Interview

King.com's Tommy Palm on how the casual giant plans to become a mobile gaming player

Established brands, new expertise

King.com's Tommy Palm on how the casual giant plans to become a mobile gaming player
Starting out back in the days of WAP, it's no surprise Tommy Palm labels himself as one of the few survivors from the dark ages of mobile gaming.

The co-founder of Swedish developer Jadestone - best known for its Dirk Dagger N-Gage series - he's since gone on to start up iOS video promotion service The Game Trail, as well as mobile studio Fabrication Games.

And in the manner of serial entrepreneurs, he's just sold the latter to casual gaming giant King.com, as it looks to bulk up its mobile expertise.

It's a good opportunity then to find out why it was the best company to sell to, and what 'King.com of Mobile' expects the combined operation to get up to.

Pocket Gamer: Why was the deal to sell to King.com the right one for Fabrication?

Tommy Palm: We had received many offers to sell to other companies but in the initial discussions with King.com we realised that our views of the market going forward were very much the same.

It was a really good match when it came to components it had and we were missing and vice versa.

The cultures of the two companies matched as well; at Fabrication Games we always strived to only work with the best people and King.com has a great talent pool even before we came along.

How will the companies combine?

King.com is already the fourth biggest player on Facebook after entering that market only a little more than one year ago.

We are now going for the mobile market, and the very hot mix between the two platforms

How will the deal affect the studio in terms of location, staff etc?

Fabrication Games will integrate with King.com's Stockholm office and will be an important part the King mobile team.

We will continue to recruit even more talent.


Fabrication Games rendered in artistic form

How quickly should we expect the first mobile games from Fabrication/King.com?

We are already working on a couple of titles for mobile.

They will be launched as soon as the quality is right so within the next few month I would say.

King.com has a strong reputation as a casual gaming portal, but what's its strategy in terms of mobile?

Domination. King.com will have its first game in the US top ten chart within the end of 2012. We are here to make sure that happens.

How much opportunity will there be to come up with original IP?

We are working with both new titles and extending the reach of the popular games that already have millions of active players.

What's the company's approach going to be in terms of native versus the more cross-platform friendly HTML5?

The goal is to reach as many players as possible while getting paid. Short term, native development will continue to be king.

But King.com is launching its first HTML5 game Pyramid Solitaire Saga next week. HTML5 is still very early but it is obviously going to be big in social games.

Thanks to Tommy for his time.
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.