The Playforge remains independent as it branches out with Tree World

The Playforge, the fiercely independent mobile gaming studio founded by husband and wife team Vince and Susan McDonnell, is growing its portfolio with its newest game, Tree World. The company’s first release since Zombie Life in October, Tree World is a departure for the developer, which until now has focused on zombie-themed games with light social connections. Drawing inspiration from pet sims, collectible card games and vertically scrolling tower-builders, Tree World is a free-to-play title that challenges players to grow a tree and collect the woodland creatures living on each branch. Each animal the player collects produces tree food, which in turn allows the player to increase the size of their tree. Each time a tree grows a new branch, the player has a chance of collecting one of the game’s rare, magical creatures. The game is also extremely social -- in order to collect all the creatures available in the game, players must trade with other players. Trades can be initiated with random Tree World players and Facebook friends if a player logs in with Facebook Connect. “You can have a successful free-to-play game without it being social,” explains Thomas Chung, The Playforge’s vice president and general manager when asked why Tree World is so heavily social. “It wasn’t until you started getting asynchronous games like Words WIth Friends that players began to get real social value from interacting with someone else. We think that trading fulfills the checkbox for meaningful social interaction. We’re pretty excited about how Tree World is differentiated in that way.” Although the company has previously partnered with Ngmoco to bring Zombie Farm to Android on DeNA’s Mobage platform, Chung tells us the company currently has no plans to repeat the deal with Tree World, but adds that “the door is open” and the company would consider working with Ngmoco again. According to Chung, The Playforge has taken the profits from its previous games and reinvested them into the company in order to accelerate its release schedule. Chung tells us Tree World is the first of several titles the company will release in 2012. Currently at 33 employees, the company is still independent and bootstrapped, but is no longer the chart-leading powerhouse it was at this time last year. The company’s games have been downloaded more than 25 million times, and Zombie Farm was one of the highest grossing iOS apps in 2010 and 2011 according to Apple’s annual iTunes Rewind feature. However, increased competition in the App Store has reduced The Playforge’s revenues. Zombie Farm has slipped to the No. 75 spot on the top grossing app charts and Zombie Life hasn’t hit the same level of success as its predecessor. That game is currently the No. 363 top grossing app in the games sub-genre, according to AppData. Tree World is available today on the iOS app store as a Universal app for both iPhone and iPad.

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The Playforge remains independent as it branches out with Tree World

Kathleen De Vere

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Kathleen De Vere