Interview

Everyplay: Bad Piggies notches up 2,000 replays in 8 hours flat

Video will 'change everything', says Laakkonen

Everyplay: Bad Piggies notches up 2,000 replays in 8 hours flat
Applifier recently hit a significant milestone when its social video sharing software Everyplay was integrated into Rovio's physics puzzler Bad Piggies.

Since launching in August, developers have integrated Everyplay into games like Stair Dismount and Nimble Quest - along with 50 other titles - and the service amassed over one hundred thousand video replays.

We caught up with Applifier's Jussi Laakkonen to see what the integration of Everyplay with Bad Piggies means for the company - and the industry.

Pocket Gamer: You seen to have amassed a decent take-up with indies, but are you surprised at how long it's taken to get into a high profile game like Bad Piggies?

Jussi Laakkonen: We've had really high profiles games already in Everyplay with Nimblebit's Nimble Quest and Frogmind's Badland, which both are App Store Editors' Choice games, though Rovio undoubtedly has the biggest mobile gaming brands.

We started working with Rovio several months back and to do a really great integration it always take a some time, so I'd say I'm very pleased how rapidly from the beta launch of a radically new form of sharing of video replays Rovio saw the potential and decided to integrate.

How long does it take to integrate Everyplay and is this a longer process for an existing game?

The basic integration for a Unity3D game like Bad Piggies takes two minutes.

The technology is really easy to get in and performs well. Typically most of the time is spent in designing the menus to fit the games UI flow and make the sharing feel natural.



For existing games you already have a well formed UX and some times adding new things into that may be a bit more complicated then designing it in from the get go.

Why do you think Rovio wanted to integrate Everyplay into Bad Piggies?
Bad Piggies is a fantastic match to Everyplay because it is all about the users' creativity.

There are countless ways to solve a puzzle and the sandbox mode in Bad Piggies really lets players creativity and imagination soar.

We've already seen close to 2,000 replays shared in just eight hours since the launch of Bad Piggies and pace is picking up.

So, it's easy to say that the Bad Piggies players have been waiting for a service that lets the share their creations.

How do you think getting into Bad Piggies will change the Everyplay's standing, both in terms of consumers and the industry?

Everyplay is an enabler. It enables players to share and in turn powers organic growth for games that have fans.
Bad Piggies is great validation for the Everyplay, but the biggest validation is that players are embracing Everyplay and really taking to sharing.

What sort of games do you see as a natural fit for Everyplay? Are there some genres that would work better than others?

Fun, Creativity, Competition, Skill, Multiplayer, Challenge. Those are all words that apply to the most suited games to Everyplay.

Humour like in Stair Dismount also does extremely well. Creativity like in Bad Piggies is a great motivator to share.


Bad Piggies

Competition, skill, multiplayer and challenge all stand for various aspects of more core gameplay in which your skill and gaming talent comes to play and you are proud of what you achieve.

It's no surprise that replays in Clash of Clans drive an incredible amount of engagement.

How do you think the FaceCam feature will change the way people use Everyplay?

It will change this massively - for the better.

Replays are cool, but hearing the creator talk about how he built something, or seeing a player be jubilant as has an epic win really takes sharing to a new level to the players' stories.

We are all interested in other people who share our hobbies and passions and FaceCam allows us to hear and see those people as they play games that we also love.

Do you think the release of a standalone Everyplay app will confuse consumer and create competition for developers who might use the technology?

The standalone Everyplay app is been a highly requested feature by the users to get an easy way to access the replays, check out what people are commenting on your previously shared replays and finding new people to follow.

It is designed to highlight replays shared from the games and in turn drive even more exposure to developers who use Everyplay.

Similarly to our desktop and mobile site, the Everyplay app is all about watching replays and connecting with other game fans.

While the amount of replays being shared is impressive, do you have any proof that replays are driving monetisation?

Not directly, but what we know from the industry is that players who discover a game through a social recommendation from a friend "Hey you got to play this" are much more likely to play longer, become fans and more likely to convert to paying users.

It is also clear that replays are driving in-game engagement by creating these moments where you think to yourself that "I need to beat that score" or "how on Earth did they do that?".

That directly translates to increased retention and, through that, likely into incremental purchases as you see high level players using virtual items in cool ways.

US Correspondent

Representing the former colonies, Matt keeps the Pocket Gamer news feed updated when sleepy Europeans are sleeping. As a frustrated journalist, diehard gamer and recovering MMO addict, this is pretty much his dream job.