Attention All Strategy Gamers: Call of War 2.0 revamp is here!

/in , , /by

The anticipated release of Call of War 2.0 is finally here and it’s bringing interface changes and revamps to both mobile and desktop versions of the game.

After months of teasing the release of Call of War 2.0, the moment for players to jump in, start new battles, and join forces with other strategy enthusiasts has finally arrived! We listened to our community feedback and our team got ready to release a completely revamped and redesigned UI and map. Naturally, Call of War 2.0 still offers relentless battles taking time in the World War II era, now completely revamped and redesigned to give players an unmatched, modern, and historically authentic strategy gaming experience.

What’s New?

Revamped menu panels, which now have a cleaner, more modern design, and most importantly, it’s easier to navigate in the midst of a heated battle. Whether you need to call for help, reach out to a comrade, or access the map, it’s all now as simple as ABC. 

Although the historic accuracy remains, the look of the maps is one of the most noticeable visual changes, now showing slicker lines but keeping the rustic look of a real battle map.

Like a seasoned general would do, you can now create their own command center by pinning all armies, provinces, and units in one place, giving them instant access to their arsenals when calling for backup. 

Does This Mean That The Gameplay Has Changed In Any Way? 

Luckily for our hardcore long-term strategy fans, the gameplay remains as challenging and intense as always. Our team was careful to maintain the same revitalizing feel of intense battles while focussing on improving the design and functionality of Call of War‘s interface.

All improvements are available now in the desktop version, as well as on iOS and Android devices.

 

It’s Time To Go To Battle: Iron Order 1919 Is Officially Available On Steam And Microsoft Store!

/in , /by

Hamburg – 31.08.2022: Since day one, Bytro’s objective has been to bring a strategic, immersive experience to gamers and strategy lovers on all platforms, giving you the nation-leading experience you love, anywhere at any time.

Today, we’re raising our flags upon new ground by fully conquering the desktop world. Iron Order 1919 is now available on the Microsoft Store and Steam, making it truly cross-platform.

This means more comrades to play with, more opportunities for growth in the community, and even more available battles with up to 101 players fighting for weeks to determine the last nation standing.

With an ever-expanding collection of maps, factions, and towering war machines that roam the battlefield, Iron Order brings a unique, long-term strategy warfare experience that intrigues the hardcore veteran gamer.

From the second you come out of the tutorial, you’ll be met with a one-of-a-kind community and a fully-fledged ecosystem with treaties, diplomatic relations, economic agreements, and much more, adding that extra layer of realism and immersion to your experience.

As victory requires strategic thinking, solid leadership, and cunning diplomacy, the long-lasting battles of Iron Order 1919 will put your gaming chair to the test. With each decision followed by consequences in real-time, you’re presented with a unique experience that you’ll not find in any other MMO out there

Join the Iron Order 1919 alliance today, and experience a true combat experience, now available on Steam and the Microsoft Store! 

Take it from the pros, you don’t want to miss out on this one.

Iron Order 1919 on Steam

Iron Order on the Microsoft Store

 

8 QUESTIONS FOR: Lizandro Rodríguez, Quality Assurance Specialist

/in , /by

Lizandro Rodriguez, 24, Quality Assurance Specialist

The time has come for the next short interview of the month! Featuring the February edition we have the one and only Lizandro Rodríguez, Quality Assurance Specialist, who joined Bytro last year.  All the way from Venezuela, Lizandro shares with us his day-to-day, work and outside-of-work passions, and some very important life and career advice.

Let’s go!

What do you do in your job as a Quality Assurance Specialist?

One of my main responsibilities is having a complete overview of any issues our games are experiencing before any releases and making sure these are fixed with the utmost priority. Besides supervising the status quo of our games (quality-wise) and improving internal processes, I also do manual tests of the new features before they are released to our players. This involves a very diverse cross-team communication between our QA department and developers, project managers, game designers, community moderators, players, and other departments on a daily basis.

What did you do before working for Bytro?

