January 8th, 2009 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | 3 Comments »
It's been a while since there was so much noise around a bit of news. If we remember correctly, the last time it was the world vs. TelcoGames. Now it seems like it's Germany vs. Germany with the latest news bits from Fishlabs and HandyGames.
It all started out with Fishlabs ditching the operators, or at least stopping to develop for them as they don't bring in any real money. We feel that's the same message.
We got the German version of their blog (titled: Die besten Handygames lohnen sich nicht) first, in which we noticed the term Handygames being used all over the story. Being that we are not German, we reckon that it's common language. As we got curious, we started looking at the rest of the Fishlabs website and that's filled with the word “Handyspiel”. A clear wink to their fellow German developers? We don't know, but we did enjoy finding the coincidence!
More coincidence? HandyGames replied to the message from Fishlabs. Was it because of the Handygames use in the German blog? Could be… their statement clearly pointed toward the moves from Fishlabs. HandyGames openly disapproved the road that Fishlabs has taken. We see it as advice toward other developers in the market. Fact is that HandyGames is a privately owned company and is profitable, so they probably know what they are talking about.
And now… the microphone returned to Fishlabs as the company replies to HandyGames' message at PocketGamer.biz. In this new statement, CEO Michael Shade explains that his games can still be found on operators world-wide and he takes it up for everyone that earns money at operator channels;
“Truly, we are happy for anyone who is making good profit from operator channels these days.”
Michael also clearly hints toward his ties with technology partners;
“we are 100% sure that companies like ARM, Nvidia and other 3D hardware specialist but also handset manufacturers will make sure that developers likes us are doing well creating outstanding games to make a difference and to justify their investments in better technologies at the end of the day.”
So what will happen next? Who knows. For now I hope we can leave it with the fact that there are two German developers making totally different moves based on their own experience. We wish both of them the best of luck.
Handy Speil, although it does translate to Handy Games in German, means mobile games in this language and thus the meny instances on the Fishlabs site im sure.
Interesting note on this old post, there will be a “Face off” between Fishlabs and HandyGames on the Casual Connect Europe in Hamburg. Check out this link http://europe.casualconnect.org/content.html and scroll down to day 2 15:00. Anyone going there and willing to write a comment? Would be interesting to read on MGB what happened during the discussion.
Fishlabs and HandyGames are showing up together several times a year. Partly they have the same opinions. 😉