New York isn’t exactly known for its tech, or its gaming, but in recent years a slew of young companies has turned the advertising capitol of the world into a hotspot for social media, and that includes games. While casual games aren’t exactly new – who hasn’t played Farmville or Ruzzle by now – the New York City gaming scene is still in full expansion, and anyone interested in getting to know more about the companies behind the Facebook and phone games they play with their friends should be paying attention to Walkabout NYC.
Started by Harvest co-founders Danny Wen and Shawn Liu, Walkabout NYC is a biannual event held in the spring and fall that invites companies throughout the city to open their doors to the public. The Spring event is aimed at enterprising tech companies and takes place on May 17th, from 11:30am to 6:00pm. Interested consumers, business-types, or people just looking for free food are invited to RSVP, stroll in, and attend hour-long informational sessions that may involve margaritas. Casual gaming fans will have the unique opportunity to pay a visit to OmgPop/Zynga and Arkadium.
Zynga, the creators of Farmville and Mafia Wars, is perhaps one of the best known casual game companies on the planet. Headquartered in San Francisco, its investors include Google, and Farmville alone has over $1 billion in player bookings as of 2013. OmgPop is a much smaller New-York based gaming company perhaps best known for Draw Something (now Draw My Thing), a painterly version of Charades which won a 2012 Flurry App Spotlight Award. Zynga acquired both OmgPop and Draw Something for a cool $180 million in the same year.
Arkadium is a very different sort of social games company, and one of the first in New York. With over 300+ online casual games to their name, including Taptiles and Mahjongg Dimensions, the company has been a big player in the casual games market since its inception. Most of their games are completely free to play, with advertising providing the bulk of their revenue, a model that is slightly different from traditional free-to-play models that rely on cash shops.
OmgPop is hosting two sessions, at 2 and 3pm, that include a tour and Q&A session with the creators of Draw Something. Arkadium is hosting a tour at 4pm that will include margaritas and “swag”.
