Ninja Kiwi

Ninja Kiwi
Private
Industry Video game industry
Founded Auckland, New Zealand (2002)[1]
Founder Chris Harris
Stephen Harris
Number of employees
 35
Website Ninja Kiwi
Ninjakiwi.com
Web address ninjakiwi.com
Slogan "More Awesomer"
Commercial Yes
Type of site
 Video gaming service
Registration Optional
Owner Ninja Kiwi
Launched 2006 (2006)
Alexa rank
 Increase 9,261 (August 2015)[2]
Current status Active

Ninja Kiwi is a mobile and online video game developer founded in Auckland, New Zealand in 2002 by Chris and Stephen Harris.[3] Ninja Kiwi's first game was a browser based game called Cash Sprint, developed on the Adobe Flash Platform.[1] Since then, they have produced more than 60 games across platforms including Adobe Flash, Android, iOS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and most recently, Steam. Their most well known titles are the Bloons and Bloons TD games. In 2012, Ninja Kiwi purchased Dundee, Scotland based developer, Digital Goldfish, for an undisclosed sum.[4][5][6]

Ninja Kiwi has a virtual currency known as NK Coins; purchases of games and in-game purchases can be transacted using NK Coins. About eighteen months before its dissolution by its parent company, Mochi Media (another major gaming website) discontinued its virtual currency (Mochi Coins) and replaced it with Ninja Kiwi's virtual currency.[7] Ninja Kiwi has an online forum as well; people can discuss Ninja Kiwi's games and other various topics on the forum.[8] When Ninja Kiwi switched to its new website that contained a new forum, most users still preferred the older forum, mostly due to the new forum's formatting and the fact that it does not contain any of the threads from the older forum. Upon the pressure received from users, Ninja Kiwi decided to keep the older website's forum.[9][10]

History

Ninja Kiwi Games was founded by Chris and Stephen Harris in 2006. The decision to develop games was brought about by Stephen upon completion of a game design course at the Auckland Media Design School, where he graduated with a degree in geophysics. The first game that the brothers created was the, now defunct, Cash Sprint, a browser based game where players raced a ghost car and the player with the fastest time each week was rewarded a cash prize.[1] However, they were unable to draw in advertisers to finance the project and were forced to scrap it after 14 weeks of operation. Next, they launched their own web portal that pooled together Flash games made by the Harris brothers and other developers. This site was unsuccessful, so they dropped it and launched a new site, Ninjakiwi.com, using exclusively their own games.[1]

In April 2007 Ninja Kiwi launched the first game in their Bloons series. The concept of the game came from Stephen's wife. The player controls a dart-throwing monkey, and the goal is to pop as many balloons as possible with each toss.[11] The game gained exposure very quickly, being featured on Digg and garnering 3 million plays in its first week. In December 2007, the first game of the Bloons Tower Defense series was released, pitting players in a strategic battle between dart throwing towers and increasingly large waves of balloons.[12] In the game's first week, it garnered 3 million plays and was, according to Chris, a "huge success".[3] In 2009, the series was retitled from Bloons Tower Defense to Bloons TD due to trademark infringement with the Tower Defense trademark owned by Com2uS.[13] In 2012, Bloons TD5 was released alongside a new free registration system for ninjakiwi.com. The new system is built into all subsequent games and provides users with benefits like online storage of save game data, access to special challenges and achievements, as a well as a personal profile page.[3] In 2008 Ninja Kiwi was approached by Scottish game developer, Digital Goldfish, who wanted to team up to release Bloons as an iPhone application, where it reached the number two position in the US app store.[14] The relationship between Ninja Kiwi and Digital Goldfish continued long after this, with several members of the Digital Goldfish staff being completely devoted to the mobile development of Ninja Kiwi games. In 2012, Ninja Kiwi purchased Digital Goldfish. The previous titles that the two companies created together had racked up millions of downloads. Due to the already close relationship between the two companies, the merger was described by Digital Goldfish co-founder, Barry Petrie, as a "natural progressive step in the relationship between the two companies. Digital Goldfish was renamed Ninja Kiwi Europe.[15] The merger increased the number of Ninja Kiwi employees to 35.[6]