I was living in the beautiful city of Aachen (westernmost city of Germany), working part-time as a freelancer in marketing/journalism projects while also attending German lessons in a ‘Sprachschule’ five times a week! Before coming to Germany, I lived in Dublin, Ireland for a few years, where I got my first experience in the software industry, working for companies such as HubSpot and Google.


Which project holds a special place in your heart?

At the moment I am really focused on getting our QA department to a state where we can have more coverage of our functional testing needs, and this involves a lot of strategic planning with my fellow colleagues in terms of internal processes, organizational flows, and expanding our team, so exciting times are ahead of us!

What do you do in your free time?

I guess this is because I lived in Ireland, but I’d say discovering cozy pubs with friends is a must – having a good ol ‘pint of Guinness or trying new beer types, reading, and occasionally going for a swim or a hike outside of the city. As a hobby, I used to act with the Gaiety School of Acting (Dublin) and this is something I’d like to take up once more here in Hamburg, whether it is creating short-film ideas, getting the chance to interpret different characters, or just participating in theater productions!

I also used to travel quite a bit in the pre-COVID times, so I plan to continue doing that as soon as it is safe to do so.

What is your favorite videogame? Why?

I’ve always been a passionate FIFA player, but recently I started playing Pro Evolution Soccer and it has me hooked. I was reluctant to play it in the beginning, but my fellow Bytronians from the Marketing department decided to play the latest edition, and oh man, what a good decision that was. Now I really appreciate the realism of the game mechanics and, even if I constantly lose against my colleagues (I am talking to you, Marvin, our head of BizDev) I always have fun!

How does a typical day at work look like for you?

Besides the usual morning standup meetings to discuss the current status of our projects and assignments with different teams, I’d say a typical day would involve the whole QA department testing different areas of the games, staying reactive to new arising issues reported internally by our colleagues or externally by our players, and afterward escalating them accordingly.

What is a valuable lesson you have learned in your career?

Be kind . This is a total cliché , but you never know what type of day your colleagues or other people, in general, might be having, so I always do my best to maintain a positive attitude and make sure this always translates to all the efforts and dedication I put to my work. 

What do you like about working at Bytro?

It is unbelievable how much I’ve learned since I started working at Bytro. Proactiveness and constant improvement is something that I see on a daily basis and this motivates me to keep pushing myself. I also value everybody’s receptiveness to new ideas and the passion for innovating our games. This is my first experience in the gaming industry and I can honestly say I admire the talent of the people I work with!

 

Thank you so much Lizandro!

Want to be on board?
You can find further information about our job openings at  bytro.com/career . Your contact person is Michael Kögel. If you are currently not looking for a new challenge, we are happy to invite you to follow us on Social Media!

 

The best bet: cross-platform games

/in /by

How cross-platform games enable players to become more loyal and allow businesses to thrive.

The conversation around cross-platform gaming is loud, today more than ever. Some players prefer one console to another, some like PC s better, and others love their mobile devices. There has been this rivalry between platforms for years now.

This past year in particular we’ve been watching how, slowly but surely, things are starting to change and although there is still some resistance from some elements in the industry, the evidence is right there . We are watching every day how cross-platform games enable players to become more loyal to games and they are allowing businesses to grow in ways we’ve never seen before. 

From the player’s perspective, having the opportunity to play with friends no matter the device they own, just makes things easier and takes the experience of playing to a whole new level. This accessibility is key in allowing the gaming community to connect with one another and encourages players to become loyal to their favorite games.

So, why aren’t all games cross-platform if its advantages are so obvious? 

For starters, the gaming console market is still worth more than PC games by a few billion dollars. As a matter of fact, with PlayStation releasing PS5 and Nintendo, allegedly, working on an upgraded Switch to release next year, the PC game market is expected to drop (to see the stats click here ).

Not to mention the technical challenge that it represents to build one of these games: for it to run smoothly on different platforms, different technologies are needed. And when it comes to how the game runs, consoles deliver amazing game performance and visuals and are generally cheaper than gaming PCs . 

Creating a game with this flexibility does not guarantee success , it’s a lot of work, and naturally, very expensive. As a game creator, you really need to consider if it makes sense for your audience and your game’s business model. And if you do your research and it makes sense for your business goals, it is totally worth it.

