How Jackbox Games adapted to a rapidly changing video game industry - Business Insider Nordic

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In 1995, Jellyvision Games released "You Don't Know Jack," a comedic trivia game designed for personal computers. The game led to a hit franchise, with fans celebrating its humor and accessibility for casual gamers.
But the sudden shift to digital distribution and online gaming left Jellyvision on the verge of collapse in 2001, and the game development studio went dormant for more than five years.
In 2008, a small team returned to revive "You Don't Know Jack," hoping to capitalize on the growing popularity of games built for smartphones and social media.
Led by CEO Mike Bilder, the revived Jellyvision was rebranded as Jackbox Games in 2013 and successfully launched a hit new series of party games — "The Jackbox Party Pack."
"The Jackbox Party Pack" has thrived by adapting to constant changes in technology and embracing a comedic style that makes the games fun for everyday gamers and casual players alike.
Here's how the team changed its approach and turned a dormant company into one of gaming's most successful.
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In 1995, the video game industry was a much different place. Windows 95 was just starting to make PC gaming accessible for casual consumers and video game consoles were hardly capable of 3D visuals, let alone online play.

Enter "You Don't Know Jack" — a trivia game that boasted impressive art and design, a comedic, conversational style that drew players in, and common sense solutions that let up to three players enjoy the game with a single keyboard. With its irreverent humor and non-stop pop-culture references, Jellyvision's "You Don't Know Jack" became one of the most popular games of its time.

But while Jellyvision worked to make its hit product into a franchise, rapid advancements in technology quickly made "You Don't Know Jack" into another relic of 90s nostalgia. By 2001, Jellyvision had shuttered its video game business, moved its staff to other software projects, and left the "You Don't Know Jack" franchise untouched to gather dust.

You Dont Know Jack Vol 1 XL Jackbox Games YDKJ — "You Don't Know Jack" was a

Eventually a new development team at Jellyvision would revive the series, invigorated by the growing demand for smartphone and social media games. After rebranding as Jackbox Games in 2013, the studio has found new success creating packs of party games that can be played on smartphones, smart TVs, computers, video game consoles, and just about any other device that can connect to the internet.

Like "You Don't Know Jack," the "Jackbox Party Pack" games all carry a comedic spirit and are easy for groups to enjoy together. With about 30 employees, Jackbox Games has found a healthy niche providing funny, accessible games for non-gamers and dedicated players alike.

"It's had many different lives and so some of these have worked out well and some of them have been perilous roads," Jackbox Games CEO Mike Bilder told Business Insider. ""It's been interesting to participate in these different pivots,. Like anything there's a bit of luck involved — and there's definitely a lot of hard work, gumption, and ambition."

Here's how Chicago-based Jackbox Games was able to adapt to the video game industry's constant changes and carve out a unique niche:

The original 'You Don't Know Jack' computer game was a major hit at a time when PCs were becoming a household necessity.

The company that's now known as Jackbox Games got its start as Learn Television in 1989. Learn Television produced a variety of educational entertainment, and in 1991 the company partnered with Follett Software to produce a computer game for grade schoolers called "That's A Fact, Jack."

That project provided the inspiration for 1995's "You Don't Know Jack," and Jellyvision partnered with Berkeley Systems, a company mostly known for making screensavers, to make the game a reality.

"You Don't Know Jack" arrived at a perfect time — the highly publicized release of Windows 95 led to the mass adoption of home computers. And "You Don't Know Jack" was one of just a handful of games designed for casual players and groups.

Jellyvision spent five years building the 'Jack' franchise, but industry changes at the turn of the century led the studio to collapse.

Following the success of the first "You Don't Know Jack," Learn Television changed its name to Jellyvision and began the work of building "You Don't Know Jack" into a robust franchise with six volumes, multiple expansion packs, and spin-offs for specific topics like sports, movies, and TV.

However, Jellyvision was unprepared for the shift from CDs to digital distribution and the "Jack" trivia format grew stale as new video game consoles delivered fresh interactive experiences for casual gamers. Jellyvision all but closed in 2001. Its founder, Harry Nathan Gottlieb, shuttered the company in 2001, but revived it under the same name with a new focus on professional communication software.

"The company basically shut down," Bilder said. "The founder got out of the game space, the bottom kind of dropped out of the PC CD-ROM space. The emerging home consoles like PlayStation and some more sophisticated stuff didn't work as well for party games."

For years, the "You Don't Know Jack" franchise was dormant.

Jackbox Games CEO Mike Bilder helped spearhead a revival of the 'You Don't Know Jack' franchise. The new company found success initially by establishing itself in a growing market instead of breaking into an established one.

In 2008, Bilder left his role as a studio head at Midway Games to help lead a revival of "You Don't Know Jack" at Jellyvision Games, inspired by the growing market for games on social media and mobile devices. The resurrected company eventually renamed itself Jackbox Games, separated from the original Jellyvision, and set out to bring the trivia franchise into a new era of online entertainment.

