 1 hour…
I will continue playing ROTI and hope that you put Ben back so the promised updates will be there.