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Zynga buys Newtoy, renames it Zynga With Friends

Christopher Grant — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 13:02:00 EST

From a GDC rant about the perils of being a game developer laid off in this tumultuous economy to announcing an acquisition less than a year later, brothers Paul and Dave Bettner have been busy. The ex-Ensemble devs were laid off, along with the rest of the studio, after shipping Halo Wars in 2008; they then established iPhone-dev Newtoy and quickly made a splash with the "With Friends" games, Chess With Friends and the Scrabble-esque Words With Friends, along with the ngmoco-published (and very Farmville-esque!) We Rule.

And today, during a press conference call, Zynga SVP of Mobile David Ko made the announcement that the social game powerhouse has acquired Texas-based NewToy for an undisclosed sum. "Zynga has acquired Texas-based mobile game development company NewToy," Ko revealed, before passing the mic to Paul Bettner. Bettner will serve the acronymical roles of VP and GM of the studio, tasked with developing "new mobile social games for the Zynga network."

The 23-person studio is being renamed Zynga With Friends, as seen in the logo above, though the press release awkwardly refers to it as "The Zynga With Friends Studio." While this represents a strong move by Zynga into the mobile gaming space, we're left wondering if the "With Friends" mobile games will make their way to Zynga's home base: Facebook. We've followed up with the company to ask about just that.

Oh, and considering the new company's name includes "With Friends" we're going to assume that its World War Robot game is probably no longer in development. We'll let you know what we find out.

Zynga buys Newtoy, renames it Zynga With Friends originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 13:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone dev cheers short development, quick patching at GDC Online

Mike Schramm — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Weird But True, Opinions, New In Pop Culture

Vijay Thakkar is the technical director at Newtoy, the company responsible for iPhone hit Words with Friends, as well as a former developer on Star Wars: Galaxies and at the late Ensemble Studios. He took the stage at GDC Online 2010 this morning to run a panel about how to embrace mobile gaming, and while extolling the virtues of Apple's mobile platform and its constant online connectivity, he took aim at the traditional game industry's long development times and buggy releases.

Thakkar railed for a bit on a bug found recently in the latest title of his "favorite gaming franchise ever," Metroid: Other M. When the save-breaking bug appeared in the game, Thakkar recounted, Nintendo couldn't use the Wii's internet connectivity to patch the game. Instead, Thakkar pointed out, the company had to "ask players to 'send us your memory card.'"

"That's awful," Thakkar added. It's 2010, he said, developers should have ongoing access to update and patch their games when necessary, and he pointed to the iPhone as a platform where games could be released and patched quickly. "At Newtoy, we've completed full games in less time than it took me to design systems for older triple-A titles."

This agility means that developers can not only fix bugs quickly after launch, but they can also prototype new ideas ridiculously fast (Thakkar said that Newtoy had created one internal test game in just two workdays). Plus, this business model lends itself to filling in and growing features according to player demand after release -- something that a lot of big, lumbering developers haven't figured out how to do yet.

iPhone dev cheers short development, quick patching at GDC Online originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ex-Ensemble Studios lead designer responds to Bettner rant (update)

Ben Gilbert — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST

Aside from a very small handful of points, it would seem there's a major disconnect between two ex-Ensemble Studio employees over why the studio was shuttered by Microsoft last year. Ian Fischer (an ex-lead designer at Ensemble, now at Robot Entertainment) details on his blog the many disagreements he has with (claimed) ex-creative lead Paul Bettner's recent rant at the Game Developer's Conference in a panel called "Fired and Fired-up: Jobless Developer's Rant." We say "claimed," because even Bettner's job title is called into question during the response. "Neither you, nor anyone else, was 'Creative Director' at our studio," Fischer alleges.

Further, Fischer rebutes Bettner's claim that Ensemble shut down due to a "reliance on crunch" to finish projects that got more and more expensive by the year, saying it had more to do with "chasing after the MMOs and FPSs and RPGs and RTS-differents we constantly had in prototype." He also says that the communication with Microsoft never broke down and that if the publisher had wanted to lower the developer's operating costs, "they could have done so with a phone call ... ES enjoyed a long relationship with Microsoft (as many ex-Studios people now at Robot or Bonfire still do), first as a partner and then as part of the corporation after 2001."

So, according to Fisher, what was the reason that Ensemble shut down? "If you want to find mistakes with what we did, I'd suggest that those trips into the weeds, looking for new territory, with a partner who wasn't fond of being there, was more our error," he suggests, referencing the aforementioned prototypes.

Update: You can find Paul Bettner's full response to Fischer's claims after the break.

Continue reading Ex-Ensemble Studios lead designer responds to Bettner rant (update)

Ex-Ensemble Studios lead designer responds to Bettner rant (update) originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ex-Ensemble Studios devs form new studio, working on the iPhone

Ben Gilbert — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:00:00 EST

It appears as though Bruce Shelley's words will not go unfounded, as the fourth Ensemble Studios-spawned development house has outed itself in Newtoy.The studio is already developing its first game, World War Robot, in collaboration with comic book and game industry veteran Ashley Wood.

In fact, the studio says it's trying to foster this kind of behavior, "a new kind of game development," by creatively collaborating with "world class game makers from around the globe," such as Wood. The few pieces of art available so far appear rather conceptual in nature and do little to help explain the gameplay. We do know, however, that it's based on the Ashley Wood paperback of the same name and the concept shots share a distinct look with the art of the book. No matter what, it's always a pleasure to see new studios popping up in the current economy.

Ex-Ensemble Studios devs form new studio, working on the iPhone originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 09 May 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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