"We had a couple different pivots in there," Bilder said. "We started out working as a traditional third-party developer working with a publisher to bring retail products out to market. Then we did a fund-raise because we wanted to self-publish, and we kind of chased the emerging Facebook social gaming as well as mobile gaming for a bit, and then ultimately pivoted back into the premium marketplace."

From 2011 to 2013, Jackbox created versions of "You Don't Know Jack" and other games for mobile phones, Facebook, and streaming devices. Building games for these different platforms helped the studio figure out the most seamless way to get multiple people involved.

Jackbox Games uses a simple web portal that lets up to 10,000 players join and control the game with their phones, which has made the games extremely popular with streamers. But Jackbox had to first convince major video game companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft to allow the technology.

"We wanted to make this as frictionless as possible," Bilder said. "We didn't want to make people have to go to an app store and download an application in order to join and play. We didn't want to make them have to get on the same Wi-Fi network or sync the device via Bluetooth."

By visiting the Jackbox.tv website, players can turn any online device into a controller for the game. "Jackbox Party Pack" games can support up to 10,000 players for a single game this way, and people can even play online if the game is being streamed via YouTube or Twitch. Jackbox's party games have become especially popular with professional streamers and their fans because of how many people can connect and play at the same time.

Bilder said the technology actually raised concerns for traditional video game companies like Nintendo and Sony, who were concerned about allowing phones to connect their consoles through an online portal.

Bilder said. "It took quite a bit of effort in 2014 for Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft to let a phone and cloud servers into the infrastructure of controlling a game. Nowadays it seems second nature and commonplace but at the time it was quite disruptive."

Jackbox Games also completely changed the way it releases games. 'The Jackbox Party Pack' is an annual package containing 5 completely different games for $30.

Jackbox made an important change in the way it packaged games starting with the first "Jackbox Party Pack" in 2014. Each $30 "Jackbox Party Pack" includes five completely independent games, and Jackbox has released a new bundle every year.

"The Jackbox Party Pack 6" was released this past year, but the company has developed 30 different games since the series began. Staff members are constantly pitching and working on new game concepts over the course of the year, and the best projects are gradually honed for release in the next party pack.

"We're working on what our games for next year will be and we've green-lit two games so far," Bilder said. "We have three more to go for the next pack but we see dozens of pitches and the process here is very fluid — anyone in the studio can pitch a game."

Sometimes, Jackbox developers will pitch new games based on unique touch-screen controls, while other ideas come from group brainstorming sessions and get refined until they're ready for the big time.

Jackbox has released a few of its most popular party games as individual releases, like "Quiplash" and "Drawful."

Jackbox recruits top writers from some of Chicago's most well-known comedy circuits to help give the 'Party Pack' games their essential sense of humor.

Bilder said members of Jackbox's staff are involved with Chicago's comedy scene, and the studio brings in writers from famous theaters like The Second City and the iO Theater to work on games in the Jackbox Party Packs.

Humor has been essential for the company's games, dating all the way back to "You Don't Know Jack." Jack, the host of the original games, was engaging thanks to his snarky, irreverent jokes. But with the more recent party packs, Bilder said that Jackbox has tried to make the games better at setting up players to make jokes of their own.

"With 'You Don't Know Jack,' you felt immersed in the conversation of Jack," Bilder said. "It felt like you were in the game because the host was talking to you. There are deliberate kinds of writing and technical aspects to what we do that allow for that to happen and that permeates all of our products."

Bilder continued, "But we've also, I think, done a good job with more recent games of really tee-ing people up to be funny."

Jackbox also includes a family-friendly mode in all of its games to make sure the jokes are suitable for all ages. The company's web portal helps players flag questions or responses that may be inappropriate during the game so Jackbox staff can filter them out of the family-friendly version, Bilder said.

The unconventional approach seems to have worked. The newly released 'Jackbox Party Pack 6' had the series' strongest launch to date, and older entries still continue to sell well thanks to the variety of games.

Jackbox Party Pack 6 Cover — The cover for "The Jackbox Party Pack 6."

Jackbox Games is enjoying a fresh wave of success with its innovative party games appearing everywhere from "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" to GQ Magazine. Bilder said the recent "Jackbox Party Pack 6" had the series' strongest release to date.

Bilder said the older Party Packs were still selling well, too, because of the company's decision to diversify its games each year. Jackbox has been able to build a relatively evergreen catalogue with the Party Packs and past volumes of "You Don't Know Jack."

The small studio is already working toward "The Jackbox Party Pack 7," and Bilder said he's incredibly proud that the Jackbox team had been able to build a game that's simple for players and capable of bringing people together.

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https://www.businessinsider.com/jackbox-games-adapt-video-game-industry-party-pack-quiplash-2020-1

2020-01-27 14:00:00Z
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