Kabam Taking ‘The Godfather’ To Facebook With New Social Game

A scene from The Godfather: Five Families

“I’m gonna make him an offer he won’t refuse. Okay?”
–Don Corleone

Social gaming start-up Kabam is partnering with Paramount Digital Entertainment to create The Godfather: Five Families, a new multi-player Facebook social game based on the iconic Godfather film trilogy.

The move could presage more moves by large studios to turn older classic entertainment content into newfangled social games. Other brands recently brought to Facebook include Ubisoft’s Smurfs game and Electronic Art’s Sims Social.

It’s a first for Kabam in terms of licensing intellectual property to build a game. It’s also a way for Viacom’ Paramount to monetize its existing titles. The Godfather movies are still quite popular–its Facebook page has almost 5 million fans–but the movie may not be as well-known with the younger generation. However, gamers clearly like mobster games. Witness Zynga’s Mafia Wars, Freeweb’s Mob Wars, the mobile game iMob Online, and so on. Kabam’s new game is going after both Kabam’s hard core social gaming audience but also a broader mainstream audience interested in the Godfather movies.

Kabam is backed by about $125 million from investors including Google Ventures, SK Telecom Ventures, Canaan Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Intel Capital.

This Godfather game is set in New York City in the early 1930s, ten years before the time of the first godfather in the first movie. The goal of the game is to take over territory in the city by attacking others in the game. To do this players gather resources such as food, steel and cement. Then they train an army made up of units that level up from categoriss such as “thug” up to “professional.”

The Godfather game incorporates Kabam’s style of play, which is competitive and combat-oriented games. They are also social so people can play with friends or meet new players in the game. In the game, people can choose from one of the five mafia families to join. Each family has special characteristics and skills in the game and will battle for territory in the city. Within the family, players also join an alliance or “crew.” The smaller groups, which are a new feature for Kabam, enable more communication and interaction between players. Players strategize and organize attacks on other groups through the game as they can in other Kabam games such as Edgeworld. “One thing we saw as a huge indicator of why people like to play games is that they feel like they’re part of a tight-knit community,” says Larry Koh, general manager of the game at Kabam.

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Ministers back down over Facebook blackout for trouble-makers

Prime Minister David Cameron said after the riots the Government was looking
at how to stop the internet being a tool to organise violence.

The Government was “working with the police, the intelligence services and
industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating
via these websites and services”, he said.

At the opening of the meeting on Thursday at the Home Office, Mrs May made it
clear that the Government had decided not to seek new powers over social
networks during emergencies.

Instead, the discussions looked at how law enforcement can more effectively
monitor the networks for criminal material and have it removed under
existing arrangements.

A Home Office spokesman said afterwards: “The Government did not seek any
additional powers to close down social media networks.”

On a visit to the North of England, Mr Clegg said: “I’ll tell you what is not
going to happen – there is not going to be a Chinese or Iranian-style
black-out of social media.

“And let’s not forget that during the riots, social media was very helpful to
lots of people in finding out what was going on and in bringing communities
together.”

A spokesman for Research In Motion (RIM), which makes BlackBerry, the meeting
had been “positive and productive”.

She added: “We were pleased to consult on the use of social media to engage
and communicate during times of emergency.

“RIM continues to maintain an open and positive dialogue with the UK
authorities and continues to operate within the context of UK regulations.”

A Facebook spokesman said: “There is no place for illegal activity on Facebook
and we take firm action against those who breach our rules.”

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