Interview

2010 In Review: Tommy Forslund, Polarbit

This was the year mobile gaming came of age

2010 In Review: Tommy Forslund, Polarbit
Swedish developer Polarbit has had a busy year.

As well as Reckless Racing for EA on iOS, it's been releasing games such as Wave Blazer and the Raging Thunder series on Android, Nokia's Ovi Store, Samsungs Apps, the Zeebo console, and the Antix player.

Part of the reason for this activity is its cross player Fuse engine, which supports multiple hardware using a single binary.

Tommy Forslund is the company's project manager.

PocketGamer: What was the most significant event of 2010?

Tommy Forslund: It's really more of an ongoing process than a single event, but 2010 feels like the year when mobile gaming came of age.

When people are talking about handheld gaming now, it's more likely they're referring to gaming on an iPhone or an Android device than on a dedicated console like PSP or DS.

That said, the rapid emergence of Android as a viable platform for game developers is certainly significant, as is the large number of new application stores that are popping up (App Catalog, Samsung Apps, Amazon etc).

What was the most significant event for your company?

The launch of Reckless Racing was a biggie. It's been received better than we dared hope, both by gamers and by press.

Being able to quickly cover all new platforms that have emerged and have a multi-app presence at launch for each of them is also something that makes us extremely proud.

What was your favourite mobile game of the year?

Reckless Racing, hands down.

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

Acquisitions and consolidations are likely to continue. Ad-funded content will increase. And, hopefully we'll see some cool sans-glasses 3D stuff towards the latter half of the year.

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

Try to get some exercise. Maybe give up smoking and just, you know, enjoy life more.

Thanks to Tommy for his time.

You can check out Polarbit's activities here.
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.