It's been developing mobile games for almost a decade, but making its first freemium game - the Capcom-published Lil' Pirates - has completed changed the direction of Canadian studio IUGO.
Entitled 'How IUGO rose above the noise and became a successful indie studio' at the GDC Smartphone Summit, director of business development, Sarah Thomson spoke about how the company's philosophy has remained the same, while its direction has changed.
Switch the switch
With a mission statement, 'Delivering our passion through premium mobile experiences via proprietary tech', IUGO made its reputation as a work-for-hire house with the likes of EA Mobile and THQ Wireless.
However, prior to the Apple App Store being announced, it decided to switch from this Java/Symbian and Brew work to smartphones.
"That was a hard decision, especially for the first 6-8 months. Even though there was money to be made in the space, we shifted from feature phone game development to smartphones," Thomson said.
"You have to expect that the direction of your company will change over the years."
Buried treasure
But with 15 self published smartphone games, and over five million downloads on iOS, another change happened in 2010, as IUGO decided to switch to making freemium games, with its Lil' Pirates release, which was developed in a concentrated period of four months.
IUGO choose to publish the game with Capcom; balancing the loss of control of the IP with the marketing budget Capcom could employ to launch the game in terms of cross promotion and buying installs.
"Lil' Pirates has completely changed the dynamic of the company," Thomson said.
"We believe a huge tsunami of social games is about to be released and we've been able to beat that rush."
Indeed, it will be focusing on freemium games for 2011 with its next social game - to be self-published - announced as Sunshine Cruise Lines, a cruise line management game.
News
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Related Articles
News
Mar 8th, 2011
Wealth of apps on iOS is killing developers says Digital Chocolate's Trip Hawkins
News
Mar 6th, 2011
GDC 2011: High value IAP in freemium iOS games is driving substantial App Store refunds
Top Stories
News
Apr 27th, 2024
PocketGamer.biz Podcast Week in Views E09 - Supercell's Squad Busters goes global, Embracer Group splits, and Apple's Vision Pro flops
News
Apr 26th, 2024
Week in Views - Squads busted, Apple crushed, War zoned and Snoozin' with the Snorlax…
Feature
Apr 26th, 2024
Speaker Spotlight: Dubai Future Foundation's Faisal Kazim on leading Dubai's gaming charge
Events
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
The MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 | Middle East | May 2nd |
GameDev Atlantic 2024 | May 4th | |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
Develop: Brighton 2024 | Europe | Jul 9th |
Popular Stories
News
Apr 23rd, 2024
Supercell’s Squad Busters soft launches today with over 100,000 Google Play downloads
News
Apr 25th, 2024