No Country For Old Games? | Magnus Alm, Johan Peitz

Audio & slides (45 MB) Few casual games have made a successful transition to social networks. Simply porting a game wont do the trick. Casual games developer Johan Peitz and Magnus Alm, CEO of the advergame studio Muskedunder Interactive, recently took a downloadable casual game to Facebook. The simple but elegant arcade style game Icy Tower was released in 2001 by Johans company Free Lunch Design. It has to this day been downloaded over 20 million times. Free Lunch Design had the downloadable game and a large fanbase. Muskedunder added world class Flash development and the experience of how to reach many users in a short time frame. The result was an overnight success. Icy Tower gained over 500,000 users in the first five weeks alone. The presentation will deliver insights on how to redesign a game for social networks without losing and even enhancing key success factors. Attendants will learn the key elements of social game design to consider when entering this market by redesigning an existing game. What features to keep and which to avoid. How to cross promote and gain momentum for both the downloadable title and the social version of the game. Johan and Magnus will also deliver insights about the workflow associated with a service rather than a product. Delivered at Casual Connect Europe, February 2010

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Magnus ALM (email) Magnus is an entrepreneur at heart. He is co-founder and CEO of Muskedunder Interactive, a flash game developer focusing on advergames, casual games and social games. Advergame clients include McDonalds, Pepsi, Paramount and Disney. Casual titles includes the hit game Icy Tower with over 20 million downloads. Muskedunder also own and operates the casual games portal freelunchdesign.com, which reached over a million visitors during June 2009. Muskedunder Interactives business model is a mix of contracted work, ad revenue and end user payments. Magnus truly believes that with a passionate development team and some business skills you can achieve anything. Working with clever digital distribution, finding new monetization methods and free to play business models are at the core of his everyday work.

Johan PEITZ (email) With a background in computer science and engineering, Johan has been involved in digital games for more than a decade. In 1998 Johan founded the game studio Free Lunch Design, releasing more than a dozen very popular casual games, including the internet cult classic Icy Tower. During the years Johan has also researched game design and taught simulation engines at university level. Currently Johan acts as Technical Director at Muskedunder Interactive, a premium flash game studio, which he also co-owns.