MochiLand

Announcing Mochi Social & the Mochi GAME Developer Fund

Ada Chen — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:38:25 +0000

During Jameson’s Flash Gaming Summit keynote yesterday, we made two important announcements for the Flash game development community.

Introducing Mochi Social

We’ve launched the private beta of Mochi Social, a platform which gives you all the tools you need to build easily distributable social games. Familiar actions such as inviting friends, sending gifts, or posting to a stream are quick and easy, and automatically work across social networks. Features of Mochi Social include:

Social features integrated directly into the game, such as friend invites, gifts and messaging
In game notifications to message all your fans, no matter where they are
A single API to access Facebook, MySpace and Twitter networks at once, with more networks to be integrated in the future. Reach an even wider audience by allowing your players to interact with their friends across multiple networks
Social graph and fully customizable data access and storage. Access gamer profile to get stats about them and your game, save or retrieve levels or other game information, and access gamer social graphs

Read more here: http://www.mochimedia.com/social

The Mochi GAME Developer Fund

We’ve announced a $10 million Mochi GAME Developer Fund dedicated to helping promising Flash and social game developers support their games through sponsorship, licensing and publishing deals. The fund will assist small Flash game development studios and independent game developers worldwide in building world-class games and businesses.

For details and application visit: http://www.mochimedia.com/fund

We are very excited to finally unveil both of these announcements as the product of many months of hard work from entire Mochi Media team. As always, we’re looking forward to your thoughts and comments. Please let us know what you think!

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Congratulations to The Mochis Flash Game Award Winners

Ada Chen — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:48:10 +0000

Following up on my re-cap of Flash Gaming Summit, congratulations to the winners of The Mochis! The Mochis Award Show this year recognized the best Flash games created in 2009. Winners were announced at Flash Gaming Summit yesterday in a live awards show, co-presented by Mr. Shen and Jim Greer of Kongregate. You can view the full list of finalists here or watch the recorded livestream of the award show here

Meet The Finalists

The Winners

Category: Best Flash Game Port

Canabalt onto iPhone by Semi Secret Software: Flash version – iPhone version

Category: Best Indie Game

The Company of Myself by 2DArray

Category: Best Game Art

Machinarium by Amanita Design

Category: Best Multiplayer Game

Zilch by Gaby Vanhegan

Category: Best Strategy Game

Shadez 2: Battle For Earth by Sean Cooper

Category: Best Puzzle Game

Rustyard by Nitrome

Category: Best Social Game

Bejeweled Blitz by Popcap

Category: Best Shooter Game

Captain Forever by Farbs

Category: Most Creative Game

Time Fcuk by Edmund McMillen

Category: Best Kongregate Kreds Game

Sacred Seasons by Emerald City Games

Category: People’s Choice Award

Cube Colossus by Lucidrine

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Session Recordings from Flash Gaming Summit

Ada Chen — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:15:13 +0000

Thanks to everyone who joined us at Flash Gaming Summit to make it a success! We had over 500 attendees registered who participated in two tracks. Visit the Flash Gaming Summit Website for the full program details.

Robertson Auditorium Presentations

Fisher Room Presentations

Photos

Hop on over to Flickr or watch the slide slow below.

Coverage

3D engine in 10 lines* – Seb Lee-Delisle’s 3D Particle code from FGS preso
Monetizing Your Game Outside of Sponsorship – Great panel transcript and recap by Adrian Crook of FreeToPlay.Biz
Haxe for Flash Development – GameDev.net
Adobe Tools and Services for Flash Games – GameDev.net
Pushbutton Engine 101 – Ben Garney – GameDev.net
Panel – 4 Keys to a Successful Social Game that All Game Developers Should Know – GameDev.net
Addicting News: Flash Gaming Summit (The First Three Hours) – AddictingGames.com blog
Flash Gaming Summit 2010 – Untold Entertainment
Flash Gaming Summit Report #1: The Longest Day – 8bitrocket
Top Flash games honored at The Mochis 2010 – Gamezebo
The 7 Elements Of Social Game Success – Social Times
Flash Indie Game Interweb Mash-up: March 9, 2010: Flash Gaming Summit Edition – 8bitrocket
So, How Was The Flash Gaming Summit? – ActiveDen
Flash Gaming Summit: Retrospect – Jmtb02

Until next year, follow @fgsummit on Twitter and also subscribe for updates to the mailing list (right side-bar) on the Flash Gaming Summit website.

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Watch Flash Gaming Summit Online

Ada Chen — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:36:40 +0000

We are super-excited to bring you the second annual Flash Gaming Summit tomorrow! This year’s conference is bigger and better than ever with two different tracks and a renewed focus on successful game design, development and monetization. We’re also really grateful for the support of our sponsors, including Adobe, Palm and FlashGameLicense for their help in pulling the whole event together.

