A small mobile developer based in Bristol, UK, Mobile Pie may have only been operating for a few years, but it's already building up a reputation for interesting releases, ranging from word games to sports to those with a musical theme.

And its forthcoming release My Star - described as "FarmVille meets Foursquare meets The Sims with a dash of X Factor" will be its most ambitious yet.

Will Luton is the company's creative director.

PocketGamer: What was the most significant event of 2010?

Will Luton: The purchase of ngmoco by DeNA for a lot of money. It validated freemium through in-app purchase on iPhone as a successful model whilst everyone was watching Rovio and Chillingo do their Angry Birds thing.

At the start of 2010, people were worried about 59p and the bottom falling out of the market; and there were companies saying they wouldn't drop to 59p and telling others not to do it either - a weird appeal for a cartel.

Others were quietly watching what was going on and moved to build their future on free. They were proven totally right.

What was the most significant event for Mobile Pie?

There were lots of good deals and projects started and finished, but the release of B-Boy Beats was the most significant event of 2010 for us. It's certainly the thing I'm most proud of to-date.

The critical reaction was staggering and it was fantastic to wake up every morning, check iTunes and the Touch Arcade forums to see all the positivity and great feedback we were getting. At the time we were pretty unknown, having only put our name to the Oh, My Word! series previously. B-Boy opened a lot of doors for us.

What was your favourite mobile game of the year?

I really liked Lil' Pirates and Flick Kick Football, but Game Dev Story is the standout game of 2010 for me by a mile.

It's not the prettiest or slickest of titles. In fact it's downright awkward, but bags and bags of charm shone through, along with a couple of killer compulsion loops, perfect difficulty and learning curves, and a theme which was very close to my heart.

I suspect it was a slightly accidental masterpiece, which makes it all the more endearing.

What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2011?

Freemium models will be rapidly evolving, especially in more traditional core and skill-based game genres. I think we're only at the start of the free revolution and that there's a lot of innovation to come. Media focus will certainly switch to it as lots of risks are taken. Meanwhile paid content providers will mature and become solidly entrenched on iOS, creating comparatively steady turnover.

Android will become important too. I expect we'll see a big thirdparty leader consolidate the platform with cross-promotion, IAP solutions and a single virtual currency.

Finally - and I'm going out on a limb with this one - I think we'll see that tablets were a big distraction towards the middle of 2011, at least in terms of games.

I think there was a great amount of marketing and hype behind the iPad, which has resulted in very strong initial sales from early adopters, but that won't translate so well down the chain due to the increase in smartphone ownership. I really can't see the need for the form factor for those with smartphones or iPods and laptops in their home as tablets can't replace either. There's a place for them, but I think lots of people will be realigning their expectations on what that place is.

If you could enforce one New Year's resolution, what would it be?

There's still a lot of looking down on social or mobile developers from core games people. Jonathan Blow recently turned his nose up at FarmVille, telling people not to make games like it, because he feels they're negative and exploitative.

It's a really silly position, as all commercial media is about engagement for money. I bought Braid [Blow's critically acclaimed XBLA game] and hated it because the difficulty curve was totally wrong for me, but I've sunk hours in to FarmVille and loved it, without spending any money or spamming any of my friends. That for me is the more positive experience, but I know it's reversed for some folk.

And as snobbery and moaning are very unpleasant traits, I'd say we should give them up too.

Thanks to Will for his time.

You can keep in touch with what Mobile Pie gets up to via its website. 
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