One of the best-kept secrets of UK mobile development, Sheffield-based Distinctive Developments has been making quality games since 2002.

The reason you might not have heard about it though is much of its work is hidden behind large brands from large companies. But you should have heard of FIFA Mobile (05-09), Metal Gear Ac!d Mobile, and Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Now however, the challenge for MD Nigel Little is combining such output with original content. Recent experiments included AnyTime Pool on Facebook, as well as just released iPhone line drawing game Heli Rescue.

We fired some questions over to find out what plans Nigel was making.

Considering Distinctive's history as a pure mobile developer, how easy is it to balance mobile and iPhone?

Nigel Little: Looking at our time as a mobile developer, you could say the industry has completed a full circle.

Between 2002 and 2004, the barriers to entry for the mobile games industry were low and we saw an explosion of mobile developers and publishers. Back then it was easy to create your own games and distribute them directly or through aggregators. It was risky but extremely exciting and rewarding.

After 2004, as the number of devices exploded and the business become more complex, and there's been a constant series of acquisitions resulting in two mobile publishers [EA Mobile and Gameloft - Ed] dominating the mobile games industry.

Now, in 2009, we're back to a platform with low barriers to entry and we've seen an explosion of talent attracted to making games. It's exciting again. The question is, are we going to see the same level of consolidation as we saw with mobile gaming and will the big publishers dominate once again?

The difference this time is the discovery of games is much better than in the traditional mobile games industry so having a brand attached to your game isn't a guarantee of success. Having a good quality eye-catching game is much more important than brand. Therefore, it's easier for independent developers to compete with the larger publishers.

In recent years we've seen very strong demand for our development services from big publishers so the majority of our time has been spent working on their projects rather than our own. However, we've always developed our own titles as well as games for the big publishers. That is not going to change. What you will notice is we're a lot more visible from a consumer perspective as we develop our own range of iPhone games.

Do you think too many developers are risking too much on iPhone?

As the mobile games industry consolidated, many mobile games developers were squeezed out of the market. Also, as the number of publishers shrank there was a downward pressure on prices as many developers competed for the same projects. Therefore, these developers had no choice but to move to other platforms such as DS, PSP and iPhone.

However, many of the iPhone developers are new to the industry and attracted by the 'developer makes $800,000 in six weeks' stories that we saw in the months after the App Store was launched.

Some of these developers will be successful but I'm afraid that the vast majority will fail to make any impact. You can make good money on the iPhone but it's a hit driven market and you either make lots of money or none at all - there's very little in between.

As long as people understand the risks involved, believe in their game, and have the drive to see it through then I think they should give it a go. What angers me is all the talk about how easy it is. In reality it's really hard work to create a successful game on iPhone. People need to realistic about the amount of effort required and not to believe the 'get rich quick' hype.

What's your view on the whole App Store 99c debate?

I did some analysis on the business model for 99c games and found there is a business there if you can keep your development costs under the $40,000 mark and if you take a portfolio approach.

Some of the games we want to make fit into this structure but other games, such as Rugby Nations 09 and Anytime Pool, have higher development costs and therefore a higher price.

What I have a problem with are short term sales and game prices being slashed after release, which is creating an expectation from consumers that prices will always come down within a month of release.

You can see comments in the iPhone forums such as 'I'll wait for a sale before I buy'. This will hurt developers and publishers in the long term and I'd encourage these companies to think long and hard before hastily reducing their prices. Evidence suggests that reducing prices has a negative effect on long term revenue.

There's been a lot of talk about the possibilities of OS 3.0 but not a lot of action yet. When do you expect to see widespread use of features such as micro-transactions and push notification?

Some aspects of OS 3.0 are being used. In particular the Bluetooth multiplayer and the iPod music picker is being used on a number of games.

I think developers were put off using other features due to Apple charging for OS 3.0 for iPod touch and therefore the reduced addressable market size. However, developers have worked out how to add OS 3.0 features while still allowing the same build to run on 2.x devices, albeit without the fancy new 3.0 features.

We still have plans to include push notifications in an update of Anytime Pool so it shows when you have games waiting for you.

Do you think other mobile platforms such as Android, WinMo, BlackBerry etc will provide useful revenue in future?

Games developers love the iPhone because it's so simple to develop great-looking games, there's limited fragmentation of devices, and there's a ready-made market place with good discovery functionality.

All the other platforms you mention fall down in one or more (if not all) of those three areas. We have loads of experience on these platforms and we can get good looking results out of all of them but is it easy or simple... No!

Then, once you have it looking good on one device, you have to tune the game on the next device. It takes time and money to do that so the revenue has to be that much higher to compensate. WinMo and Blackberry have potential but I'm afraid I've lost faith in Android.

Historically you've made a lot of UK and European-centric sports games, so will you be branching out into US sports?

We're fully aware the US is roughly half of the market. All I can really say is watch this space!

You've also experimented with Facebook games, so what have you learnt from this?

We've learnt a huge amount. I wish I could say that it's been massively successful but so far it hasn't.

What it's given us though is a change in attitude within the company. When we were only developing mobile games, we had very little information on who was buying our games, never mind any actual feedback on what we should have done better.

Developing for Facebook allows you to gain instant feedback about what works and what doesn't and you can feed than back into updates to the game. We can even message the people who are posting reviews of the game and strike up a conversation about how to improve the game. This has lead us to become a customer-centred developer and we talk directly and openly to our customers of both our Facebook and iPhone games.

What are your thoughts on the various social networking platforms available on iPhone?

Social networking platforms for iPhone will become a battleground and probably a bloody battleground at that.

The major iPhone publishers like EA, Gameloft and ngmoco will be able to keep their platforms due to the quantity of releases but the independents will ultimately gather around the one that's going to give them the biggest coverage in terms of how many customers are already using the platform.

I think all of these platforms need a lot more work and investment to make the user experience what it should be. We've certainly not decided which of these platforms to use in our own games yet but I expect the choice will have become clear in the next six months.

When should we expect to see Distinctive games on PSP Minis or on DSiWare?

We've been an approved PSP and DS developer for a while now. If the right game came along that made sense to be made on one of these platforms then we'd make it happen. We're not, for example, just going to port all our iPhone games to these platforms. The game has to be right for the platform.

Thanks to Nigel for his time.

You can communicate with the customer-centred Distinctive Developments via its website, twitter feed, or on Facebook.

Or try out Heli Rescue on the App Store, priced 99c, €0.79 or 59p.