For those of you watching online, I want to make sure you have all the details:

Robertson Room Streaming: http://partners.adobe.acrobat.com/flashgamingsummit/
Fisher Room Streaming: http://partners.adobe.acrobat.com/flashgamingsummit2/

Also, follow us on Twitter @fgsummit and tweet your comments with event hashtag #fgs.

Need to know which room to watch? Check out the conference program: http://www.flashgamingsummit.com/program.html

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A New Look for MochiGames.com

Ada Chen — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:28:09 +0000

This week, we’re rolling out an improved version of MochiGames.com which is only the first of many exciting new announcements to come in the near future (hint: please stay tuned during Flash Gaming Summit). In brief, we’ve improved MochiGames.com as part of our overall goal to make it easier for developers to connect with their gaming fans and discover more of the amazing games within the Mochi network.

The improved website showcases all distribution-enabled games on the Mochi Ads network, and is a valuable way for us to increase distribution for your games and websites. As a developer or sponsor, MochiGames.com is an opportunity for you to generate more traffic for your own website or direct traffic to your sponsor’s website. Games are not played on the site, but instead we send any gamers out from our website to the game play URL which you specify (details below on how to do this). In addition to this, in the future MochiGames.com will allow users to become “fans” of a developer, so you can communicate and interact directly with your most avid fans.

Key Features

MochiPop
One of our key experimental features is designed to make game discovery easy on MochiGames.com is MochiPop. MochiPop is a game popularity index which scores games based on a range of network data such how many plays the game has been getting. This will make it easier for users to discover new, hot and trending games in the network. This is something that we’re planning to tune over time, so please head over to www.mochigames.com and check out what you think of the games and their MochiPops. :) Based on your feedback, we’re planning to tune and improve the algorithm over time to reliably help users choose interesting and fun games for themselves.

Homepage
On the front page of MochiGames.com, we’ve showcased the most recent activity taking place in distribution-enabled games… Players also have access to their gamer stream consisting of everything going on with their friends and people they follow. Look for more changes to come regarding how you can use the gamer stream as a powerful and effective communication channel to interact with your fans.

Social Network Integration
We’ve launched today with Facebook, Twitter and MySpace integration so gamers can connect directly with those networks and find friends who are gaming as well. If you find new friends on MochiGames.com with exceptional taste and skills at discovering the best games, you can add them too and keep track of what the best games are on the Internet. This multi-network login system will be extended in the future to the rest of the Mochi platform, so you can use it across all of your games.

Gameplay on Your Site
Games on MochiGames.com don’t get played on the site, and instead we send gamer traffic out to your site through whatever custom game play URL that you set for your game. See below for detailed instructions on how to set your custom game play URL. Games played from MochiGames.com load with a special gamer bar above the play page for gamers to see game category and other information. Through this bar, we can encourage gamers to discover and play more of your games across the entire Mochi network.

Tell us what you think!

Our vision is for MochiGames.com to be a game showcase to help promote and distribute the best games on the Internet, so we’re looking forward to hearing what you think. Let us know by comment below or sending us an email at team@mochimedia.com!

Developers & Sponsors: Setting Your Custom Game Play URL

Log into your developer dashboard and select the game that you want to set. Click on Game Settings on the left side-bar, and select the edit button under the Game Profile sub-heading. Your custom game play URL can be set in the ‘Public URL’ field.

Frequently Asked Questions

What games are discoverable on MochiGames.com?
Gamers can find the entire catalog of distribution-enabled games on the Mochi Ads network through MochiGames.com. Games have their own profile pages and then can be played on the developer-specified URL.

How do I get my game on MochiGames.com?
Getting your game onto MochiGames.com is easy. Simply get your game approved and distribution-enabled through Mochi.

How do I set my custom game play URL?
Log into your developer dashboard and select the game that you want to set. Click on Game Settings on the left side-bar, and select the edit button under the Game Profile sub-heading. Your custom game play URL can be set in the ‘Public URL’ field.

Why don’t I see my game’s activity on the Recent Activity feed or search?
The recent activity feed shows the recent score submits and other activity on the network across distribution-enabled games. If we do not have permission to distribute your game, we will not make this game activity visible anywhere on the site. Distribution enable your game to make your site more discoverable.

Is a game’s MochiPop fixed?
No, your game’s MochiPop can change over time based on a variety of factors that we take into account. Particularly with brand new games, you can see a lot of variation in the MochiPop as it adjusts over time.