Logo in 2014 - note the "Beta" label

Awards

In 2012, SAS: Zombie Assault 3 won Flash Gaming Summit awards for "Best Shooter Game" and "Best Multiplayer Game".[16]

In 2013, Bloons TD 5 was nominated at the Flash Gaming Summit for awards in "Best Strategy Game" and "Best Cross-Platform Game".[17]

Games

Bloons games

Bloons was a major breakthrough for Ninja Kiwi. They idea came from developer Stephen Harris' wife, who suggested they make a game similar to the carnival game where people throw darts at balloons.[11] The original Bloons was released in April 2007 and has spawned many sequels and spin offs, including the also-successful Bloons TD.

  • Bloons (2007)
  • Bloons 2 (2010)
  • Bloons Insanity
  • Bloons Junior
  • Bloons Player Packs (1-5)
  • Bloons Pop 3
  • Even More Bloons
  • Hot Air Bloon
  • Bloons for Mobile
  • Bloons TD series (2007–present)
  • Bloons TD 4
  • Bloons TD 4 expansions
  • Bloons TD 5 Deluxe
  • Bloons TD 5 Steam
  • Bloons TD Battles (2012)
  • Bloons Super Monkey
  • Bloons Super Monkey 2 (2013)
  • Bloons Monkey City (2013)
  • Bloons Monkey City Mobile (2014-2015)
  • "SAS : Zombies Assault 4" (2015)

Fortress Destroyer

In 2015, Ninja Kiwi announced the release of Fortress Destroyer, a naval warfare action game. It runs on the Unity Web Player.

Mobile games

Many of the games Ninja Kiwi created for web browsers were then released for mobile devices, mainly iOS and Android devices. This is a brief list of games released by Ninja Kiwi for Mobile.

  • Extreme Tilt Snowboarding
  • Hungry Sumo Mobile Edition
  • Meeblings Mobile
  • Powerpool Mobile
  • SAS Zombie Assault 3 Mobile
  • SAS Zombie Assault 4 Mobile
  • SAS Zombie Assault TD iOS
  • Bloons TD Battles Mobile
  • Bloons TD 3 (as Bloons TD)
  • Bloons TD 4
  • Bloons TD 5
  • Bloons Monkey City

Shooting games

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Irwin, Mary Jane (5 July 2008). "Blowing Up Bloons". Forbes. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  2. ↑ "Ninjakiwi.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved August 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 South, Gill (6 February 2012). "Your Business: Monkey business leads to games success". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "Ninja Kiwi buys Digital Goldfish". BBC News. 2 November 2012. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  5. ↑ Williams, Mike. "Ninja Kiwi acquires Digital Goldfish". Gamesindustry.biz. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
  6. 1 2 Rose, Mike. "Bloons studio acquires iOS partner Digital Goldfish". Gamastrua. UBM Tech. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
  7. ↑ "Mochicoins Announcement".
  8. ↑ "Ninja Kiwi Forum".
  9. ↑ "Archive Link".
  10. ↑ "Ninja Kiwi Games Forums".
  11. 1 2 Bardinelli, John (20 April 2007). "In the Flash:Bloons". joystiq. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  12. ↑ Bedford, John (26 Nov 2012). "App Of The Day: Bloons TD 5". Wayback Machine. GameTrailers.com. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  13. ↑ Jordan, Jon (25 January 2010). "Com2uS 'guides developers not to use its trademark Tower Defense". PocketGamer. PG.BIZ News. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  14. ↑ Chapman-Smith. Ben (21 Nov 2012). "Auckland company's latest game making it big in US". The Aucklander. APN New Zealand Limited. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  15. ↑ Lee, Aaron (6 September 2013). "Ninja Kiwi Europe begins ambitious expansion plan". Develop-Online. Internet Media. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
  16. ↑ "Armor Games: The Mochis". Flash Gaming Summit. 4 March 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2014.
  17. ↑ "Armor Games: The Mochis". Flash Game Summit. 2013-03-24. Retrieved 26 February 2014.

External links

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