To Our Loyal Appy Army,

Last Thursday, all of us at Appy’s Secret Worldwide Headquarters were, for lack of a better word, SHOCKED to learn that SpellCraft School of Magic was nominated for “Best Social Mobile Game” at the 8th International Mobile Gaming Awards. Then on Friday, we jumped around and threw papers in the air when we discovered we had not one, but TWO wins in 148 Apps’ Best App Ever: “Best Role-Playing Game” and “Best Free-to-Play Game.”

Much celebrating ensued, thanks to the Irish Pub strategically located under our offices. But it wasn’t enough to simply “pat each other on the back” and bask in our newfound glory. Best App Ever is voted on 100 percent by fans. We find it remarkable that SpellCraft School of Magic — which just debuted in December (!) — beat out so many AAA-type games from mega publishers like Chillingo and Gameloft.  We feel both wins represent a deep love of Appy’s games by regular people – from new smartphone owners to grizzled veterans from the Palm OS and Windows Mobile days.

A new generation arises. We call them “Generation M.” They never had to live in a world without Google; tablets are their natural habitats. It’s true that most of them love console games just like the next guy (or gal), but they are more than comfortable with the idea of gaming on the go. Nonetheless, this generation is going even farther: they’re also prolific social gamers. They made Zynga the giant it is today and will take gaming into the billions–eventually turning the world’s population into gamers. That’s a seismic shift for game development any way you slice it. In fact, we’d like to think Appy is at the tip of the spear in this space with SpellCraft; wait ‘til you see what we have in store for 2012

While a few years old, the “free-to-play” model is still in its infancy. It has a very different and always-evolving aesthetic plus sophisticated in-game market dynamics, player behavior, and much more. Mobile-social is where all the action on game design takes place today. Yes, we would love to also win “Best App Ever,” but we see “Best Free-to-Play” as arguably the most important category in the field — given the way the market is trending. It’s a huge achievement for Appy to win this category in our first attempt, given the many larger and more entrenched companies already doing outstanding work in this space.At Appy, we have a simple philosophy that guides everything we do: if we make our users happy, everything else will follow. That’s why we don’t release a game unless we think it’s great. It’s also a reason why we strive to have one of the friendliest, most responsive customer support efforts in the industry — a direct result from our stated mission to “develop lifetime relationships with our players.” While other games may do well with player churn and grubby monetization schemes, we try to keep our players happy thanks to the quality and depth of our games. We don’t want to be a casino constantly calculating the best way to separate players from their money; we aspire to be Disneyland!

In short, this is a huge deal for us. We want to share it with all our fans, the press, and everyone else who had a great time playing any of our games–whether on iPhone, iPad or Android. We consider these awards a vote of confidence from our players — that you like what we are doing, and that you want more. And we aim to deliver!

THANK YOU for your support, understanding and undying loyalty!

–Appy Entertainment

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 at 3:27 pm and is filed under announcements. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.