Friday Podcast: Interview with Donna Powell, Co-Founder of NeoPets and Meteor Games

For today's Podcast Friday, we sat down with Donna Powell, one of the co-founders of Neopets who has now helped found social gaming company Meteor Games. Their debut title, Island Paradise has rocketed to 7.5 million MAU in only a matter of months without leveraging advertising networks: the game grew mainly by word of mouth. See below for the podcast. [display_podcast] This conversation is definitely worth a look if you're interested in social game design, monetization and distribution. Donna has a lot of experience in the games arena, and there's a lot to learn here. Here are a few highlights. Donna and the team were interested in 3D MMOs, but caught wind of the social gaming trend early and moved fast They reached their 7 million MAU without using any advertising or banner networks Island Paradise was released at the end of August, and has been growing mainly through word of mouth Little Rock Pool has 600,000 MAU, again built on the strength of the game and word of mouth Donna and Adam were the cofounders of NeoPets, and now the main creative direction is taken by Adam and his designers and directors. Meteor Games uses a regular iteration process to keep their games fresh Island Paradise and Little Rock Pool used a shared currency, but Meteor Games has no plans to create any overarching currency platform: it's just an easier way for users to buy and spend money in the game Games with more depth are what Donna sees coming for the future NeoPets expanded to consoles and other areas, but Island Paradise has no immediate plans. There is talk to bring the game to other platforms. Donna is a fan of WoW and "you keep leaving but it sucks you back in", is a fan of the Wii and how it gets her parents able to play games. Adam and Donna Powell founded NeoPets in 1998, and the game eventually grew to 35 million unique users, 11 million unique IP addresses per month, and 4 billion web page views per month. The game is considered to be one of the first casual MMOs, and at the time was compared to games like Tamagotchi and Pokemon. Island Paradise's high production values, great social features and attractive virtual currency suggests that the game may be earning a high average revenue per user (ARPU) for its 2 million DAU.

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Friday Podcast: Interview with Donna Powell, Co-Founder of NeoPets and Meteor Games

Neil Vidyarthi

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