To make this happen, the German studio which has been best-known for its free-to-play online PC games needs mobile talent. To find it, InnoGames has been making use of the PocketGamer.biz jobs board.
More details on the open positions can be found over on the board itself, but for an overview of the company and where it's heading, we spoke to InnoGames' co-founder and MD Michael Zillmer.
Pocket Gamer: First, how many staff are you up to now, and what are you working on?
Michael Zillmer: We are currently around 200 at our headquarters a large chunk of these employees are from outside of Germany, and work on everything from development, to marketing to finance.
We also have a small office in Seoul, Korea, and a subsidiary development company in our neighborhood Ticking Bomb Games.
We released browser title Forge of Empires into open beta with great success this past spring. Kartuga our first Unity3D browser game was announced just this past June at E3.
Currently, we have several mobile versions of our browser games in the works, and have released mobile version of our two most popular titles already Tribal Wars and Grepolis.
All of our upcoming games will be cross-platform, and therefore we are avid about expanding our mobile department.
Where are you recruiting and why?
We are very active recruiters because we have a lot of positions to fill. We have our plate full with new and exciting projects coming up, and therefore need the best talent to realise these projects.
Mobile especially is growing rapidly in importance for InnoGames, so we always have a handful of positions we are looking to fill in this area.
InnoGames' iOS and Android release Tribal Wars
People interested in meeting up with our developers and HR to discuss possible opportunities can also find us at tons of gaming or tech-related events, for instance: DroidCon, CeBIT, gamescom, and GDC, just to name a few.
One of the positions you're recruiting for is a mobile business manager, whose responsibilities would include market observation and analysis of industry trends. Why do you think this kind of long-range forecasting is important?
Being in a tech-related industry, one has to of course keep up with the tech!
We think it is important to keep an eye on the less beaten paths in case they make for good business opportunities, as well as know what is hot right now.
Giving our players access to their game accounts via virtually every platform is crucial and a huge goal to reach.
Do you think that the industry generally is a little prone to short-sightedness - chasing one hit after the other rather than seriously attempting to analyse the market?
Every company handles trends in a different way. Some are successful by jumping on the bandwagon fast, and then jumping off just as fast.
We, though, are far more cautious with our strategy. We learned in the last several years that it is very important to analyse the whole industry ecosystem in order to understand it deeply and have long term success.
What's the current state of the games industry in Germany? Is mobile a strong presence over there?
It is widely known that console gaming has seen better days, while free-to-play and browser games in general are very successful right now.
Many of the big triple A console guys are quickly jumping into F2P to grab a piece of the action.
Our players are eager to have mobile apps our live-action gameplay in particular makes players want to access the game on the go. Checking in on your production in Tribal Wars, for instance, or sending your troops out to defend an ally in Grepolis, might be needed when you don't have access to a computer.
Grepolis Toolbox hit Google Play
Luckily for us, and other F2P publishers, these types of games are perfect to cross over into mobile.
They can be quickly optimised to be accessed from mobile devices with internet, the micropayment monetisation that is a hit with apps is already implemented, and most of the time the game design lends itself to working on a smaller screen.
This is definitely a 'big thing' at the moment that would be a shame to miss out on for browser game companies.
Where will you be focussing your efforts in terms of platforms and business models over the next 12-18 months, and why?
We have a new policy at InnoGames that all of our upcoming titles will be cross-platform.
Therefore all of our unannounced projects are being developed for - besides the browser - platforms like iOS, and Android. Other platforms will be announced with the game.
As mentioned above, our players want this technology for increasing their productivity in our games.
Thanks to Michael for his time.You can check out the PocketGamer.biz jobs board here.
