Starz Takes Spartacus Outside the Arena

Starz Digital Media, the digital and on-demand licensing arm of Starz, announced a sneak preview of its upcoming Facebook social game, Spartacus: Vengeance The Game, launching on January 27 . Viewers of the sneak preview video teaser are able to “like” the game and sign up to be invited to play once the game is live. Both the video teaser and Spartacus: Vengeance The Game are designed to accompany the STARZ Original series “Spartacus: Vengeance,” debuting on January 27 at 10 pm et/pt.The video teaser also coincides with a multi-affiliate sampling effort of the first episode of “Spartacus: Vengeance” starting on January 20 across multiple providers including on-demand and online platforms (see second section for more details).

About Spartacus: Vengeance The Game

Spartacus: Vengeance The Game builds upon the success of the existing Spartacus: The Game(originally named Spartacus: Gods of the Arena) that was launched on Facebook in January 2011. Spartacus: Vengeance The Game operates as an entirely new property by taking players outside of the arena and ludus walls.

“We are thrilled to present a teaser video of Spartacus: Vengeance The Game on Facebook in advance of the official game launch and the highly anticipated second season,” said Mara Winokur, senior vice president, digital media, business development and strategy, Starz Media and lead executive for Starz Digital Media. “The teaser video gives users a good overview of the new Spartacus: Vengeance The Game, which takes on a greater level of sophistication by adding new elements such as improved visuals, multi-fighter battles, a more robust game economy, advanced game progressions, and more varied strategic options.”

As with the Spartacus: The Game, Starz Digital Media partnered with Large Animal Games for the development of Spartacus: Vengeance The Game. “‘Spartacus: The Game helped change the landscape for branded Facebook games based on media properties and was very successful,” said Wade Tinney, CEO of Large Animal Games. “Its mix of visceral action, evocative graphics and long-term gladiator development remains unlike any other game on the market. With Spartacus: Vengeance The Game, we intend to amp up all of the things our players and the show’s fans love.” Spartacus: The Game produced approximately 4 million registered users, including more than 1,200,000 monthly active users at its peak.”

Spartacus: Vengeance The Game, as with Spartacus: The Game, will be built on Large Animal Game’s proprietary Toga™ application platform. Toga is a full-featured social game infrastructure which dramatically reduces the time, cost and resource needs of social and mobile game developers. It lets administrators manage and create game content without the need for engineering resources;  lets product managers view advanced, custom stat packages; and supports cross-platform deployment, including Facebook, Google+, Android, iOS and more, ensuring that products are future-proofed. Its architecture is expandable via plug-in or library and easily integrates with third parties to allow limitless expansion.

Facebook-based Spartacus: Vengeance The Game is free to play and takes the player, a recently escaped slave, outside of the arena to embrace a series of challenges and lead his own band of warriors. Through his journey, the player will travel from Capua to Vesuvius, paralleling the feats of Spartacus’s own warriors. As with the Spartacus series on STARZ, Spartacus: Vengeance The Game offers more than just fighting; it functions on a strategic level as well. Throughout the game, players will be given missions to wrest various locations from Roman control by overcoming a series of challenges, such as building and equipping an army, liberating slaves and other prisoners and acquiring fighters. All the while the player will be working with and conspiring against characters from “Spartacus: Vengeance.”