In this latest Q&A, Games On Deck talks to Artificial Life CEO Eberhard Schoneburg about the Hong Kong-based company, its mobile suite, and the company's decision to concentrate on developing content with brands such as America's Next Top Model and the German pop group Tokio Hotel.
Games On Deck: Introduce us to Artificial Life, the company.
Eberhard Schoneburg: Artificial Life is a pioneer in broadband mobile technology. We are the world's first full service broadband mobile content and technology provider.
The company is a public US corporation with global headquarters in Hong Kong, European headquarters in Berlin, and a sales office in Tokyo. I founded the company in 1993.
GOD: Can you describe your ALife mobile suite?
ES: Our services and products include: mobile games and entertainment, mobile TV, mobile technology (3G, 3.5G/HSDPA, 4G), mobile business applications, mobile aggregation & distribution, mobile advertisement and product placements.
GOD: You've been providing 3G content for a long time. Why did you decide to make 3G titles the core of your output?
ES: Because the future for mobile is clearly broadband: 3G, 3.5G and the coming 4G. Simply put, such high-bandwidth infrastructure makes better games possible. For example, on our America's Next Top Model 9 game, the graphics are really sharp, doing full justice to the models, it has multiple levels, and players can be very collaborative among friends.
GOD: You also work extensively with reality TV brands. Why did you choose that genre?
ES: You are right; foremost among our reality television tie-in games are America's Next Top Model 9 and Bad Girls Club. Reality TV properties are ideal for our games because it's a dynamic medium, evolving throughout the season, and that enables our games to in turn be ever-evolving, dynamic and changing nearly in real-time, just as events on the television series evolve. The same would be true for narrative television, too, of course, and we hope to work with some of those properties, as well.
The television networks, for their part, are quite keen to penetrate the new mobile medium in a creative way; we enable them to do that.
GOD: How did you attract the brands?
ES: We have found that the people behind big television properties recognize us as the global market leader in transforming movie and TV into interactive mobile titles. We have a demonstrated record of success, so the brands come to us. They find us; we really do not do much work to actively attract them.
GOD: Can you describe exactly how your reality TV games work?
ES: As an example, in the America's Next Top Model 9 game, the player can interact with and manage his/her favorite contestants and make her into his/her very own top model. The player acts as her mentor to help her to prepare for the high-stress and high-stakes world of modeling. The eliminations and mini-game modeling challenges inside the America's Next Top Model mobile game are coordinated with the America's Next Top Model Cycle 9 TV show. In this game, a player can even send his/her model avatar on vacation to a friend's phone! Also if the player decides to opt in, he/she will receive text message alerts and voice calls about the America's Next Top Model TV show and mobile game.
