Eidos' Ian Livingstone: Facebook games will have a 'second boom' [Interview]

Mr. Ian Livingstone is no salesman. He's one of the men behind Warhammer creator (and Dungeon and Dragons' envoy to the UK) Games Workshop and the Life President of Eidos Interactive. So, why did Livingstone recently invest in UK-based Appatyze, a social games advertisement platform? If you hadn't noticed, most social games are not enjoying exposure on Zynga's scale, and something needs to be done about it. To Livingstone, one of the men behind Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider, advertising might be a way to increase the amount of successful developers and enamored social gamers elsewhere. Livingstone recently took a short break from an event at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)--which now honors our favorite past time, video games--to explain why he invested in Appatyze and to give us predictions for the medium from an industry icon's perspective.

For someone who co-founded two of the arguably most influential games companies, why did you decide to get into social games advertising rather than the games themselves?

Games have been my life-I love playing games, I love the industry. I also do a lot of investing in start up companies. At my ripe old age of 61, I'd rather put my finger in everybody else's pies rather than make things myself. (Laughs.) I get a lot of people asking me to invest or to advise or to sit on boards of games companies. I think it's a very exciting time in the games industry-it's almost like the second Golden Age of games has arrived.

And around that space, there are opportunities and challenges: 'How do these content creators who had historically relied on publishers get visibility? How are their products discovered?' And one of the solutions, I would suggest, is advertising. And Appatyze, it allows developers to sell their ad inventory to the highest bidder, and in turn they can then spend that revenue advertising their app on other peoples' applications. So, it's good for advertisers and it's good for developers. It's a very elegant solution-the people behind it I've known for some time, and they're respected industry veterans with a great track record and fantastic integrity. I look at things long and hard before I put my name to it, and I'm very excited to be associated with Appatyze. And at GDC, I spoke to a number of industry veterans and legends, and when I talked to them about it they were also very excited. I think it's got a great chance to succeed.

AppatyzeWhy did you decide upon backing a more hands-off, auction house-style approach to selling advertising rather than directly selling ads to social game companies?

My expertise is designing and creating games. I think about games at almost tragic proportions. So, a lot of my time is thinking about elegant games mechanics, why people play games and just being so delighted that such a huge proportion of the population now plays games. Way back in the early days of games, when the Atari 2600 came around in the U.S., 40 percent of people were playing games. They were accessible, they were intuitive and they were a social experience. Games became harder over the years with some of the consoles with a complex controller, and it was daunting to many people.

But now games become social, of course with the Wii in the living room and social games on Facebook and social media devices like the iPhone and iPad allow huge amounts of people to enjoy the experience of games. It's not always complex, it's something for everybody now: male or female, hardcore or casual, there's something for everybody to enjoy. I would personally enjoy concentrating on making games myself, but this opportunity to be with Appatyze I just thought was such a great solution. I couldn't say no to it.

Now, about increasing potential game discovery, because that's been a pretty big problem in the past few months for Facebook games. Do you think that Appatyze will do good to increase the amount of games that get exposure?

Well, it's certainly going to help developers. If they allow the install of the Appatyze bar, then of course, they're going to come up on the radar through Appatyze and therefore be able to either take revenue from advertisers or they can use Appatyze to get consumers to play with their app. Developers are motivated by money as well, and they can start earning money really within the the 15 minutes of signing up. And they do keep up to 80 percent of their advertising revenue generated through the system.

You mentioned that you would be more interested in creating games yourself. Do you think this is an industry where you think you'll be staying for a long time?

Social games? Yeah, I mean, it's extraordinary what has happened. What happened on the first of December of last year when Zynga launched CityVille and 44 days later they had 100 million MAUs (monthly active players); these are extraordinary numbers. It's another great example of why games resonate with humans. There's something there for everybody to play and social games plays a major part in making games, if you like simple and socially acceptable.

I don't mean to say that triple-A games on consoles are going to disappear, but I think there's going to be a polarization and the rich will get richer. So, you're more likely to see the next Call of Duty sell 35 million units next time and FIFA will sell 20 million units. The best in class will get even more successful, but the middle ground will disappear as people play the best in class on their consoles, and they'll be snacking on iPhone games or games on Facebook.

OK, so what I'm getting is your prediction of the future is that there will just be polarity between triple-A games and the casual/social games, so-

At the moment, we all know there's a larger proportion of females, the soccer moms as you call them in the US [playing Facebook games]. I think when Unity [3D Engine] or Unreal gets a greater handle on the Facebook environment, I think you'll see production values rise and people who haven't played social games but have played console games will also enjoy games on Facebook.

