Original Article posted October 3, 2022 can be found here.
October 3, 2022. Hyper Hippo Entertainment, an award-winning mobile game studio, is celebrating its 10 year anniversary in the games industry this month.
The studio is involving players in the celebration of its milestone anniversary with a series of unique giveaways representing themes across their live titles, with grand prizes including a tropical vacation, a Roomba iRobot, a trip to the world’s largest potato AirBNB, and more. In-game celebrations will include new animated content and once-in-a-lifetime sales bundles, offered to their players from October 10th through October 20th.
“At Hyper Hippo, our players always come first. We value their time and want every moment they spend with us to generate a positive emotion,” says Michael Aaronson, SVP Audience at Hyper Hippo. “This anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate our players and express our gratitude for their support during this first leg of the company’s journey to deliver moments of joy to people across the globe.”
Founded in 2012, Hyper Hippo began as a small team of game developers based in Kelowna, BC. The studio has since grown to a team of 130 employees working remotely across Canada, Washington, and California with hub offices located in Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA.
Since its founding, Hyper Hippo has grown to be a leader in the idle games genre. They are the creators of the popular game, AdVenture Capitalist, which has received multiple awards, including a Google Play Editor’s Choice Award, Most Played Game on Kongregate, Game of the Year on Miniclip, Top 5 Game on Steam, Popular F2P on Playstation, and Best Instant Game of the Year on Facebook. Along with the other games in the AdVenture series, AdVenture Communist and AdVenture Ages, Hyper Hippo’s titles have been installed over 80 million times.
The studio’s success over the last decade can be attributed, in large part, to the strategic emphasis its leadership team has placed on creating lasting and meaningful connections with their players and employees.
Over the last 10 years, Hyper Hippo has set itself apart within the industry by cultivating a reputation as a player-first developer; every player inquiry is responded to within 24 hours or less and the majority of inquiries are addressed within 12 hours. Player feedback also plays an important role in the company’s decision making around which markets to pursue.
“As a player-first company, we listen to players who request localization and take into account their appetite for the game as well as other factors impacting the business.” says Emma Bullen, Director of New Global Markets at Hyper Hippo.
The studio’s mission to include and celebrate all their players is also reflected in their commitment to building an inclusive workplace and inclusive products. In 2021, Hyper Hippo was named a Best Place to Work by GamesIndustry.Biz and also received an award for their commitment to Health & Wellbeing.
This milestone anniversary comes in the wake of many recent initiatives and achievements for the studio, including:
- Receiving a nomination for a BC Exports award in the category of Digital Media & Entertainment (September 2022)
- Launching their newest game, Vacation Tycoon, into global release (August 2022)
- Creating and launching a new IP, Dungeon Dwarves, in collaboration with Netflix (February 2022)
- Being named a Best Place to Work by GamesIndustry.Biz and receiving a Health & Wellbeing award (November 2021)
- Expanding localization across their live titles to support 12+ languages in 172 countries (since October 2021)
- Becoming an independent publisher of their own games (November 2020)
Looking to the future, Hyper Hippo has multiple exciting projects on the horizon including new partnerships and multiple new games moving into development. Their vision for the next 10 years focuses on expanding their portfolio of games and continuing to develop unique IPs while building deeper engagement with their players and fans.
“We want to create engrossing experiences that capture the imagination” says Jon Warner, SVP Portfolio at Hyper Hippo. “We believe that rich, high quality games are key to happy and satisfied players.”
“While we recognize and are grateful for the successes we’ve had over the last decade, we truly believe that our best years are ahead of us and the best games are yet to be made,” says Sam Fisher, CEO at Hyper Hippo. “Our goal is not only to create great entertainment but to create strong worlds and stories that our players can engage in. We are excited to continue building meaningful connections with our players over the next 10 years.”
To learn more about how Hyper Hippo is celebrating this milestone, click here.
