New social game studio launches in Vancouver
Pot Farm and Super Rewards team up to form Eastside Games
The developers behind Facebook game Pot Farm and monetisation service Super Rewards have joined forces to start Eastside Games, a new social game studio in Vancouver.
Jason Bailey, Super Rewards founder, is the CEO and majority owner. Josh Nilson and Galan Akin of Pot Farm fame will act as studio manager and creative director. The studio launched with $1.5 million in angel funding.
“If you have a good game with a one million monthly active users count, you can support a small studio,” Bailey said in an interview with Inside Social Games.
“The gold rush is over, but there is still plenty of gold in the hills if you can sit down, shut up, and build compelling games the fit the social/mobile formulas. We want to build ten games with 1 million-plus monthly active users over the next couple of years."
"From an enterprise value, I’d rather have ten one million-users games than one ten million-users game.”
The studios first game is Zombinis, due for release in Q3 on Facebook, and potentially Google+. Bailey explained the financial considerations behind the decision.
“Zuck and Jobs want a 30% cut, Google is talking about a much more fair 5%, but regardless, the safest place for us is to not be at the whim of one platform, high taxes, and draconian content restrictions.”
Eastside Games also owns the right to Pot Farm, which has around 90,000 monthly active users.