Corbomite Games

The Middle East: GDC Talk Enters New Frontiers in Gaming

Game Developer Conference talk will discuss challenges and opportunities in the Middle East.

TEL-AVIV, Israel – Feb 21, 2011 – As part of the GDC Localization Summit, Oded Sharon, CEO of Corbomite Games, will talk about the challenges and opportunities of the Middle East games market along with another speaker from the region. The talk will be held on February 28th, 2011 @ 5:25PM PST, Room 302, South Hall, Moscone Center, San Francisco.

Spanning over 23 countries with more than 75M internet users, and one of the fastest growing markets, the Middle East is mostly overlooked by game developers and publishers, especially since successfully localized titles have seen significant increases in sales over non-localized games.

“We gathered up a bunch of relevant examples, case studies and market data to present at the largest conference for game developers in the world,” said Oded Sharon, CEO of Corbomite Games. “We’re doing this so more publisher and developers see the Middle East as an additional and viable market for their games. We hope GDC will offer the platform for launching an aggressive campaign to draw more attention to the Middle East’s booming game development industry.”

The Middle East game market has grown exponentially year over year for the last 5 years, making it a viable place for localized games. The presentation will provide a brief overview of the Middle East market and its potential, deal with challenges and opportunities, and provide examples of successfully localized titles – both in and outside of the region.

Attendees will be exposed to the opportunities and differentiators of the games market across the Middle East. The presentation will highlight real examples of market experiences and opportunities across the Arabic and Hebrew speaking countries (population of 400+ million); for multiple platforms (Online, PC, Mobile).

The speakers will discuss challenges such as cultural differences, religious implications, language barriers, left-to-right writing, and will compare games to other mediums including TV, movies, books, and the press.

About Oded Sharon
Oded Sharon, Founder and CEO of Corbomite Games, is a veteran game programmer and designer with years of experience making games, recently for PC and iPhone/iPad. He has led the Israeli chapter of the IGDA for several years, and has been one of the organizers of the majority of Israel’s game developer conferences, meetups, social gathering, and other events. Oded has been involved in large scale game projects including the MMORTS Ballerium, and has worked for game publishers in Taiwan. In 2006, Oded founded Corbomite Games and he currently leads an immensely creative team of developers while they make two new episodic adventure game series: Zbang and Pizza Morgana, as well as games like Star Shipping Inc. Oded holds a BSC degree in computer science and physics from Tel-Aviv University, and an MBA from the Technion.

For more information, on Oded Sharon and Corbomite Games, please visit: http://corbomitegames.com

For more information about GDC please visit: http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/12227

Contact information:

Corbomite Games
press@corbomitegames.com
Twitter: @corbomite

“Star Shipping Inc.” Now Available and Free Today on Mac App Store and Kongregate

Explore and Trade Across the Galaxy in the Exciting Outer Space Strategy Game

TEL-AVIV, Israel – Feb 11, 2011 – To celebrate the launch of “Star Shipping Inc.” on the newly opened Mac App Store, and an online version on Kongregate, Corbomite Games today announced that the space strategy game “Star Shipping Inc.” is available and free for the day until February 12th, 2011 @ 11AM GMT.

“Star Shipping Inc.” is now available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, Mac, PC, and online through Kongregate. Players can get the game through the following link:

http://starshipping.corbomitegames.com/buy/

The goal of Star Shipping is to become the richest captain in the galaxy by trading commodities between new and existing planets, while working for the intergalactic space trading company “Star Shipping Inc.” Since space is unpredictable when traveling to different planets, you’ll encounter multiple types of enemies like space pirates, monsters and other alien life-forms. You can choose between flying solo or by hiring defense drones to help protect your cargo. In-game news at the end of each turn dramatically affects the next turn’s outcome as well as random events that occur during travel which make players think twice before taking chances, while increasing the fun as the game progresses.

“Star Shipping reached top 10 best strategy and puzzle game in the App Store in many countries and has gathered great reviews by the members of the media and players,” said Oded Sharon, CEO of Corbomite Games. “We want to give new people the opportunity to fall in love with this game, and do it for free, as a sort of pre-Valentine’s day gift to our audience. Star Shipping has very simple strategic gameplay with high production values, making it ideal for strategy gamers who want to enjoy some ‘no-pressure” casual game time this season.”

The Mac and iOS store versions of the game will be free throughout February 11th until February 12th at 11:00 AM GMT and featured on Daily App Dream and accessible on Kongregate through this link:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/SoundGuy/star-shipping-inc

About Star Shipping

Star Shipping offers players challenges that don’t rely on their ability to hit stuff on the screen, and doesn’t require them to be 100% focused on the game at all times. Instead, they can play at their own pace, and use economy planning skills and intellect to trade various commodities between stars and climb up the score ladder as they accomplish the goal of becoming the richest space captain in the galaxy. Star Shipping includes an in-game store where you can buy upgrades to your ship in order to increase performance and get higher scores, scoring and ranking systems, leader boards, achievements, challenges and more.

In the high resolution version of the game, there is significantly more content, and players will see an improved version of the beautiful space backdrops, planets, aliens, nebulae, space ships, items and characters. The game also includes unique features for each platform, for example, the accelerometer is used on the iPhone and iPad, and the mouse is used on PC and Mac.

For more information on Star Shipping, please visit: http://starshipping.corbomitegames.com

About Corbomite Games

Founded in 2006, Corbomite Games is a game development studio focusing on episodic adventure games. Corbomite employs an ace team of industry veterans, including Israeli comics creator and celebrity Uri Fink. A team of talented writers, artists and software engineers with years of experience in computer and role playing games, rounds out the production staff. Corbomite Games currently has two episodic comedy adventure game series in production, “Pizza Morgana” and “Zbang”, an Action-adventure game called “Heavenly Hell” and recently added a third series, “Knights in Shining Armor” to its games portfolio. The studio is led by Oded Sharon, an experienced game maker with a passion for adventure games, music-based games, RPGs and MMOs.

For more information, on Corbomite Games, please visit: http://corbomitegames.com

Contact information:

Corbomite Games

press@corbomitegames.com

Twitter: @corbomite