Removing the restrictions so players can easily connect, allows a network effect  to happen. One person likes a game, he or she invites a friend, the friend invites more friends and so it goes. The kind of organic growth that cross-platform games allow is massive, and it doesn’t compare with platform exclusive games. 

When given the option, a player can switch freely between platforms according to his preference and resources, which leads to an increased time spent in-game and, naturally, an increase in the CLV (Customer Lifetime Value). According to an Epic games article, published by Gamesindustry.biz, users who cross-played Fortnite generated 365% higher revenue than non-cross-players ( See the full article here ). 

Fortnite, Minecraft, Rocket League, Call of Duty, are great examples of this. All these games are universally beloved because they allow people to connect with each other and to play no matter the device they have access to. Not to mention the economic success this represents! We have seen it all these years with our games Call of War and Supremacy 1914 . The level of success on these wouldn’t be possible without them being cross-platform. 

Cross-platform games are shaping the future of the gaming industry and to ignore it, as a business, would be like tying the rope around your neck. 

The best move to do right now, for a game, is to think about ways to be more approachable for the players and how to make it easier for them to connect with each other and to the game itself. Being cross-platform is one way to start.

If you are interested in continuing the conversation or in publishing our games, feel free to contact us at bizdev@bytro.com .

By Cecilia Luna

8 QUESTIONS FOR: Linus, Marketing Manager

/in , /by

Linus Otten, 28, Marketing Manager

We welcome you to the first piece of a series of short interviews with the people that bring our games to life. Here you’ll get a peek inside the minds of the creators, designers, developers, marketers, and every single element that is involved in delivering our products to your hands. In today’s interview we’ll introduce you to our beloved colleague Linus, Marketing Manager at Bytro, and responsible for making it easier for players to find our games.

What do you do in your job as Marketing Manager?

While I also work on presenting our games to the public in the best possible way, my main focus is scale. Understanding who likes our games and for what reasons is key. We leverage that information to find potential players for our games and make them love the flavor of grand strategy multiplayer that our titles represent.

What makes working at Bytro special?

A common goal. When looking for a job one of my major concerns was competition amongst the workforce. While I like being competitive, I don’t think a company benefits greatly in playing employees against one another. Whether it is comparing their results against each other, pointing at hours worked compared to colleagues – neither of these metrics strengthen motivation and are rather damaging.

Working at Bytro is great because we all share a goal that we have inherent reasons to work towards. Providing a game that is fun to play, a solid technical foundation to prevent interruptions in the experience, engage and acquire user to generate a healthy playerbase to ultimately support a workplace that we all like to go to (or think about from the safety of our homes) 5 days a week and make it better every day, month and year.

The team is growing in size and variety. Several professions are found in our teams ranging from developer work, data science, marketing, finance and a great HR department. We are also quite international with many unique people to meet and we fit it all into a tower that is shaped like a refreshing beer and gives the greatest view over Hamburg.

What did you do before working for Bytro?

Living in a small apartment located in the beautiful 3rd district of Vienna studying Communication-Sciences and preparing myself to influence the gaming marketing landscape.

Which project holds a special place in your heart?

Launching on mobile was a transitional moment for our team and myself. Seeing our game grow across hundreds of thousands of new devices, having to rethink my work quickly and reaching an audience that was waiting for a game like ours, but lacking a viable alternative before, was amazing.

Over the following months and years it proved to be a highly important step to stay relevant and keep growing, although our heart and core business still is anchored on Desktop PCs.

What do you do in your free time?

Either grab my running shoes, sit down and enjoy competitive matches in Counter-Strike or lie on the balcony and read a good biography of someone that I believe I could learn from. Sometimes, if I can’t sleep, I get up in the middle of a night, put a good 80s action movie on and mumble the quotes alongside it – which I used to do almost every night when I was a student.

What is your favorite videogame?

It is tough to nail it down, but the one game I always come back to is Counter-Strike. I do play a lot, but when it comes to Single Player I am always excited for a new game from From Software – hopefully we’ll see Elden Ring soon!

