Interview

Imperial Game Studio's Martin Flensburg on cross platform deployment and Android fragmentation

Google needs to create Android device reference groups

Imperial Game Studio's Martin Flensburg on cross platform deployment and Android fragmentation
Demonstrating a cross-platform strategy that's totally in keeping with current business trends, Swedish outfit Imperial Game Studio is among the new generation of mobile developers.

It's released two games Golf Battle 3D and Turbo Grannies, both of which have been deployed on the Apple App Store, Android Market and Samsung Apps.

We caught up with CEO Martin Flensburg to find out how it was finding the emerging market.

PocketGamer: Can you give us some background about Imperial Game Studio?

Martin Flensburg: We're a relatively young studio based in Malmo, Sweden. The company was incorporated in July 2010 and consists of three 3D artists and three programmers.

So far, we've released two games, and will release another two in the next couple of weeks.

What's your approach in terms of games types and genres?

We want to produce exciting, high quality games packed with action. We are not tied to any specific genre but have many great ideas for sports, racing and action games.

Why did you think the sort of online head-to-head gameplay you offer in Golf Battle 3D works so well?

It is the ultimate thrill you can experience on your phone. How cool is it to go online and battle someone from the other side of this planet?

Knowing that it could be someone from a totally different OS just makes it even cooler.

You've released it on iOS, bada and Android. Which do you think is the best platform?

iOS is the best platform to develop and publish games on. From a programming perspective, it's nice that all customers are using almost exactly the same software, and most devices have the same high performance. From a business perspective, it is also the best platform since Apple's customers are willing to pay for quality.

It should be said that our programmers really like bada as well.

How big a problem is fragmentation on Android?

It is a big problem and it looks like it's only going to get worse. As a producer, it is very difficult to keep all Android customers happy.

The major problems are: the variety of performance on devices; so many different display sizes; and so many different GPU standards.

The first thing Google should do is to place all Android phones in five groups. This would enable developers to create a version that is tailor-made for each specific group of phones. Each group would to be determined by performance, display size and GPU standard.

With Android Market, Google has the chance to create something that will be very powerful for a very long time. But it has to listen to developers and user more.

What's your view about Windows Phone 7?

I have no comment as I've been trying hard to get hold of a WP7 phone so we can port our games to that platform. But that seems to be impossible in Sweden.

If someone from Microsoft is reading this, and wants two awesome games on its app store, they can email me on martin [at] imperialgamestudio [dot] com.

What future plans do you have?

We're releasing two great games in the end of April that will reach iOS in early May. One is a racing game and one is action/arcade. We are also eager to try freemium, and will do so very shortly.
Thanks to Martin for his time.

You can find out what Imperial Game Studio gets up to via its website.
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.