Kabam is an interactive entertainment company that develops massively multi-player social games, such as “The Godfather,” “Kingdoms of Camelot,” “Dragons of Atlantis,” “Global Warfare,” “Glory of Rome” and now the more recent “Thirst of Night,” a vampire game. Merging its company into the realms of Facebook, it has grown in popularity.
On Jan. 19, a glitch throughout the interactive social media game “Dragons of Atlantis” sent players into an uproar within the Kabam Forums when enormous amounts of troops vanished while in march mode.
The strategy game requires a player to build as many troops as possible to overtake their opponent’s cities, resources (such as food, lumber, ore, stone and gold) and yes, troops, the most valuable asset in the game. Without troops, the game comes to a standstill with no interactive play.
Perhaps not such a big deal for people outside of Facebook, Kabam has become a very lucrative company, with players spending thousands of dollars to purchase ‘rubies’, which in turn will provide the player an edge on their opponents in strategizing their game faster.
At $9.90 per 65 rubies, a player’s game addiction can roll out heavy expenses with Kabam scooping up the proceeds.
Founded in 2006, Kabam has offices in San Francisco and Redwood City, and Beijing, China, with roughly 200 employees to maintain over 60,000 players.
Thursday’s incident left many players wondering if Dragons of Atlantis was really worth the time and energy spent, and the ‘ruby players’ were yelling the loudest.
Glitches have been predominant for some time, as the developers have been working to keep the game stable; not without much success. Many players feel that Kabam needs to take more serious responsibility to what happens to its players, considering that the company is in this for the profit. Despite tutorials littered throughout the internet and game site, the game is not predictable and the diverse numbers in troops being crunched attest to the fact.
Though the players understand the ‘shaky ground’ they’re on, the addiction continues, but after Thursday’s event, the game may have lost a large percentage in popularity.