Recently acquired by Oberon Media, I-play is one of the mobile games industry's most well known brands. Games On Deck talks to I-play's SVP of Content Strategy and Licensing, Leighton Webb, about casual games, the success of the Fast and the Furious franchise and the choice to diversify into video.
Games On Deck: Can you brief us on I-play's history?
Leighton Webb: We're a leading mobile games company, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Oberon Media, the world's leading casual games company, which is headquartered in New York with offices across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. We handle about 80% of our development internally and 100% of our porting and Q&A internally. Our focus is on creating high quality, premium casual mobile game content.
GOD: Specifically casual games?
LW: Casual is used a lot within the industry, but worth clarifying that for us "casual" is a mindset rather than a genre. Mobile is a unique device which means it has specific development requirements, as well as specific consumer behaviour. Mobile consumers "snack" on content, grabbing a couple of minutes here, a couple of minutes there, versus the immersive environment of console or PC. By developing "casual" games, we create content with that behaviour in mind. One of our production mantras is "easy to access, hard to master." So "casual" involves designing a game to be played with "one thumb", providing a dip-in, dip-out experience, as opposed to only developing puzzle games. We do, of course also publish titles traditionally considered "casual". We have a strong relationship with iWin, and our Jewel Quest franchise is one of our most successful, but we also offer action and racing games. The Fast and The Furious franchise represents one of our most successful titles and has achieved the staggering milestone of 7 million paid for downloads. We develop across the whole range, 2D and 3D.
GOD: Is there room on mobile for more "hardcore" gamers?
LW: I think so. There are now 3 billion handsets in the world and mobile is clearly a mass market device, so you're reaching gamers of all types of interest. We think there are opportunities to reach all of those segments in a way that's relevant to them.
GOD: Tell us about some of your upcoming titles.
LW: We've just launched our latest Fast and Furious title, Fugitive, and are really excited about that. We've also just launched Pillowfight and that's an original project that we're really proud of. It's a totally unique game that's never been done before on mobile.
Some of the highlights ahead include Slingo Quest, brought to mobile through our relationship with Slingo, one of the most well known brands in casual gaming in the online space.
We've also announced our relationship with Daniel Negreanu, one of the top poker players in the world, and are doing a joint project with him which includes Texas Hold'em video and a game that's launching later this year.
The Fast and the Furious: Fugitive
GOD: The Fast and the Furious franchise has been very successful for I-play. What do you put that down to?
LW: The Fast and the Furious is really sort of the perfect storm if you think about it. Hindsight is always 20/20, but looking back here's what I think it is. First of all it's a great brand, a great franchise in terms of the demographic that it appeals to- the young male demographic. The movies did very well, particularly in DVD sales.
Secondly, the guys at Universal were very progressive and did a fantastic job in working with us on the marketing and promotion of the game. That was very much core to the success - getting the awareness out there among consumers.
Thirdly, I think it comes down to just the name on the deck. As you'll know, when you purchase on deck all you see is the name, and a title like The Fast and the Furious immediately conveys to the consumer what the game is, what they are getting - it conveys a sense of excitement, they know it's a racing game.
Of course, a lot of it is down to the development team doing a fantastic job creating a great game.
GOD: The Fast and the Furious is an in-house production?
LW: All of the 2D games have been produced by our development team in Dunfermline.
