Interview

Miniclip's Sergio Varanda on expanding its 25 million iOS download success to Android

And why straightforward game controls are key

Miniclip's Sergio Varanda on expanding its 25 million iOS download success to Android
One of the biggest online portals for Flash games, Miniclip has started to make its mark on the smartphone market too.

Launching Fragger for iPhone in the summer 2010, the company's has since accumulated over 25 million iOS installs, across four titles, including 2.5 million paid games.

Its most game iStunt 2 has done 250,000 sales within its first 20 days. 

We caught up with Antonio Sergio Varanda, director of Miniclip's smartphone division, to find out about its plans for the future.

PocketGamer : Why is mobile important to a web gaming portal like Miniclip?

Antonio Sergio Varanda: As casual gamers start to spend more and more time on their mobile devices, it is important we continue to follow the audience that made Miniclip so successful.

I believe many people already spend much more time playing on their phones then on a computer or on a console, as the best gaming device is the one that you have always with you. Our site is known for the quality of the games available, so it is important we deliver the same experience and quality on the mobile devices.

What's been the biggest surprise of your success on iOS?

So far, the biggest surprise is the great feedback we received for all the games that we've released since June. We would expect some of our games not to do so well, but so far, all our four premium titles (Fragger, Gravity Guy, Apache and iStunt 2) have reached the top 25 in all main markets.

I find this amazing and I really want to thank the community for their support. What keep us going is the great feedback we get from our users.

With so many games potentially available, how do you decide which Flash games to bring to mobile?

We try to see what games have been popular on Miniclip.com that can fit nicely on a mobile device. Not all popular web titles would do well on a mobile device, as many times the controls can't be easily replicated on a touchscreen. We believe straightforward controls are key for the success of a mobile game.

Currently we are focusing on creating completely original titles and doing Flash versions of these new iPhone games in parallel. That was the case of Gravity Guy and iStunt 2, which didn't have Flash versions before the launch on the App Store.

How important will Android and WP7 be for Miniclip in future?

Android is becoming a very important space to be in, specially because of the exponential growth of low end smartphones. It is still very difficult to make money on Android, but hopefully Google will try to consolidate the market. Next month we will be releasing Gravity Guy on Android and all our popular titles will follow.

Windows Phone 7 is also something that we are looking at, as the Nokia deal has probably saved WP7 as a mobile platform. It is already in our plans the port of Gravity Guy to WP7.

Do you think HTML5 will be an important technology or do you prefer working via app stores?

Some really interesting HTML5 games have started to appear on the web, and this is something we are definitely watching closely. But currently the immersive experience you can deliver by building native mobile apps is much more compelling than what you can accomplish with HTML5 on a mobile device.

So, for now, we will focus on apps built specifically for the mobile platforms that we are targeting.

Thanks to Antonio 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.