Presented at the Sacramento Game Developer Meetup on April 22nd, 2010.

1. THE ROAD TO SUPERHERO CITY
Or: If you fail enough times, you will win by process of elimination.
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2. WHO AM I?
My name is Aaron Nemoyten.
Aaron
(Moses’ brother)
Nemoyten
(like “Nemoy” as in Leonard and “ten” as in the number.)
Product Manager for the Facebook RPG Superhero City
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3. THIS PRESENTATION: THREE PARTS
PART ONE
IDEAS VS. EXECUTION
PART TWO
SUPERHERO CITY: WHY? AND HOW?
PART THREE
THE FUTURE OF SHC
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4. IT’S PITCH TIME!
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5. Proof that ideas don’t matter
Or at least not as much as you probably thought.
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6. Proof that ideas don’t matter
Or at least not as much as you probably thought.
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7. Proof that ideas don’t matter
Or at least not as much as you probably thought.
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8. Proof that ideas don’t matter
Or at least not as much as you probably thought.
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9. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
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10. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games
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11. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games Seven Pet Games
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12. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games Seven Pet Games Five Poker Games
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13. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games Seven Pet Games Five Poker Games Four Mafia Games
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14. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games Seven Pet Games Five Poker Games Four Mafia Games
Six City-Building Games
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15. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games Seven Pet Games Five Poker Games Four Mafia Games
Seven Island Games
Six City-Building Games
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16. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games Seven Pet Games Five Poker Games Four Mafia Games
Seven Island Games Eight Fish Games
Six City-Building Games
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17. AMONG THE TOP 200 FACEBOOK GAMES
18 Farm/Animal Games Seven Pet Games Five Poker Games Four Mafia Games
Seven Island Games Eight Fish Games
Six City-Building Games
Oh, and two Superhero games.
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18. SO WHAT’S THE PITCH?
How can you justify making a game
that could be “just another X”?
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19. THINGS TO REMEMBER
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20. THINGS TO REMEMBER
• Execution is more important than the idea
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21. THINGS TO REMEMBER
• Execution is more important than the idea
• Make something for a specific target audience,
not “everyone”
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22. THINGS TO REMEMBER
• Execution is more important than the idea
• Make something for a specific target audience,
not “everyone”
• Then again, know that you don’t really know
what that target audience wants
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23. THINGS TO REMEMBER
• Execution is more important than the idea
• Make something for a specific target audience,
not “everyone”
• Then again, know that you don’t really know
what that target audience wants
• No matter what, it’s (only) going to be your
best guess.
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24. THINGS TO REMEMBER
• Execution is more important than the idea
• Make something for a specific target audience,
not “everyone”
• Then again, know that you don’t really know
what that target audience wants
• No matter what, it’s (only) going to be your
best guess.
• Just make sure you like it, otherwise you will
hate it, your job, and life in general.
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25. THINGS TO REMEMBER
• You can’t predict the future, so just make
something now and see what happens
• Watch your numbers every day - you
are most likely wrong about just about
everything, and the numbers will end
any and all arguments.
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26. SUPERHERO CITY
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27. SUPERHERO CITY
• From initial concept to launch in about three months.
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28. SUPERHERO CITY
• From initial concept to launch in about three months.
• Initial spec had a lot of extra stuff.
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29. SUPERHERO CITY
• From initial concept to launch in about three months.
• Initial spec had a lot of extra stuff.
• Inexperienced team
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30. SUPERHERO CITY
• From initial concept to launch in about three months.
• Initial spec had a lot of extra stuff.
• Inexperienced team
• Limited budget
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31. AMBITION VS PRAGMATISM
Initial expectations were unreasonable.
Once we realized this, features were axed,
mostly without remorse.
Still, a lot of time was spent on tuning
gameplay, formulas, and balance.
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32. DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO
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33. DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO
BEFORE THE MONEY RUNS OUT
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34. EVERYTHING CAN SUCK
(Except the gameplay)
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35. WAYS WE SUCKED AT LAUNCH
• No real logo • Terrible deploy process
• Ugly visual design • Features poorly tested
• Unintuitive and buggy avatar editor • Nobody wanted to test in IE
• No sound in battle system • Inconsistent name in viral copy
• Content for missions was rushed • Terrible performance on some pages
• Just about all content was rushed • Visible PHP errors
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36. Monday, April 26, 2010 15

37. WAYS WE DID NOT SUCK AT LAUNCH
A bunch of people seemed to enjoy the game and think it
was a lot of fun, despite the bugs.
A lot of the users spent money in the game.
Within just a few months, the game paid for itself.
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38. PLUS WE HAD ANIMATED BATTLES
The biggest risk (as well as the most important innovation) of SHC
was its battle system.
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39. SUPERHERO CITY TODAY
> 450 thousand monthly active users
> 60 thousand daily active users
Supports a company of sixteen full time
employees, plus contractors
Actively hiring for several open positions
(art, programming, design)
Still a laundry list of features we want to
add
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40. SUPERHERO CITY TODAY
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41. SUPERHERO CITY TODAY
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42. SUPERHERO CITY TODAY
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43. WE COULD HAVE BEEN JUST ANOTHER
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