Meteor Games wants to be the Nintendo of Facebook games, not just "for moms"

While Meteor Games may be a name that's foreign to most Facebook gamers, with just 1.1 million monthly active users across their entire catalog of Facebook games, that doesn't mean their games aren't successful. Just ask CEO Zac Brandenburg. According to Forbes, Meteor finds success in their Facebook games (including their most popular - Island Paradise) because they're more focused on the long-term when designing a game, rather than on instant success.

"The feature set is much more than a simple compulsion loop," says Brandenberg, "You need to have different things for players to do, centered around what the plot is going to be." In an upcoming branded game, released with Viacom, we'll apparently see that ideology in full effect. Meteor is currently working on three games that are "close to launch," but Brandenburg didn't reveal specific details about any of them, other than the fact that they may be "fantasy-themed."

We do know the company's end goal, however: to focus on the middle section of gamers. "We don't think like Kabam with hard core games and we are also not just casual games for moms. There is a middle ground - like with Nintendo. There's a huge audience in the middle. We're going to draw from the hard core elements and the super casual side." Brandenburg says that games don't need massive audiences to be successful, so long as you've given players a high quality experience that engages them over the long term. Of course, high-paying users don't hurt either.

While Brandenburg refrained from using the term "whales," Meteor apparently does have them, and in droves. In Meteor's case, whales are gamers that spend over $1,000 a year on their games, while a handful of Super Whales in each game spend over $10,000 - that's a lot of premium currency!

Even with all of that being said, Brandenburg made it clear that the company's focus isn't so much on a game's social aspects, but on making an individual user want to come back to the experience just to play the game. "You only play if you actually want to not because your friends want you to. Then you have a smaller audience but the audience may spend 50 times what another gamer (on a different game) spends. You can have a lot of success there."

When Meteor Games announces more details about their three upcoming titles (including the branded game with Viacom), we'll make sure to let you know.

Are you an active player of Meteor's games like Island Paradise and Ranch Town? Would you have more fun in a Facebook game if there was more focus on your own experience with the story, rather than on always asking for help from your friends? Sound off in the comments.