The ‘Let’s Play‘ style of YouTube videos where gamers narrate and play games has become a gaming staple, but fairly impossible for mobile games. While some may argue that there are more than enough 14 year-olds with cracky voices talking about games on YouTube, mobile developers have reason to want to get in on the action – lots of gamers like to check out videos of real gameplay to see how the game looks and plays, rather than checking out the polished and animated game trailers made by publishers.
This is the big idea behind Helsinki-based Everyplay, a spinoff of Applifier. Everyplay is an in-game cross-game social network where mobile gamers to be able to record and share screencasts of the games they’re playing without awkwardly holding a camera or jailbreaking their phone. Today they’ve beta launched a feature called FaceCam, which takes advantage of your phone’s camera to record videos of yourself while playing the game.
For example, an example video of the current service shows off a slight glitch that racks up points in Stair Dismount. That type of gameplay content is interesting in itself, but Applifier’s FaceCam adds a personal touch, as Applifier CEO Jussi Laakkonen shows off in this video.
The overall hypothesis seems to be working for developers as intended. Everyplay cites the game Stair Dismount, where players recorded and shared something like 10,000 video replays in 20 days. The most popular sharing destination was Facebook, where an average of 15 friends watched each replay and 12% of clicked to download the featured game from the App Store. They’ve put together an infographic with these numbers, which you can find below.
Everyplay currently has 400+ developers signed up for its beta, and expected to officially launch the platform sometime in March. The service is free for developers and players, and is initally launched on all iOS devices.
Applifier is backed by Lifeline Ventures, MHS Capital, PROfounders Capital, Tekes, Webb Investment Network and angel investors, and has offices in Helsinki, Finland and in San Francisco.
