Meteor Games was an independent online gaming studio formed in 2007 by

Neopets ''Neopets'' is a free-to-play virtual pet site, virtual pet browser game. First launched in 1999, the game allows users to own virtual pets ("Neopets") and explore a virtual world called "Neopia." Players can earn one of two virtual currency, v ...

founders Adam Powell and Donna Powell. It went bankrupt in 2012. According to a statement released by the company, its games will "cross the appeal of social networks, web-based casual games and traditional massively multiplayer online games."

History

Meteor Games' first project was the MMO ''

Twin Skies Meteor Games was an independent online gaming studio formed in 2007 by Neopets founders Adam Powell and Donna Powell. It went bankrupt in 2012. According to a statement released by the company, its games will "cross the appeal of social netwo ...

'', with the first public demo of the game being shown at the

Penny Arcade Expo PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, and Melbourne. Previously, it was also held in San Anton ...

(PAX) in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

.Twin Skies at PAX 08
The game was originally planned to be in 3D, but was later changed to become a 2D

Flash game A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-play ...

. In the company's shift to social gaming, it released several games based on internal

intellectual properties Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

, including Island Paradise, Serf Wars, and Ranch Town.

Layoffs

In October 2011, 26 workers were laid off. At the end of November 2011, it was acknowledged that all but those related to maintenance of the remaining games run by Meteor Games on Facebook were being let go. On March or April 2012, the remainder of the Meteor Games staff were let go after Island Paradise was shut down around April. It was confirmed that then CEO Zac Brandenberg, who joined the company in 2010, had left in November, leaving Adam and Donna Powell to oversee the site. Sometime in either 2010 (around when Zac Brandenberg left) or early 2011, Adam also exited Meteor Games, which left Donna as sole COO and CEO of the company.

Games

Twin Skies

''Twin Skies'' was a planned

flash game A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-play ...

to be created through Meteor Games as their first gaming project. Initial response to the game's announcement at the 2008

was positive. Later reports stated that Meteor Games had scrapped plans to release the game as a

MMOG A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are games th ...

, but moved to produce the game via flash due to economic issues. The move was met with disappointment by gaming websites such as

Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

, who commented that it was "a pity" as the "original concept was extremely intriguing." Gameplay was initially planned to include several elements such as social interaction and mini-flash games that would have directly influenced the world in the Twin Skies MMO. ''Twin Skies'' was originally planned to enter beta testing in late 2008, with a projected full launch in 2009, but was cancelled due to massive layoffs at Meteor Games.

Serf Wars

Serf Wars, discontinued in early 2012, was a city-building game about developing a fantasy kingdom.

Island Paradise

Island Paradise was a social network-based application available on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, where players create their own tropical island. Island Paradise was launched 25 August 2009. In November 2009, Island Paradise had roughly 6.8 million

monthly active users Active users is a software performance metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular software product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from users or visitors within a relevant range ...

. After two years the game continued to be a success. In the beginning of April 2012, the game went offline without any notice.

Ranch Town

Named one of the top gaining Facebook apps in early June 2010, Ranch Town was a

farming sim Farm life sims (also called farming sim or farm sim) are a subgenre of life simulation games which fuse Social simulation game, social simulation, dating sim and farm simulation elements. The games generally feature a protagonist going out to a ...

set in the

California gold rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

era. It was discontinued in early 2012.

Neopets: Treasure Keepers

In conjunction with

, Meteor developed a new game based in the world Adam and Donna first created, Neopia. Gameplay included quests on a board game-like map, selling items to

NPCs A non-player character (NPC) is a character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster (or referee) rather than by a ...

in your shop, and earning achievements. These achievements sometimes come with a code for a free item on Neopets. It was confirmed due to money losses and a plummet of users over the last few months along with laying off 90% of Meteor Games staff, Neopets: Treasure Keepers was shut down on Wednesday, 14 December 2011. Upon closing, users of the game were given a code to use on Neopets website for 10,000 in-game NP and 11 other virtual items.

Discontinued games

* Vikings, Pirates, and Ninjas * My Sweet Shop *Little Rock Pool

References

External links

* * {{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319093026/http://forums.meteorgames.com:80/forum.php, date=19 March 2012, title=Official Forum Video game companies of the United States American companies established in 2007 Companies based in California 2007 establishments in California Inactive massively multiplayer online games 2012 disestablishments in California