BlackBerry® 10 launched in January 2013, and the company has been hard at work building out its ecosystem ever since.

This includes ensuring support for a wide range of development and deployment tools through to app discovery and recommendation within platform's BlackBerry® World™ storefront.

As Anders Jeppsson, BlackBerry's global head of gaming, argues it's so easy to develop for BlackBerry 10 all developers should be actively considering it.

Pocket Gamer: Why are games important for BlackBerry?

Anders Jeppsson: Today everyone is playing games. BlackBerry 10 is an especially great platform for games because of its very lean operating system, great hardware, and deep social integration with Scoreloop and BBM.

What sort of uptake are you seeing from developers?

New titles are coming in a constant stream. It has only been eight months since the launch of BlackBerry 10 and we are already seeing a significant number of games catering to all tastes.

With Unity support we are seeing an even quicker adoption rate among game developers to bring their games to our modern, secure and efficient platform.

What do you think are the key reasons mobile game developers should be developing for BlackBerry 10 smartphones?

All developers need to spread their risks as well as get the maximum exposure for their creations. Developers are telling us they love our open standards and open source - the fact that it's easy to develop for BlackBerry 10 and we are not trying to lock them in to any one way to develop a game.

We also provide plenty of features in BlackBerry World ranging from social/viral marketing efforts including friends' recommendations, to being able to see new and upcoming (trending) apps and games using BBM, BBM Channels, our Games app, and other coming BlackBerry World social features. This all bodes well for game developers especially in terms of game visibility in a crowded market.

BlackBerry 10 is the fastest growing ecosystem of apps and games and developers are really taking notice.

How easy is it to port games that have already been created to the BlackBerry 10 platform?

Many developers come back with stories of porting their native C++ games in one or two days. In fact, one Unity developer ported 10 games in a single evening!

Stories like this are proof that BlackBerry 10 was designed with the developer in mind and we're seeing the results every day now.

If a developer is working on a new game, how would they go about supporting BlackBerry 10 smartphones?

The low device fragmentation, (720x720 and 1280x720) and high performance hardware with 2Gb of memory makes it extremely easy to move a title regardless of it being a native, web or Unity-based game.

Unity is now the key development engine for mobile developers so how does it work with BlackBerry 10 smartphones?

We are on par with other competitive platforms and are supported by both the free mobile version as well as the Pro version of Unity.

Everything from gamepad to IAP to social integration is supported via free plug-ins.

Do any other game engines support BlackBerry 10?

Major game engines including Unity3D, Marmalade, Shiva3D, Ogre, Unreal Engine, V-play and Gameplay3D are already running on BlackBerry 10.

Making a successful mobile game is now as much about other services such as analytics, advertising, discovery etc so is there anything BlackBerry can do to help out in these areas?

Popular analytics tools such as Flurry are supporting BlackBerry 10 and more are coming on board.

BlackBerry World is also constantly being updated with new social app discovery mechanisms and there are many middleware vendors offering app discovery tools that can be integrated into games. In addition, BlackBerry's own BBM and BBM Channels service are going cross platform shortly.

How do developers get their apps onto BlackBerry World? What's the process and how long does it take from submission to going live?

Once signed up as a vendor in BlackBerry World, the developer submits their game in a similar fashion as other platforms.

On BlackBerry, a game is usually approved within a couple of days.

What should we expect next from gaming on BlackBerry 10?

Lots of innovation is being made in the casual social space to enable a more engaging and social gaming experience.

Technologies such as NFC connectivity in poker games, Miracast-powered living room experiences as well as gaming using basically any Bluetooth-enabled game pad (including the Wii Mote) are already enjoyed by Blackberry 10 customers.

Both casual and hardcore gamers can expect some really exciting stuff coming over the next months so stay tuned!