It's become fashionable for social-mobile companies to say they're gunning for an audience of 1 billion gamers.

Zynga cited the number when launching its online platform, and it's the stated aim for Japanese outfit GREE too.

To hear the number from the mouth of Disney Mobile's Bart Decrem is perhaps a little more surprising, but there's no doubt about his commitment to the goal.

"When I came to Disney, it was to bring entrepreneurial activity and passion," say's Disney Mobile's SVP and GM of the deal that saw the company he co-founded, Tap Tap Revenge developer Tapulous, acquired in 2010.

Cleaning up

Since then, Disney Mobile has stepped up its operations, scoring a notable hit with puzzler Where's My Water?, and creating a strong character in the form of bathing crocodile Swampy.

"We started with a gameplay mechanic and we ended up with a character,” Decrem says about the process.

For despite what would seem to be the Disney way of coming up with characters and then putting them into games, he argues that it has to be about the game first.

"Our approach is can we build great games?" Decrem says. "Can we create games that people use for a long time, and build a network, and build franchises."

With three development teams in the US and Europe, Disney Mobile doesn't lack for resources. Decrem argues its success to-date has been about combining the best of his previous indie development experience with the corporate firepower that can turn a hit like Where's My Water? into a worldwide franchise, as is now happening in terms of Asia localisation of the game and its merchandising.

"Disney is aggressive in this market. We have the power and we can be scrappy," he says.

Keep on running

One example of this high-low approach is Temple Run Brave.

Based the massively successful 3D runner from Imangi Studios, the all-new version is based around the character from the forthcoming Pixar film.

"We'd been talking with Imangi for a while about what we could do in terms of Disney characters. We had some thoughts, but they didn't think they fitted. They suggested Brave," Decrem reveals.

Despite it being a very tight turnaround, the two companies, together with a third outsource resource created the game in 90 days.

"We outran them," Decrem laughs. "Keith and Natalia [Imangi] didn't even think we could get the legals done in that time."

New horizons

As for his future plans, Decrem is forthright.

"I want to release 12 games a year. I want one new character like Swampy. We need to be taking chances with new characters.

"Once a year, I want to make a game based around an event, like Brave. And I want to bring existing Disney characters into new games," he says.

The focus of the company going forward will be with free-to-play titles, although where appropriate, there will still be paid releases.

For example, Temple Run Brave will be launched at 99c, with players getting 25,000 in-game currency coins so they can experience how the extensive in-game store works.

"The power of free-to-play is that you can build a business while introducing new characters to a very large audience," Decrem explains.

An important part of this approach is that it widens the appeal of Disney games to its core youth audience, who are more likely to be restricted in terms of access to paid games.

"Three quarters of US kids have smartphones. Mobile is their first screen," Decrem ends.

"Our goal is to build a game that reaches one billion players."