It's been five years since we've had a Ty, the Tasmanian Tiger title, but it looks like Krome Studios is bringing the character back, albeit currently in Facebook form. Kotaku has given a (rather unflattering) report on the news that Krome have released an application on Facebook where fans are able to dress Ty up in a variety of gear.
The Ty license has seen much greater heights in popularity, and while Kotaku was eager to point out the low 155 fans for the Facebook page, the initial Ty, the Tasmanian Tiger game had sold an excess of a million units worldwide, spawned two sequels, won various GDAA awards, and had the promise of a cartoon series by the animation company behind "The Simpsons" and "King of The Hill". It was the first successful title that catapulted Krome Studios from a few dozen employees to the many hundred strong company it is today.
Unfortunately, five years is a very long time to be able retain your young target audience, and so it is a new generation of kids who'll have little to no idea who Ty is that Krome will be re-introducing this character to. Is it too little, too late? We'll have to see what Krome has up their sleeves.
They are making a start with a bigger presence on Facebook, with the "dress Ty" application a sign of more to come. Kotaku reports that Krome will be providing updates and new content every Tuesday (known as Ty Tuesdays) on their Ty Facebook page to keep fans engaged.
From Kotaku...
"I'm very excited to be bringing back our signature character," said Steve Stamatiadis, creator of TY and Creative Director of Krome Studios, "we have had great success with him in the past, and we feel there's a huge opportunity to introduce TY the Tasmanian Tiger to Facebook gamers around the world."
Someone ought to
tell Ty there's trouble afoot!
Brazilians are rampant and there's real danger Australian bushes will be no more. Join Ty and his friends on their quest to "Save the Bush!" (using mirkins fashioned from his own fur) .
But seriously you'd reckon it should be a farming type game where he tries to rehabilitate a piece of bushland and bring the animals back.
actually...
you know, that is quite an awesome idea! I hope Krome are listening ;)
What's the member count at Bebo? That userbase is a much younger demographic that Krome could market this to as well. I'm sure you can re-use the same flash based app there with some relatively minor adjustments.
This is great if it is the
This is great if it is the start of promotion for a proper new Ty game, however I fear that it could just be a case of Krome latching onto "casual games" without a strong business model for how to actually make money there.
Hmmmm
well it does sound like the sort of idea you'd get govt funding for,-
( guess they'll have to cribb a little from John and co at 3 blokes)
Developing Facebook and
Developing Facebook and iPhone games at this point seems like bandwagon jumping to me.
If they've got a good idea for a casual facebook game, by all means they should go for it. But 'dress-up' app says to me 'we want in on this market and this was all we could come up with'. Design-by-committee kind of games. Like those free flash games sugar cereal companies put on their websites.
Hopefully after a couple more Tuesdays it will take shape. At the moment, it's not doing anything new or interesting enough to rise above the thousands of other competing games and companies on Facebook.