How do you keep motivated and productive during quarantine?

Don’t forget to go outside (as much as you are allowed to!). When the time came and we started working from home I had a very rough transition. Usually I wake up at 5:30am, drink a coffee and go for a run, the gym or play some video games in the morning – sometimes I repeat this in the evening as well. In the first few weeks of home-office it was very difficult for me to stick to my rituals and ultimately I felt very tired and overworked for most of the days. Where I always thought that home-office something to work towards, I realized that over longer periods of time it drags me down.

So I fought hard, getting up early again, trying to separate work from free-time harder and got back to my original self – motivated and productive.

So, don’t treat your day differently just because you work from home and pay even more attention to keep your rituals intact!

What advice would you give to the people trying to keep their work teams united and motivated while working remotely?

Communicate with video and audio! I am very much a digital person and don’t put too much effort in meeting someone face to face. So one would think that not going to work and the overall quarantine changes little for my life. And that is true, but still the distance in communicating with others shows harsh effects. Just reading what colleagues and friends write without the context of their “person” created distance, misunderstandings and sometimes conflict.

Try to bring as much of the “person” back into the conversations. It will help keep the teams united.

Thank you so much, Linus!

Want to be on board?
You can find further information about our job openings at bytro.com/career. Your contact person is Susanne Zander. If you are currently not looking for a new challenge, we are happy to invite you to follow us on Social Media!

Why integrating games into your site is the best business move to do right now.

/in /by

Big or small site, learn how to integrate this new content successfully.

You are a website owner. You provide valuable content for your visitors, and no matter what type of site you manage, you work hard to deliver pictures, videos and even blog posts to entertain your audience. So why don’t add games into the basket? 

Gaming is the fastest-growing segment of the media and entertainment industry. And it looks like it will make another huge step this year due to many people being in quarantine and starting discovering games or picking up another round of their favorite title. Here you’ll learn why adding games into your site is the best business move to do right now and how to do it successfully.

Maybe you already tried integrating games on your site and it didn’t work as you expected, maybe you think your audience is not interested in gaming, maybe it never crossed your mind before because you think you don’t have enough traffic for it to work. Whatever the reasons are, this experiment can bring you wonderful results no matter the interests and size of your audience, and thanks to iFrames and affiliate links adding something like embedded games as part of your content it’s super easy to do. But before calling your IT team to start working on technicalities, first you’ll need some games to integrate. 

There are so many great developers out there like Goodgame Studios, Dorado Games, Imperia Online, Kixeye, and Bytro; they can provide you with their free-to-play games so you can embed them into your site and offer top-notch entertainment content to your visitors. 

Your goal should be to establish a sustainable revenue stream and the way to accomplish that is by having a diverse game content portfolio, meaning at least 4 different games. This allows players to find their favorite type of game and they will be more likely to start spending money. 

Speaking about money, you might be wondering by now: How am I supposed to make a business out of embedding games?

There are a few ways to monetize this and you’ll probably find a model that best suits you with time, but the way to build a strong long-lasting and mutually profitable relationship with a game developer is through revenue share. Working with this model means that the money that your users spend inside the game is shared between the two parties. Game developers can even provide exclusive promotions inside the game for users coming from your site so you can kick start this successfully. 

Once you choose the first games (or several if you want to), you contact the developer/publisher so you get access to your own tracking links and a promotional image of the game. Secondly, you integrate the tracking link on your site, publish it with the image, and that’s literally it. Now your audience can access games via your page and you have created a profitable and sustainable new business line that took a one-time effort and without spending a dime. 

If you think this is too good to be true check out this business case. Here you’ll see three different scenarios with real companies where you can compare your site and have an idea of how games could behave on your page too. If you wanna be bold and make this move and need some guidance through the whole process, feel free to get in touch with us at bizdev@bytro.com.

Although there is no 100% accurate way of predicting how these games will be received by your users, if integrating them on your site means there’s a way to improve the user experience, lengthen their session time, the overall customer lifetime value, AND increase your revenues along the way, it’s surely worth the try.

Click here to read the business cases

 by Cecilia Luna