November 10th, 2010 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial, Platforms: iOS | No Comments »
Richard Hasinki has been creating mobile games and apps for 11 years, starting with WAP and SMS based ones. He is experienced in J2me, Brew, Symbian, iPhone and Android amongst others. Right now, his success comes from an MMO.
One Thumb Mobile is based in Glasgow and has been active since 5 years, jumping into new platforms as soon as possible. The company has also been doing a lot of branded apps and games.
The company has a specialist focus, looking only at mobile development. It has been working on Fast and Furious, Need for Speed, FIFA and other titles. They focus on complex, difficult apps.
Small apps in the vision of One Thumb Mobile are developed in under three months with a team of max 3 people. These are in general popular on the App Store and Android Market. This segment is for the goldrush mentality with clients. The competition is high and discovery is an issue. Most niches are filled and many good ideas are copied. Products have a short lifespan and low purchase price. On the other hand, you have low production costs. Sales revenue is mostly profitable and it fits well with casual gamers (the majority). There is a quick turnaround and you can create lots of different apps in little time. You can adapt the game according to demand on the market.
Larger projects need high sales to become profitable, but there are less competing apps. It takes longer to develop them and there is a danger for external changes during development. Avoiding feature creep requires discipline and you have less releases to learn from. It requires special features to get noticed. There are still gaps in the market where these projects can fit and copycat apps will come late if you are successful. It is also easier to stand out from the crowd. These apps should be built when you identified a gap in the market. Existing brands can help to get users.
The reason the company made the MMO Highland Warrior is that it fits the vision and values of the company. They are understanding RPG’s and it is a gap in the market. There is a high barrier to enter that part of the market. It has high potential of revenues (sticky genre, loyal users). No middleware increases value in their game engine. They identified one real competitor to their product; Pocket Legends.
