War Commander is Kixeye's next Facebook RTS, keepin' it hardcore

Yeah, son! Better believe it. What? Hey, if Kixeye is planning to bring the hardcore to Facebook, you got to start playing the part--nobody likes a bad trash talker. Formerly known as Casual Collective, Inside Social Games reports the creator of Backyard Monsters will release War Commander, the result of developers' Paul Preece and David Scott mission to "get hard" in its Facebook games.

The game is due out sometime this August, and the game is said to play a lot like the classic Command and Conquer series, with players able to select individual and group units--and there will be 27 playable units at launch. This represents the company's mission to present itself as the hardcore developer for Facebook games.

Though, with companies like Kabam saying the exact same thing with games like Kingdoms of Camelot, it looks like the battlefield for War Commander will extend beyond the browser. Now, can Blizzard just bring Starcraft to Facebook already?

Call of Duty veterans set crosshairs for 'first-person social game'

Call of Duty
That sounds a helluva lot like "first-person shooter game," no? Well, these folks are best known for their contributions to hardcore games like Call of Duty. VentureBeat reports that Activision veterans Dusty Welch and Chris Archer have founded their own social game studio, U4iA. Pronounced "euphoria" (that's cute), the Bellevue, Wash.-based studio aims to bring core games to Facebook in a big way.

Welch (CEO) and Archer (CCO) aim to set the quality bar even higher on Facebook and mobile with a "first-person social game" that matches the caliber of recent free-to-play games like League of Legends, according to VentureBeat. At least from what the U4iA heads see, the future of social games is the arrival of traditional gamers.

"We're making core games for a social audience." Welch told VentureBeat, "We think the hardcore gamers are going to start looking for the core games on the social and mobile networks now." Well, with companies like Kixeye and Kabam gunning for the same audience, at least they're not alone.

"We think we're at the spearhead of a lot of cool things," Welch said to VentureBeat. Since the guy is credited with creating the Call of Duty series--the best-selling game franchise ever--we can't really contest that. This first-person shooter social game will be created for both Facebook and mobile devices using the Unity Player. With expertise like that, we're sure the game will be a technological marvel, but will the audience be there to bear witness?

Kabam study suggests hardcore gamers are flocking to Facebook

hardcore gamers
Have the tables finally turned? Not quite just yet, but slowly and surely they are, a study released by Kabam suggests. The Redwood City-Calif.-based creator of Facebook games like Dragons of Atlantis and Edgeworld recently commissioned a survey of 1,412 "hardcore" gamers to find just how their behavior has changed since the dawn of Facebook games.

Dubbed the "Social Gamer Study," Kabam found that the demographics of the average social game fan are slowly changing--more young to middle-aged men are playing Facebook games. And a whopping 82 percent of them come from the console game space, which is terribly important. This is because 27 percent of those surveyed report playing console games less often.

And perhaps more importantly to those looking to make cash from hardcore games, those surveyed reported spending 50 percent less on console games. Of course, Kabam threw in that players of its games are even more dedicated to Facebook games than console games: 55 percent reported playing console games less and spending 65 percent on the games.
Social Gamer Study findings
According to the study conducted by Information Solutions Group, 72 percent of these hardcore social gamers are playing two or more games at once, and 47 percent are playing three or more. If you've ever played a game like Kingdoms of Camelot or Kixeye's Backyard Monsters, you know that this is quite a lot to keep up with--much more so than, say, FarmVille.

Not to mention that this growing sub culture of Facebook gamers plays far longer game sessions than the 30 minutes or so your average Bejeweled Blitz player sits down for on lunch break. A massive 68 percent reported playing social strategy games for three hours or longer a day, and 30 percent said they play for longer than an hour per session.

Of course, it's important to keep in mind who commissioned this study: a developer and publisher of hardcore Facebook games. Vested interests aside, it's undeniable that a new breed of Facebook game fan is emerging, and fast. And you have to assume, with advances like download-free 3D gaming on the horizon, these numbers will only grow. Check out the study in full here.

Are you part of this growing portion of Facebook gamers? Do you think social game creators like Zynga, EA and wooga have anything to worry about? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment