As we approach the summer, the social TV “before and after” that we discussed with Facebook’s Kay Madati is maturing with social gaming built around providing extra opportunities for fans to engage with the content in between linear views. For HISTORY’s “Top Shot,” a show where professional marksmen compete for $100,000 to be the best, building a social game was not only the perfect way to extend the show on social, but was a great way to launch a shooter game that anyone could have fun with, even if you don’t watch the show.
A+E Networks, which operates HISTORY, has a track record for developing successful social games to make TV more social. We spoke with Kris Soumas, senior vice president of games for A+E Networks about their social TV game.
Lost Remote: Why was this game developed?
Kris Soumas: The HISTORY audience loves games. In fact, HISTORY attracts more online gamers than all our key competitors – 40% of all online gamers have watched HISTORY in the last week. Many of the programs are games in their own right. After our success with Pawn Stars: The Game, we realized we had an opportunity to expand our Facebook game portfolio to include Top Shot. Top Shot readily translates into a social first person shooter game because the show is like a shooter brought to life – now we’re bringing that experience back to gaming but in a social setting.
LR: Who did HISTORY work with to build the game?
Soumas: For our latest game, Top Shot on Facebook, we are working with Fifth Column Games, the same development team that produces Pawn Stars for us. The team at Fifth Column has a sophisticated understanding of what makes social gamers tick. Social games are a unique type of gaming and the methods for monetization in particular require the developers to have specific DNA — which Fifth Column Games has proven they have.
LR: Any success points you can talk about now?
Soumas: We launched the Top Shot preview game to coincide with the premiere of the second season in February- the game currently has 630,000 monthly active users and 110,000 daily active users. Our most successful game is also our first social game, Pawn Stars: The Game. Where many social games start off strong and then fade after a few months, our audience grew fairly quickly and our daily active users have stayed strong ever since. In fact we celebrated the one year anniversary of the game earlier this year and it has been played over 250 million times. The core audience playing that game is males between the ages of 18-34 who check in nearly three times a day and play for about 15 minutes per visit. It’s a very engaged audience.
LR: Why is gaming an important part of the social TV mix for HISTORY
Soumas: A+E Networks strongly believes that TV shows and social games go hand in hand, which is why we’ve invested resources in developing games to correspond with