German mobile publisher and developer HandyGames has always been forthright in its views.

My favourite quote was CEO Christopher Kassulke's statement that '99c games will destroy the market'.

So what's it doing releasing its first free-to-play game?
Car Control came out last week, and although it has 42 levels, you only get 6 of them for free. The rest are wrapped up as in-app purchase packs.

The time to try

"We are experimenting a lot and the App Store is perfect for it. As well as Car Control being available as a freemium game so is Snake InfeCCt," Kassulke explains.

"We don't concentrate on a single platform nor a single kind of business model. We're known as being critical voice in the industry but if you don't try it, you can't talk about it. So we're trying it out to see if it's a good market."

That experimenting doesn't mean HandyGames is leaving its past behind though. Unlike many other companies, it's continuing to make Java games.

"We won't abandon the Java market because the consumers don't care which platform they have on their mobile phone, they just want games," he says.

"It doesn't matter if it's Java, iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Windows. HandyGames is a company that's full speed on all platforms."