It has created games for clients including Microsoft, Lego, Mattel, MTV, the Cartoon Network and the New York Philharmonic. Like many of New York's game-development shops, half of Large Animal's revenue-$4 million in 2012-comes from taking on work for hire. grads who had cut their teeth at a dot-com-era educational games company that raised more than $50 million from investors, and then, along with dozens of other Silicon Alley wonders, disappeared when the bubble burst.
The company was founded 12 years ago, a few months before 9/11, by two Parsons M.F.A. "That kind of work is already being done here, and it's a place where the indie scene is thriving because New York is a mecca for creative people."įor Large Animal Games, hitting it big with Color Zen sparked a wholesale change in approach. "As a result, New York City is super-relevant," said Frank Lantz, director of the New York University Game Center. An informal count recently by the New York City chapter of the International Game Developers Association found more than double that number, 71. "Casual games that help you kill time are getting the most traction."Ī 2008 report by the Center for an Urban Future counted 30 game-development companies in the city. "People are trying to make games as cheap as possible, as fast as possible, and seeing what sticks," said Eric Yohay, one of the organizers of the New York City Games Forum meetup. That gives New York City a much bigger shot at dominance.
"The game we spent the least amount of time on turned out to be the most successful," said Large Animal Games co-founder and CEO Wade Tinney.Īs the game world has shifted from consoles and PCs to mobile, and from hard-core gamers to a mainstream audience, small-scale, casual games that are inexpensive to produce have taken the lead. Three weeks in development from start to finish, Color Zen defies not only the astronomical odds that any one game will take off-1,600 games hit the app store alone every month-but also the typical months-long process to develop, test and market a game.
Last Thursday, in the middle of West 29th Street on a wet and chilly day, 30 people played on a giant screen outside Large Animal's office.
Color zen games android#
Six weeks later, 1 million iOS and Android users are playing the game, Color Zen, and 250,000 more are downloading it every week.
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