Why does my game not have a MochiPop?
Game MochiPops are regularly recalculated and refreshed, so hang tight if your game doesn’t have one yet.

What is MochiPop based off of?
A game’s MochiPop is based off its performance and history within the Mochi Media network. It is calculated taking into game performance factors such as number of plays over time. It is not necessarily a measure of how good the game is, but instead a measure of how popular the game is with the users on the Mochi Media network for the relative span of its lifetime. This is an experimental number, so please give us your feedback and we’ll continue to tune it over time to make it better.

Will MochiPop be available to publishers in the publisher feed?
Not right now, but we’re planning to make this available in the future.

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Fairytale Fights Winners Announced!

Alexander Shen — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:22:22 +0000

Here are the winners for the latest Mochi Media contest! Make sure to check them out when you have a chance!

Grand Prize Winner: Finding Fairytales: Castle Party by blu3bird
I really enjoyed this one due to the fun artwork and simplistic nature of what you had to do, but tapping into that urge to actually have to go do it. It reminded me of a quirky mix of Point Blank (aka Gunbullet outside of the US) and the stores with conveyor belts in the Gameboy version of Zelda. Though not using anything fairytale directly, it was a nicely executed game!

Runner Up: Ladybug! Ladybug! by makubex
This is a nursery rhyme I do remember from childhood. It was interesting to see how the developer implemented the story behind the nursery rhyme and implemented into a game of reaching the exit and avoiding all obstacles. I mean your home’s on fire, ladybug. I’m going to help you get there.

Best Use of Fairytale Character Honorable Mention: Pig Freaks by cartoon64
I particularly liked the art style and the direction the developer went with this one. As far as gameplay goes, it’s a simple “catch” game. Tying directly to the newly revamped storyline and reimagined characters was definitely a breath of fresh air and it nabbed the Best Use of Fairytale prize. To be honest, when I think of the Three Little Pigs, I’m often reminded of the Looney Tunes short Three Little Bops. It’s still my favorite to date.

Congratulations to the winners! While we’re planning for the next competition, make sure to check out the big SPIL Games & Mochi Media “Reality Bytes” Flash Game Contest going on right now! There’s $15,000 in total prizes up for grabs!

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Mochi Haiti Relief Fund donates $5,000 to Red Cross!

Alexander Shen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:17:58 +0000

Hello all!

Recently, Mochi Media has started a Haiti relief fund to provide donations to the American Red Cross. Developers were given the option to share earnings from their games with the relief fund with Mochi Media matching that amount. All I can say is that the generosity of the developers in the network is truly astounding!

From donations across over 50 developers, we will be donating a total of $5,000 to the American Red Cross to help aid the efforts in Haiti. We couldn’t have done this without you or your support. We’d like to extend our appreciation to everyone and all the help you’ve provided!

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“The Reality Bytes Flash Game Contest” announcement!

Alexander Shen — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:11:58 +0000

The fine folks at SPIL Games have teamed up with Mochi Media to bring you the year’s first big contest! Welcome to the Reality Bytes Flash game contest! Here you will have three months to create a game of the simulation or resource management genre!

The contest will be running from February 2nd, 2010 to April 30th, 2010.

Check out the prizes! There’s $15,000 waiting for you!

First Place – $7,000
Second Place – $4,000
Third Place – $2,000
Honorable Mention (x2) – $1,000 each

Please check out the official contest page for all the information you need and official rules!

Good luck!

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Log from 1/28 Live Community Chat with Jameson and Bob

Ada Chen — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:34:42 +0000

Thanks to the folks who joined us for our live Mochi Media community chat yesterday with our founders Jameson Hsu and Bob Ippolito.

Jameson and Bob addressed all sorts of questions from feature roadmap, all about Mochi, and the recent news about our acquisition by Shanda Games. If you missed it, view the chat log here! Thanks again and feel free to contact us if you have any other questions, we’re always listening :)

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Meet Mochi at Casual Connect Hamburg Feb 8-10

Ada Chen — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:36:15 +0000

A few of us from the Mochi Media team will be attending Casual Connect Hamburg in a few weeks, and we’re really looking forward to the event.

We’ll have a booth there and also speaking at two different sessions:

How to Make Free-to-Play Pay! The Inner Workings of Virtual Goods and Game Economies

Time:Friday, February 12 @ 1pm
Speaker: Josh Larson

Trends in Online Flash Games

Time: Friday, February 12 @ 3pm
Speakers: Ada Chen & Alexander Shen

Flash Games Meet-up

If you’re planning to be at the conference or just live in the area, we’d love to meet up! We’re also planning to organize an informal Flash games get-together on Friday. Please send me a note at ada{@}mochimedia.com to coordinate!

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