Vancouver, Canada – September 21, 2011 –

Today East Side Games announced it has acquired local games studio Compass Engine. This marks East Side Games first acquisition since officially forming earlier this summer.

Established in 2009 by Ben Hesketh and McElroy Flavelle, Compass Engine started out building a platform for location based games before deciding to focus on the creating of their own titles for the iOS platform, namely ‘Catch the Canary’ and ‘Bounty Island’.

“We have been watching Compass Engine for a while now and worked in closely with the really great team they put together,” said Jason Bailey, CEO of East Side Games. “The development talent they’ve gathered and the IP they have developed is top tier. We are thrilled to bring them on board and get them working with our guys to continue to build the future of social and mobile games, both with Bounty Island and other mobile IP under development.”

Studio Manager

East Side Games builds Social and Mobile games. It is a highly profitable Studio of 25 people located in Vancouver. Their stable of games have well over a million monthly active users. It is led by Jason Bailey, cofounder of Super Rewards, GrowLab and other successful ventures.

About Compass Engine
Compass Engine build location based games. Their flag ship title is Bounty Island, available for iOS devices worldwide.

I take these goals seriously, and I pledge the following to the Bounty Island community and to each individual Bounty Island Player:

1. I will listen to your feedback, represent the community wherever necessary and get answers to your concerns.
2. I will engage daily.
3. I will be genuine and relevant.
4. I will be a Bounty Island player myself.

In return, here is how you can help, and be a part of, the Bounty Island community!

1. Express yourself. Tell us what you think about features in Bounty Island. What would make it more fun for you? Share Bounty Island stories!
2. Tell your friends about Bounty Island and encourage them to join the community.

Let’s get to know each other. Here are five things you didn’t know about me:

1. I can happily play ball- and frisbee-related sports for hours on end. I’m sort of like a dog that way. Consequently, I’m a dog person.
2. I have one tattoo. I got it while travelling in Thailand in the summer of my 18th year.
3. I always sleep with the window beside my bed open, because I like cold air.
4. I’m growing a vegetable garden this year, for the first time ever.
5. I love numbered lists.

Are you in? Let’s work together to create an awesome community experience around Bounty Island. In the end, it’s about having fun!

Our main discussion hub will likely be the Bounty Island Facebook page, and you can also reach out us on twitter @BountyIsland.

P.S. If you’re ever in Kitsilano on a sunny day, send me a tweet and we can play some frisbee, soccer, tennis, volleyball, basketball, etc.

This is the first update to have significant changes to gameplay.

Captain Coin has piles of missions for you to achieve as you explore the world of Bounty Island.

As well we’ve added new animations to make a richer experience and faster load times to get you into the game quicker.

If you have questions or feedback never hesitate to let us know: love@compassengine.com.

Get the update here.

Yesterday was Consoles Are Dinosaurs: an event with speakers that didn’t suck and plenty of spirited debate about the future of video games. The night covered topics such as gamification, virtual goods, game metrics, web and gaming technology, and of course, why or why not console gaming is extinct. There was controversy, pizza, beer and good times in abundance.

Consoles Are Dinosaurs was generously sponsored by BCIC, Mozilla, Oddball and Vancouver Social Games.

For those that missed the event, videos of the talks will be released “soon.”

Looks like fun, right? You should come out to the next Vancouver Social Games meetup.

We need a developer with Python/Pylons experience and a Junior/Intermediate iOS developer.

Details below:

iOS: http://bit.ly/lMOQmn

Python: http://bit.ly/jd34wz

Email jobs@compassengine.com if you have any questions.

It was built by our good friend Carlos Lavara.

We went for a simple one page and removed any boring corporate info from the site.

Download the app at the top, find our contact info at the bottom and all the juicy content in the middle.

We will be donating 100% of today’s revenue generated from Bounty Island to the RedCross for support of Japan.

You can also text REDCROSS to 30333 to donate $5 to the redcross.  This number works in Canada.

Here’s where things get interesting: Spacetime says its daily user activity on Android is more than double its level on iOS in practically every measure. On Android, the game is downloaded about 9,000 times a day, according to Spacetime; on iOS, daily downloads are in the 3,000 to 4,000 range. Perhaps even more significant, Android users who have the app use it about three times more than their Apple counterparts.

Altogether, that translates into a big difference in revenue: Spacetime, which is supported largely by in-app purchases, says its Android users generate 30 to 50 percent more revenue than its iOS users do. This is despite the fact that Apple has a seamless in-app purchasing interface, whereas Android’s built-in purchasing system isn’t set to debut until sometime this spring.

You can download the update here!      

and remember to follow us on Facebook as well for the full game experience!