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Hill Climb Racing developer Fingersoft launches data-driven publishing label Round Zero

VP of Publishing Daniel Rantala named as CEO of new division

Hill Climb Racing developer Fingersoft launches data-driven publishing label Round Zero

Finland-based Hill Climb Racingdeveloper Fingersoft has launched a new data-based mobile game publishing label called Round Zero.

The new division offers early stage mobile developers free installs and access to performance data to evaluate a game’s potential, “no strings attached”.

Should a game show promise, the developer will then move further along its publishing pipeline, with the potential for a global publishing deal with the company.

Round Zero’s first published title is Superplus Games’ physics-based tank game Hills of Steel.

Selective portfolio

The publishing label expects to analyse over 200 games during the next year, from which between three to eight games could get published.

Fingersoft VP of Publishing Daniel Rantala has been named as CEO of the new publishing label.

"Fingersoft has published 12 games during its five-year long career,” said Fingersoft CEO Teemu Närhi.

“We wanted to be of better service to game developers looking for a publisher. This led us to think about how to create an agile publishing system, which eventually became Round Zero.”

Rantala added: “The mobile game market is vast and saturated, which has created tremendous competition in quality, marketing and design. We started to think that if, for example, Flappy Bird’s developer had offered the game to us, we probably would’ve refused to publish it.

“It woke us up to see that we need to listen to our players more. Needless to say, developers will also know more about what the players liked in their game, and what they didn't.”


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Craig Chapple is a freelance analyst, consultant and writer with specialist knowledge of the games industry. He has previously served as Senior Editor at PocketGamer.biz, as well as holding roles at Sensor Tower, Nintendo and Develop.