Tarver Games, LLC

Its ROCKTOBER here at Tarver Games!

What a month! October was the “official launch” of Tarver Games and it was jam-packed with events, meetings, speaking engagements – and of course – development!

We made our official company debut in sunny San Diego at the semi-annual CTIA conference. Why were we at a wireless show you may ask? The company’s first IP is being developed for the iPhone —so what better place than a show dedicated to all things gadgety and mobile to get some valuable feedback on our first product. We met with a number of press, influencers and innovators and the CTIA crowd loved what we are doing with Ghosts Attack – especially the game’s location-based gameplay feature, which was a big hit.

Android was the talk of CTIA and we are keeping a close eye on this segment to see how the it plays out as a gaming platform. Who knows, maybe we’ll build a Ghosts Attack app for the Android

We also attended the Digital Hollywood Conference in Santa Monica where our own Chris Cross participated on a panel about extending brands and IPs across multiple platforms. Sitting alongside other executives in entertainment – from games to film, TV, toys and comic books – discussions raised some very important topics including game budgets and franchise development. Chris, reflecting on the very first Medal of Honor game he developed while at Dreamworks, revealed that it was never intended to be a franchise, rather a one-off title. But its storyline resonated with a massive global audience and proved that it could sustain relevance over a long period of time with major cultural footprints. That, Chris pointed out, is the formula for a successful IP.

Unfortunately, $20M budgets and 400-person dev teams are few and far between, but by focusing on today’s more nimble platforms – like the iPhone – game developers can test the waters without taking huge amounts of financial risk. That’s what we are doing here at Tarver Games – with a small team of game development specialists, we plan on delivering a bunch of small output games and from there, we will see what resonates. This is the foundation of our business and will help us expand our IPs and remain fiscally responsible.

Our final stop this month was the Social Media Club of LA’s “Games Go Social” event, held at Rubicon’s swanky offices in Santa Monica. Quinn spoke on a panel alongside other talented game makers from EA, GirlGamer and GoSub60 Games, and talked to an engaging crowd of Twitter happy social media and gaming enthusiasts. The live stream, provided by TechZulu, generated more than 6,000 online viewers and 500 chat participants – a record high for #SMCLA! The takeaway from this discussion – aside from the fact that a man who poses as a woman in an online environment is called a “mangina” – is that game communities and fans are using social networking sites Twitter, MySpace and Facebook to stay connected and informed. You can view the event on TechZulu here: http://bit.ly/2vWgTe.

Thanks to everyone who rocked it out with Tarver Games this month. We hit many milestones, including the launch of this very fine web site and the development of our Facebook and Twitter pages (thanks Sean and James!) and receiving positive media coverage of our company and product (thanks Karen & Andrea!). We are so appreciative of all your support and are psyched to continue sharing this journey with all of you!