Ian Livingstone with Lara Croft
What are your thoughts on the social gaming industry now? What's missing there that needs to be filled?

I think at the moment even if they're social games, they're not really social in the true sense. There's no real time, there is asynchronous movement at the moment and therefore asynchronous social linking. When it becomes real time and with mechanics drawn from traditional games, I think there's going to be a second boom. But in the meantime, you can't argue with 270-odd million playing games on Facebook. I just think it's going to be an higher proportion going forward, and more traditional gamers will play.

You mentioned that you were interested in designing your own games or that you can venture out on your own, regardless of your position with Eidos. So, are there any interests in bringing Eidos into the program you've backed, Appatyze?

We haven't discussed that yet, [but] I'm hoping that at some point we can take some of Eidos' great portfolio of IP and migrate it to Facebook. Also, one thing I'm sure of is that EA will be there sooner rather than later, and that some of their brand IP is certainly going to translate well onto Facebook. I would hope that one day that Tomb Raider, Hitman and Deus Ex and other Eidos stable IP will also be available on Facebook.

[Image Credit: Kotaku]

Do you think good advertising is the answer to lesser-known games (and their developers) gaining more exposure? Which Eidos property do you hope will become a Facebook game?

Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter goes live on Facebook

Released previously only in a private beta, Dungeons & Dragons Heroes of Neverwinter has now officially gone live on Facebook. Developed by Atari and set in the Neverwinter realm, the game already has 166,000 monthly players from its time in beta, but if you'd like to join them, here's a taste of what you can expect.

When first starting Heroes of Neverwinter, you'll be allowed to create a character using either set templates of a Fighter, Wizard, Cleric or Rogue (each with their own stats and specialties), or can create a custom character to customize your gender, stats, class, race and more. In this, the game can immediately start out being as complex or as straightforward as you like.

Upon launching into the game proper, you're met with a story of amnesia and will be introduced to Edrick, a scout that was guiding you on your way to Neverwinter before a pack of Goblins knocked you unconscious. Through this introduction, you're told of Neverwinter, a place of hope and civilization that has survived the Ruining, and that you had originally wanted to travel there to purchase a home and earn your fortune. With this as a base, you're sent on your way.

Movement is achieved on a grid, with this turn-based game automatically allowing you to move at the beginning of each turn. When commanding a party, you'll be able to complete multiple actions, including attacking or opening your inventory with each character before needing to manually end their turn and start over with the next character. Once each "adventure" in the game is complete, you'll receive experience points for the battles you won and the tasks you completed in the process. For immediate prizes, you'll sometimes be able to loot your fallen enemies, selecting a prize from a list of ten. You can choose randomly from ten cards, or can use a potion to reveal items before you choose.

In terms of actual combat, you'll have a wide variety of options, depending on the classes of characters in your party. You might be able to attack an enemy from far away, eliminating them before they ever become a threat, or surround an enemy with multiple characters, giving everyone a combat advantage. There's enough strategy here to keep more hardcore players satisfied, but the initial sections of gameplay are incredibly simple and work well to help an unfamiliar player get up to speed.

Gallery: Dungeons & Dragons Heroes of Neverwinter on Facebook


Back in Neverwinter proper, you can access a variety of buildings including the Adventure Board where you'll accept new Adventures (Adventures require energy and have multiple difficulty levels), the Tavern where you can purchase energy potions or Adventure boosts to your stats, the Trade house where you'll purchase similar potions or new equipment items, and even your own home, which you'll be able to fill with treasures as you complete different achievements or tasks within the game (collecting a certain amount of gold, for instance).

That being said, the main focus here (understandably) is in the Adventures themselves. There are plenty of them to undertake, each with an additional focus on bringing your friends in to help you (early on, it's entirely possible to fail even the most basic of Adventures by simply going it alone). The lore within the game is presented through text boxes at the beginning and end of most scenes and encounters, and will likely satisfy current D&D fans. Still, this isn't the first game of its kind of Facebook, so hopefully the D&D name alone will help draw more followers into the fray.

Will D&D Heroes of Neverwinter win over the "Zynga" crowd with its fairly in-depth, and somewhat slow-going gameplay? Likely not, but there's plenty of content here for fans who go out specifically in search for it.

Play Heroes of Neverwinter on Facebook -->

Have you tried Heroes of Neverwinter on Facebook? What did you think of it? Sound off in the comments.