Big Fish Launches Second Social Game, My Tribe

Today casual games giant Big Fish Games announced the release of the social game My Tribe for Facebook. My Tribe is Big Fish's second social game release, following the casual social MMO Faunasphere. My Tribe is a social game with strategy elements, where players have to maintain a community of castaways on a deserted island. My Tribe was originally launched as a stand-alone downloadable PC game in 2008, but was revamped for its Facebook incarnation. 

Players will begin a My Tribe game by selecting an island to govern, then begin directing their tribe in developing the island. Tribespeople will develop job specialties, age, marry, have children, and eventually become elders instead of workmen. The tribe acts continuously, so players need to check in on them regularly throughout the day to direct their behavior. Members of a player's tribe will be able to travel to other player's islands. 

By completing tasks, players will level up and unlock more game content like quests. The game challenges players to earn a variety of trophies, which players can gain cooperatively by traveling to other islands. The game will monetize by selling virtual goods, including customization items and items that help players gain experience more quickly.  This is a fairly similar approach to the one Big Fish used with Faunasphere, which was ported to Facebook just last month. 

If Big Fish's approach to social games is going to be porting and revamping properties for its already-extensive catalog of titles, then the company could quickly grow itself into a very large social publisher. When most social game developers are reduced to following trends and cloning each other's games, Big Fish will have a very deep catalog of original content to draw from. The test for Big Fish will be giving these ports the stickiness they need to draw and retain users. 

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