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Undead Labs (State of Decay)/Kabam announce Moonrise, mobile creature RPG, PAX unveil

S

Steverulez

Member
Fresh from its $120 million venture round, mobile game publisher Kabam is teaming up with Seattle developer Undead Labs to create Moonrise, a new role-playing game for mobile devices.

San Francisco-based Kabam will likely be publishing a lot more games like this one now that it has raised the money from China’s Alibaba Group. Kevin Chou, chief executive of Kabam, said at the ChinaJoy conference that Kabam’s value has topped $1 billion and that the company is seeking to take Western games to Asia and vice versa.

Kabam has games like Kingdom of Camelot, Dragons of Atlantis, and The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth. Each of those has generated more than $100 million in revenue, and Chou said the company plans to make more than $500 million in revenue in 2014.

“We are thrilled to partner with Undead Labs. They are a veteran team that has worked on some of the greatest game franchises of all time,” said Aaron Loeb, senior vice president of Kabam’s North American Studios. “Their new creation, Moonrise, will bring a truly next generation mobile experience to gamers around the world.”

Labs was founded in 2009 by games industry veteran Jeff Strain, whose career in games includes work at Blizzard Entertainment programming for StarCraft and Diablo, as well as forming the team that kicked off development of World of Warcraft. Strain also co-founded ArenaNet, where he was programmer and executive producer for the Guild Wars franchise, which went on to sell more than six million units.

“We’re a gamer-focused studio with a great console pedigree,” said Strain. “And Kabam is a world-class publisher focused on delivering console-quality games on mobile devices. It’s a perfect match.”

Moonrise will debut at the PAX Prime convention on Aug. 29 in Seattle. Previously, Undead Labs created the zombie survival fantasy game State of Decay. It launched in 2013 and sold more than a million copies in its first six weeks.
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Venturebeat

Moonrise is a multiplayer creature-collection RPG for mobile devices, conceived and developed here at the Lab and published by Kabam. It’s a fun romp through a gorgeous 3D world of ancient ruins and magical creatures, with deep, real-time strategic combat, full character and creature customization, and real-time online play with your friends.

You can read more about Moonrise and our partnership with Kabam in the Moonrise announcement press release, and at the game website at moonrise-game.com. We’ll also be showing the beta build of Moonrise off at PAX Prime in Seattle at the end of this month, so look for more information about the game and release details then.
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Moonrise02.jpg
 
B

Bizazedo

Member
Aren't these the guys who are making / made that horrible Marvel fighting game? Contest of Champions or something?

Love of MvC series makes me automatically hate these guys, sadly.
 
J

jbug617

Banned
It's called Moonrise and it's a RPG mobile game
http://undeadlabs.com/2014/08/news/moonrise/
http://moonrise-game.com/

From the PR

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Kabam, the leader in the western world for free-to-play games for traditional players, today announced it is working with Undead Labs to develop Moonrise, a brand new role playing game (RPG) for mobile devices.

This deal marks the first time the two companies have jointly worked on a game. Kabam is a global leader in the free-to-play and mobile games space creating such durable franchises as Kingdom of Camelot, Dragons of Atlantis, and The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth each generating more than $100 million in revenue. Undead Labs is the creator of State of Decay, the innovative zombie survival-fantasy game that was the fastest selling original game in Xbox Live Arcade history, and is now among the top sellers of all time on that platform.

"We are thrilled to partner with Undead Labs. They are a veteran team that has worked on some of the greatest game franchises of all time," said Aaron Loeb, senior vice president of Kabam's North American Studios. "Their new creation, Moonrise, will bring a truly next generation mobile experience to gamers around the world."

Seattle-based Undead Labs was founded by games industry veteran Jeff Strain, whose career in games includes work at Blizzard Entertainment programming for StarCraft and Diablo, as well as forming the team that kicked off development of World of Warcraft. Following that, Strain co-founded ArenaNet, where he was programmer and executive producer for the Guild Wars franchise, which went on to sell more than six million units.

"We're a gamer-focused studio with a great console pedigree," said Strain. "And Kabam is a world-class publisher focused on delivering console-quality games on mobile devices. It's a perfect match."

Moonrise will have its worldwide debut at the PAX Prime convention on August 29, 2014 in Seattle, Washington.

