It's no doubt alarming for the scores of smaller studios looking to get involved in the social mobile gaming scene that it's a genre increasingly dominated by established players.

Zynga, DeNA/ngmoco and Digital Chocolate all have a major hand in its advance, making monetisation specialist W3i's Recharge Studios – which offers independent developers and start ups both funding and support on route to iOS – a welcome proposition.

We caught up with Recharge Studios product manager Matt Tubergen for his take on how he expects the company's co-operative approach to work.

Pocket Gamer: You've recently come on board with Recharge Studios. What attracted you to the role?

Matt Tubergen: My experience over the past 10 years in mobile content and gaming has taught me that strong distribution can be just as important as creating a compelling product.

Recharge Studios and, more specifically, W3i has the ability to drive distribution and monetisation of any iOS application. W3i recently passed the 500 million application install milestone. I don’t think anyone in the mobile gaming community can say they distributed that much volume.

I was drawn to Recharge as it allows me to leverage both my product management and business development experience with W3i’s core competency. By combining W3i’s ability to distribute and monetise apps with my experience in the mobile content business, we make the perfect 1-2 punch combo of a team.

How has your first release – Dolphin Play – performed on iPhone?

We are pleased with the performance of Dolphin Play thus far. We have proven that we can acquire and retain users effectively.

We have achieved top 12 placement within the US App Store for free downloads and will be nearing 1 million installs by the end of the month.

Today we have a user base of roughly 100,000 daily active users and growing. With that said, we are consistently updating and improving the experience which helps us increase our retention and conversion rates. Dolphin Play fans should look forward to see some exciting new features added to the game in coming weeks.

What other titles does Recharge have in the pipeline?

Recharge Studios is planning to launch eight co-published titles before the end of Q2. The majority of these new titles will have higher initial production budgets than Dolphin Play.

One of the titles we're excited about is Monster Park. Imagine managing and exploring your own theme park filled with monsters, creatures and visitors. This is sure to be a hit with young and old audiences as there are strong appealing characters in the game for all ages.

How has Recharge been received by the development community?

We have had the opportunity to align ourselves with some of the best and the brightest in the social iOS game development community.

Specifically, the Recharge Studios fund is striking a positive chord with independent developers. Many of our development partners have aspirations to publish their own products and we are helping them open the door to self-publishing stardom.

What specifically can you offer start ups that they lack going it alone?

We are partnering with independent studios - some of them startups - and sharing our insight into product strategy, marketing and iOS distribution.

We have experience in the iOS freemium marketplace that even seasoned AAA mobile publishers don’t have. We know how to launch freemium mobile products, drive eyeballs and make some serious cash. Not to mention we are bringing the funding to the table to make this all happen.

Do you think selling virtual goods offers greater potential than simply selling apps?Simply put, we are waging our bets solely on freemium. We are absolutely confident that virtual goods and free to play models will soon dominate the market place.

This is a pretty safe bet and we are not the only ones to feel so strongly - Andrew Stein of PopCap recently said the firm was changing a lot of its game designs to reflect the way people are buying and consuming content - i.e. virtual goods.

Clearly PopCap understands that the shift to freemium models will soon become commonplace in the market.

Do you think the social gaming genre needs to change the approach it has adopted for the web for the mobile market?

We will start to the see lines blur between what is being considered a social game and traditional mobile game. Right now products like Tap Zoo and Restaurant Story emulate that of the standard compulsion loops we see frequently appearing on Facebook games.

We firmly believe that very compelling 'hybrid' experiences will be coming to market that appeal to social and mobile gamers alike.

Needless to say, mobile gamers are going to expect a much deeper experience as the industry continues to mature. Successful titles will be able to apply social and freemium game mechanics into the framework of all game genres.

There's a feeling that social gaming represents a threat to more traditional forms. What's your take?

I think the big players in 'traditional' gaming circles will miss out a large opportunity if they don’t start looking at social game components seriously.

There is a reason ngmoco was purchased by DeNA for $403 million. People are playing social mobile games and companies are making money. In large part, traditional gaming companies are missing out on this new aspect of gaming.

Do I think core PC, handheld and console gaming will go the way of the dinosaur to be replaced with Farmville rip offs?

Absolutely not. However, combining the trends in digital distribution, mobile and the emergence of social gaming, the market is upon a dynamic shift. This shift will continue to disrupt conventional revenue models and change the way users access and play games.

What role do you see Recharge playing the social gaming scene over the course of the next few years?

Recharge will be investing significant resources into promising freemium mobile gaming opportunities.

We will continue to seek out iOS gaming ideas that can acquire and retain a large amount of active users and coincide with W3i’s plans to be the market share leader in application distribution.
Thanks to Matt for his time.Anyone interested in speaking Matt with regarding opportunities with Recharge Studios should contact him at matthew [dot] tubergen [at] w3i [dot] com