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Casual Connect 2012: Industrial Toys' Alex Seropian on making games for The Peggle-Portal opportunity

#casualconnect It's the industry's sweetspot

Casual Connect 2012: Industrial Toys' Alex Seropian on making games for The Peggle-Portal opportunity
 "The industry has cycled a lot but the mobile revolution is all about accessibility," argued Alex Seropian, co-founder of Bungie, now CEO of start up Industrial Toys.

His Casual Connect talk was entitled 'Go mobile or stay home: how to succeed in the mobile gaming revolution'.

He said the underpininng of the revolution was the accessibility in terms of audience, power and distribution.

"Games are the only entertainment media without any standardisation of pricing or business model," he stated.

This flexibility has unlocked innovation and creativity, albeit with some underlining rules.

Drilling down into current gameplay mechanic, Seropian reckoned that many games use a 10:1 ratio in terms of sessions of playing the game in order to earn a virtual reward that progress you through the game.

New ways

The speed of technical innovation in terms of hardware provides opportunities and challenges.

One of these challenges is encapsulated in Seropian's rule 'Virtual dual sticks must die'.

Taking a PC shooter like Halo to console required a lot of subtle changes in terms of how the control worked on a joypad.

"Taking that control scheme back to a direct input device like a touchscreen device is a little silly," Seropian said, commenting that too many ex-console developers were bringing bad habits to the new platform without thinking about whether it could be done better.

In the zone

Looking to future, Industrial Toys is focused on the sweetspot where casual and hardcore gaming - accessibility and depth - meet.

He called this The Peggle-Portal gap, which provides depth, rewards for skill, and context to provide meaning.

"There's currently a ton of noise in mobile and a ton of gamers. Mobile is gaming's gateway drug, and it's our responsibility to bring high quality games to that audience," Seropian said.
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.