With offices throughout the U.S. as well as China, South Korea, England, Germany and Canada, Kabam delivers hit games to global audiences to create long-lasting franchises. Kabam games are routinely among the top 25 grossing games on the app store charts, and in 2013 Kabam had two of the top ten grossing apps in the App Store. Kabam closed 2013 with more than $360 million in revenues, a 100 percent increase over 2012.

In addition to hit first-party games, Kabam is uniquely positioned in the free-to-play industry with deep Hollywood partnerships that produce hit mobile titles such as The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth, Fast & Furious 6: The Game as well as the forthcoming The Hunger Games. Kabam also has a robust publishing platform that delivers hit games from Asia to global audiences.
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http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...d-of-moonrise-to-mobile-gamers-269833531.html
 
A

Akif

Member
LurkerPrime said:
I take it this is the MMO Undead Labs has been working towards with State of Decay. It's a wholly original product.

(Seriously, what a letdown after such an incredible debut.)
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What makes you think so? Wasn't that supposed to be an Xbox game? I don't think this has anything to do with Class 4.
 
L

LurkerPrime

Member
Akif said:
What makes you think so? Wasn't that supposed to be an Xbox game? I don't think this has anything to do with Class 4.
Click to expand...

It's presumably player vs. player, which would categorize it as some sort of MMO.

Also, I was half-joking and I forgot to put the sarcasm tag on the post. My bad.
 
K

kadjar

Neo Member
LurkerPrime said:
I take it this is the MMO Undead Labs has been working towards with State of Decay. It's a wholly original product.

(Seriously, what a letdown after such an incredible debut.)
Click to expand...

Don't worry. This is not "the" MMO UL has been working on, but "an" MMO. This is not Class4.
 
L

Leafhopper

Banned
Steverulez said:
Gave up quickly on what exactly? They're at over double what they were in terms of personnel from when SoD shipped, new studio, new deal with Microsoft for State of Decay...
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That was just my detain for mobile games for the most part. It didn't mean much to be perfectly honest. Just annoyed its a mobile game.
 
D

Dabanton

Member
Fully expected this announcement to be a mobile game from them.

Whatever fills the coffers really. Although I can't wait to see what their doing with SoD soon.
 
N

NAPK1NS

Member
The moble hate on GAF is hilarious. Every time I see a moble title thread I know people will have a shit. We do know moble has worthwhile games, right? Like, actual good games. The studio isn't swearing off console production, they're just making something new. It will be fun and come at a discount price.
 
G

Gunmonkey36

Member
GAF hates mobile. I can understand to an extent. If it has micro transactions that actually impact the game/ gate playtime then I'll end up hating this as well. Seems Pokemon-esc is the new "thing" in the mobile space. Micromon and now this. I just hope its a full game with no game breaking micro trans...
 
S

Skilotonn

xbot xbot xbot xbot xbot
I expected a mobile game, and I expected that it wouldn't take too much resources away from their next main MMO plus the Xbox One port of State of Decay that is "in discussions".

They have a huge opportunity with State of Decay with an excellent start, there would be no way that they would slow that momentum down.
 
L

LurkerPrime

Member
NAPK1NS said:
The moble hate on GAF is hilarious. Every time I see a moble title thread I know people will have a shit. We do know moble has worthwhile games, right? Like, actual good games. The studio isn't swearing off console production, they're just making something new. It will be fun and come at a discount price.
Click to expand...

It's not that mobile games are automatically bad, but there is just an endless stream of utter garbage games that makes the good ones look bad. Moonrise currently appears to be a creatively bankrupt product, that's one strike against it. The number of microtransactions this game has, as well as how they're integrated into the game, will decide how many more strikes will be against it. (I suspect there will end up being more than one strike against it.)

Since microtransactions are at odds with good game design, I think it's only fair for people to be wary. Especially when the developer could be working on so many better, more interesting things. Like a MOBA! (ha-ha.)
 
G

Gunmonkey36

Member
LurkerPrime said:
Since microtransactions are at odds with good game design, I think it's only fair for people to be wary. Especially when the developer could be working on so many better, more interesting things. Like a MOBA! (ha-ha.)
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I agree with the micro transaction statement. It pretty much decides if a game will be playable or not.

The bold makes me sigh so heavily. I know you are joking but the sighs and sadness dont care.
 
U

Ushay

Member
Mobile? Nevermind then, came in thinking it was something console related.

They are making something for Microsoft correct? Or is that just rumour?
 
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