Blocksworld Becomes Top 3 iPad App, Beats Mobile Game King Candy Crush Saga - Linden Lab Finally Found a Hit Besides Second Life?

For the first time in its 10 year+ history, Second Life is not Linden Lab's sole hit product: Blocksworld from Linden Lab launched in the iOS App Store earlier this month, and this weekend, CEO Rod Humble was on Facebook crowing that the game had jumped to number three on Apple's Top Free iPad App chart:

That's right, Blocksworld is currently getting more downloads than Candy Crush Saga, which is far and away the hugest mobile game in the West right now. It's just one slot behind the current iPad favorite, Plants vs. Zombies 2, but that's no surprise, seeing as it's the sequel to The Best Casual Game Ever Made. (Humble's friend Bernard Yee is the lead developer of PvZ2 at PopCap, hence his friendly joshing on that tip.)

So yes, while other Linden Lab mobile apps have not done so well, Blocksworld is so far an unambiguous hit:

At this level of success, it's likely Blocksworld is being played by hundreds of thousands of people; if it sustains this momentum for a few months, it'll almost certainly be more popular than Second Life. So while the company has put out many non-SL products in the last few quarters (Creatorverse, dio, Patterns, and Versu), Blocksworld looks like it's going to be the one to gain the most traction. It's too early to say this for sure, so keep your eye on how it does on the charts over the coming weeks. But signs look good so far. It definitely makes me more interested in finally checking it out.

Rod Humble's Facebook update re-posted with permission of Rod Humble.

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Comments

[Zauber Paracelsus]

Wasn't BlocksWorld something that Linden Lab obtained through an acquisition, rather than developing it in-house?

[Dizzy Banjo]

Boom! as Steve would say..

Congrats Rod and the gang, glad one has got some good traction. Hope it monetizes well now :)

[Damien Fate]

Throw enough things at the wall 'til one sticks. Glad one worked out for them - though who knows if it is financially successful, since it appears to be free.

[Wizard Gynoid (@wizardgynoid)]

and how does this help the SL community exactly?

[Kim Anubis]

Congrats, Labbies!

[Ezra]

I figured after trying it, it'd probably be Linden Lab's biggest success of their side projects. I wonder if it already is? Hard to tell since it doesn't cost anything. It has in-app purchases, but that doesn't mean its made as much money as say, Patterns, which has a price tag.

[Pixeleen Mistral]

Yes, Blocksworld is fun, but it was not developed by Linden Lab, it was *purchased* by the Lab. I was a beta tester for Blocksworld and was very unhappy when it was released in Sweden last fall, but not released in the USA, perhaps because the Blocksworld guys were negotiating with the Lab over the purchase price. Blocksworld's tutorial on how to play the game was one of the best I have seen -- I imagine small children and most virtual world journalists could master the game on the second or third try.

All of this suggests that Rod Humble should concentrate on continuing to overcharge Second Life players for virtual land and use the profits to go on an acquisition spree, since the Lab is apparently unable to develop viable software platforms itself.

[Adeon Writer]

I wanted to give it a try but iPad only. No workie on my iPhone5. Media hasn't yet convinced me that tablets are useful. :I

[Metacam Oh]

Whatever happened to Patterns and that Dorito guy?

[Pussycat Catnap]

"I wanted to give it a try but iPad only. No workie on my iPhone5. Media hasn't yet convinced me that tablets are useful. :I"

They're really not. They're a fad and largely toys that will go the way of the pet rock soon.

Not practical for serious computing, not as agile as what one can do on one's phone.

The real divide will be phones that can handle basic business needs: meeting handling, conferencing, casual browsing, and playing apps while sitting in the back at a large meeting or convention... and then for real 'application' work: laptops.

You'll want to go the laptop route for heavier typing, managing secure files, accounting, spreadsheet work, IT work, graphic design, school work, gaming, and well - everything we already do with computers.

tablets will in time see their functionality pulled into better versions of things like glass, or to phones like the newest Samsung one that can be plugged into a full display for when you need more than just a screen to watch a movie while inflight / on the train /etc...

And the last space for them... eReaders? items like the Kindle and the color Nook (not the Nook HD, but the eReader Nooks) are going to take that market due to better battery life and screens customized for staring at them under more extreme lighting conditions (try reading a novel on a tablet in a sunny outdoor cafe, now do it on an eReader specialized kindle or Nook).

The only tablet that actually gets it right is the Windows 8 one - but its priced above the laptop range... so its not going to succeed... as a tablet... BUT, as a laptop, its a prototype for what laptops might soon look like:
- detachable keyboard, or you could even add on a photonic keyboard (I have no idea what they are really called, but these do exist: keyboards that work by projecting an image onto the table, and you type by touching the right spots in the image and I suppose thereby breaking some beam.)

The trick is getting the computing power of a laptop into the tablet device, so your laptop is small enough, but still has a full operating system to handle "ALL" potential computing needs, and not just low end fadish needs.

The answer lies somewhere between that Windows 8 Tablet and the Mac Air books.

People-ARE- still buying tablets right now, but less and less as replacements for a laptop or a phone... and the trend for the tablets is not likely to go well.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"Whatever happened to Patterns and that Dorito guy?"

Look under a rug somewhere, should be able to find them along with a few lost lindens and a couple moles.

As for profit model: a free app with in game added purchases... I don't suppose this sound familiar to anyone? Suffice it to say, LLs knows how to make money hand over fist through this kind of model. So I suspect Blocksworld will do quite well for them.

Hopefully they will 'get over it' with the acquisition phase and start looking again at ways to improve the appeal of the products they have now... There is still a LOT of potential for Second Life, and since Rod came on board they have seemed to realize where that potential lies: as an entertainment platform... but then gone about rather amateurish means of exploring it...

What they need to hire are some trend analysts and analytics based marketers, game designers (not coders, but game theory people), and well - the kinds of people Hollywood uses to vet out what sort of movie will make money next year.

They need people with the skills and innate talent for looking at a community and sussing out what it wants, then breaking down what they have to figure out how to make money delivering that.

Plenty of residents know angles on this within their own sub-communities... Which DOES NOT qualify them for the larger picture... It just means those are residents someone good with 'Big Social' should look at.

They need to learn how to serve up the right services, rather than competitive services.

And they need an analyst who can look at the ideas and tell them which will make money without cannibalizing other key parts of the service. Ie: someone who can explain to them the problems of creating a market system that voids the need for land while land is still both their other major revenue source and highly expensive.

- Someone who can do it with pie charts and buzzwords for their pointy headed bosses...

[Hamlet Au]

"It has in-app purchases, but that doesn't mean its made as much money as say, Patterns, which has a price tag."

The top-grossing mobile games are almost always free with in-app purchases, such as the biggies now, Clash of Clans and... Candy Crush Saga.

[ole]

"Whatever happened to Patterns and that Dorito guy?" -> http://youtu.be/Dx3OW0Hti28

so... dorito guy still exists and if you are using multiplayer there arr even different colored doritos!! <.< but besides that i would like to know how patterns does in a commercial kind of view too... hamlet? rod!?

[Iggy]

We can argue all day about functionality and the future of tablets, phones, and laptops, but LL had best do something to shore up revenues.

Despite Hamlet's rosy predictions last week (or so) about the slide in SL private estates, the decline continues at a pace that remains noteworthy: just shy of 200 regions lost in the past 3 weeks.

[Praise Candy Crush Saga]

I don't care how many sales that other game has; Candy Crush Saga is still the best game ever!!!