Omgpop thrilling undertaking: Push "You draw I guess" before almost bankrupt

Introduction: The Monday article of the New York Times introduced the twists and turns of American gaming company Omgpop from creation to acquisition. In the launch of the popular mobile phone game "You draw me guess" before, Omgpop has fallen into the plight of the impending collapse, but as the game rocket-like leap-forward red, omgpop limelight for a while, eventually by Zynga high-priced acquisition, creating a modest miracle.

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In the evening of Thursday, Charles Forman (Charles Forman), sitting on the second floor of the Black Hotel in Manhattan, New York, lamented the emanation of the vicissitudes of life in the Shenthomo fragrance of stuffed mushrooms and filet mignon.

"I only had 1700 dollars left on my account yesterday, and now it's much more," he said. "he said.

Foreman is the founder of American gaming company Omgpop, which celebrates his company's takeover by social gaming giant Zynga. For Omgpop employees, this luxury dinner was only in the dream, but now it is a step by step.

Omgpop once struggled; but seven weeks ago, they launched a phone game called "You draw my guess (Draw something)", a cannon red. This has also attracted Zynga's attention, which last week announced a 180 million dollar takeover of Omgpop.

"You draw I guess" will omgpop from an obscure, nearly bankrupt start-up company, sublimation of an industry giant for the emerging enterprises. Zynga's blitz shows how a company can always stand on top of the tide and quickly reverse the fate of others by virtue of the power of the internet era.

"You draw I guess" is a drawing guess word of the small game. After the player installs the handset client, according to the software hint, sketches a picture to describe a word, like "the Cat", "the Automobile" and so on; the picture is then sent to another player who will guess and spell the word according to the picture. If the answer is correct, two will receive a "Gold Coin" award at night. Zynga's data show that since February 6 this year, the game has been downloaded more than 35 million times, the player has drawn more than 1 billion pictures.

This year's 32-Year-old foreman not directly involved in the "you draw I guess" research and development. He left the company a year ago, but retained his shares; he put his energies into another start-up, photo storage service Picturelife. In another interview, he declined to say how much he would profit from the acquisition, saying it was "far above 22 million dollars".

Repeated defeats and repeated wars

Omgpop was not a game company at the beginning. Six years ago, Foreman set up a website called "I Love You" (i ' m in likes with you), the user can "auction" himself, this is the predecessor of Omgpop. He's a fitness freak, and his Facebook page is full of close-up photos of his abs.

"The whole company was a joke at first. "Foreman said. He initially took it as a form of entertainment and later realised that people spent a lot of time on the site. In order to use this audience, he transformed the site into a game site, and renamed "Omgpop". Referring to the company's success, he said: "It is enough to history." I never thought I would be so successful. ”

In December 2008, Foreman invited Dan Potter (Dan Porter) as CEO of the company. Porter was head of the American College of Education Program for American Teaching (Teach for America) and worked for other startups.

Omgpop has financed 17 million of billions of dollars and has launched about 35 games, but has not earned much revenue. According to the company's two former employees, according to the current rate of burning money, Omgpop will be out of ammunition this May, is likely to be forced to close the door, but "you draw I guess" turned out to turn everything around.

Porter declined to comment, but said: "Before you drew my guess, we got a lot of investment, but not a sensational game." This is not going to work. "He will travel to New York as the managing director of Zynga.

Omgpop launched the first drawing game called "Draw my Thing", the developer for Foreman and the company's chief technology officer E.J. Mablex (E. J. Mablekos). The game requires a player to guess the word according to the picture within a limited time, while the other players will be in a chat room to spell the word, the short winner.

No Fly is soar

Last fall, after Foreman left the company for another development, Porter organized a team of five people, began to develop "you draw me guess". Part of the game's originality, he says, stems from a little game played by his son: if a son and a friend threw a ball 100 times without landing, Porter would buy ice cream for two people to reward.

"I suddenly realized that this was the nature of the game. "This game is similar to throwing a ball, because players need to work together to achieve success." "However, you draw I guess" there is no time limit, there is no real win or lose.

The day the game was released, Porter stared at the download counter. Within 24 hours, the game was downloaded 30,000 times, not surprisingly. However, the figure grew exponentially and broke 1 million times after 10 days.

People are starting to put their own sketches of the game on Twitter and Facebook, which accelerates the spread of "you draw me guess". The game has been added to the list of app stores in Apple Apps store. It is divided into 1-dollar paid editions and free editions with advertising, and it also supports application-only pay for more features. It began to bring thousands of dollars of income to omgpop. "Its momentum has never slowed," Potter said, "and the larger the size of its users, the more revenue it will bring." ”

The success of "You draw Me guess" attracts Zynga's attention. Lewis Ward, an analyst at IDC, points out that Zynga's acquisition of Omgpop marks the company's Louise Wade in mobile apps, rather than focusing on web games on Facebook platforms.

It is clear that Zynga did not waste a second: they announced the deal in Wednesday, and the next day some 40 employees in Omgpop were already working for Zynga. Zynga briefed them on company rules and new health insurance. About 60 people attended the party that evening, mostly from Omgpop. They clapped, hugged and photographed each other as if they were reborn.

Porter says he plans to go on vacation with his family in Costa Rica before taking up his new job. Foreman said he was giddy with excitement after finishing a deal with Zynga, and went into the rolling traffic.

"I was crossing the street, only to hear the beep," he said, "It's like a dream." "(Yan Fei)