The fallout from Telcogames' collapse is ongoing –particularly for those smaller developers who were left in serious financial difficulties as a result.

Thumbstar Games wants to be the silver lining. It's a new mobile distributor set up by Martin Kitney, formerly head of content at Telcogames.

"We started in August with private backing, we've signed up a fair few developers already, and we're live in some sales channels now in the UK, Europe, and Asia," says Kitney, who goes on to explain how his new firm takes a different outlook to other mobile content aggregators.

"Most aggregators' primary focus is on sales, but we want to help developers with aspects like the PR and marketing of their titles," he says. "We want to help them a lot more to build up their titles and brands, and spend proper time and focus on their games."

Off-portal sales channels will be Thumbstar's main distribution focus for now, although it will sign operator deals where possible, too.

Kitney says the company won't be touting the mammoth games catalogue offered by some aggregators – one of the biggest criticisms of Telcogames in the past.

"There's a team of three of us here at the moment, so we couldn't do 600 games even if we wanted to," he says.

"But we're taking a different approach. We're trying to put a catalogue together of really unique brand new titles. If a channel wants additional content, we can back it up, but the real sell is getting the exclusive and new stuff in there. We're aiming to have ten to 12 titles a month we can push, but we'd never get into the realms of having 50 games a month."

Kitney says developers are understandably cautious about any new distributor promising them the earth.

"They're looking harder at who they're dealing with. People wanted to know who was behind our business, and of course they want better terms," he says.

"We can give them better terms though: we're a small team, so we can afford to do that. Many developers have put a business head on themselves after what's happened [with Telcogames]. A lot of people lost a lot of money, which hasn't done the industry any good whatsoever."On a more positive note, Kitney says Thumbstar is already seeing some innovative mobile games from its stable of current and potential developers. Interestingly, few of them are from the UK."They're mainly from Europe, with a couple in Australia and more in Asia," says Kitney. "UK mobile developers are thin on the ground. There's a handful, but the majority of them are doing work-for-hire for the big boys."Thumbstar plans to announce further details of its distribution and developer deals in the near future.