New Star Soccer's been on the move recently, as it looks to ignite its global presence by going free-to-play on Android.

We recently learned creator Simon Read's take on the matter, where he explained that Thumbstar Games "could give us a better chance of reaching certain markets."

To get a clearer picture of what this meant, we also reached out to Thumbstar to see what the arrangement meant for the publisher.

We caught up with Gareth Edmondson, CEO of Thumbstar, to chat about how his studio plans to bring the BAFTA-winning soccer sim to new audiences around the globe.

Pocket Gamer: Why you think New Star Soccer is a good fit for your brand?

Gareth Edmondson: New Star Soccer is quite a unique game and, of course, the story behind it's success is really inspirational, so we feel very privileged to be part of that.

In terms of fit, I think it's a few things. We have developed a specialisation in getting games into emerging markets, and of course some of these markets are massive for football.

New Star Soccer is a huge success in the UK and particularly iOS and we can give the brand an enormous boost world wide on Android with our expertise.

And also, of course, working with a small successful developer like New Star Games is an excellent fit for us - focused, talented and know what they are doing.

What services are you providing to boost the take up in Asia and Latin America?

Accessing those markets is very difficult for most - they are not dominated by iOS or Google Play.

In Latin America for example, 70 percent of the population is 'unbanked' - they have no access to credit cards or formal banking services - but 90 percent of the population have a mobile phone. Most customers are of course pre-paid.

The only real way to reach that massive market is through the operator and D2C stores, and that's one of the big strengths that we can bring.

We have deals in pretty much every Latin American country and have an office based there dedicated to developing this market and managing these stores.

In Asia, the picture is very similar with the exception of China, Korea and Japan. In Korea and Japan, we have local partnerships that help boost the Google Play markets, as well as covering all of the other stores.

In China, we have a special deal: We are the sole supplier to China Telecom's new copy protected platform, and we have 'Tier A' status on China Mobile's main store. Again we have offices in the region; Hong Kong for dealing with China and Bangkok for covering South East Asia.

Local presence and knowledge is essential in these markets.

How do you plan to alter New Star Soccer’s Android strategy, besides going free-to-play? Do you feel that Android requires a different approach than iOS, especially in the target markets?

In the regions where Google Play is relevant we will be doing very strong PR and marketing pushes as well of course as the switch to free to play as you mention.

But overall, Android requires a very different approach to iOS as it's a much more complex and varied market as described above, and also has the potential to be much larger given the large installed bases of Android devices.

With Android, to cover the market properly, you need to put your game in hundreds of stores, not just one.

Many of those stores have different requirements, and of course we treat each region differently depending on the stage the market is at. Some regions have not made the switch to free to play yet, some regions prefer subscription services etc.

This is a key service that we provide - understand that variation, and handling it for developers.

Thanks to Gareth for his time.