"I've never seen things changing as quickly as now," says Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, now CEO of social and mobile gaming publisher Digital Chocolate, giving the keynote talk at the AppNation 2011 conference.
"There's a lot of disruption happening. It used to be that 100 million people was the biggest audience we could address as a games company, whereas now it's over one billion."
Pointing to change across the industry, he highlighted to many opportunities and challenges.
"There's been a collapse in the traditional value chain with app stores removing publishers and retailers," Hawkins says.
"But there are still problems such as discoverability. For every Angry Birds, there are 1,000 angry developers whose games didn't get found."
Get connected
This is one of the key reason that Hawkins thinks the web will eventually overcome app stores.
"The browser will beat the app store," he argues. "It's more convenient, it's driven by search and it's more viral for consumers. It doesn't matter what device your friend has."
Another key reason is that the browser - notably the new features enabled by HTML5 - opens up a global audience and solve many fragmentation issues.
"All technologies start as silos, but get 100 times bigger when they become inter-operable; think about roads or text messaging," Hawkins explains.
Take the long term
He also thinks this trend plays into the hands of big companies such as Facebook, Android and - of course - Google.
"They are all based on the browser not apps," he says.
"This process will continue, particularly with tablets over the next couple of years as you get browser standardisation and high market penetration. I expect one billion tablets to be sold in the next five years.
"Facebook has had over 100 million installs of its apps, but it's telling its developers to spend time serious thinking about HTML5."
"The browser is permanently free, permanently open and freely democratic. You can use search and display ads and it's easy to cross promote and easy to update content."
Go global
It's a similar situation in terms of taking game development global.
"If you can't compete with a studio of 10 guys in China, you are going to get destroyed," he argues.
"You need to be doing your development globally, both in terms of cost structure and to satisfy cultural differences. But you also need to be able to share your learnings between these groups."
News
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.
Related Articles
News
Apr 29th, 2011
AppNation 2011: Some incentivised players are good in the longterm; some aren't says W3i
News
Apr 28th, 2011
AppNation 2011: Android devs need to use all available markets says Google mobile director Jason Spero
News
Apr 28th, 2011
AppNation 2011: OpenFeint and ngmoco pleased about Apple's Tapjoy incentivisation ban
Top Stories
News
2 hours, 17 minutes ago
Revolutionising feedback: Pocket Gamer Connects partners with AI-powered tool Voop
News
2 hours, 32 minutes ago
Partner events are the latest trend in Monopoly GO!, Royal Match and Project Makeover
News
3 hours, 37 minutes ago
Belka Games lays off 20% of workforce as it becomes "more critical" of future titles
News
4 hours, 52 minutes ago
How user consent for personalised ads can significantly increase your Android revenue
Feature
4 hours, 32 minutes ago
AI everywhere: Using neural networks for asset creation, marketing and more
Feature
Apr 30th, 2024
Hear MORE from the experts - eight MORE fabulous fireside chats from PGC London 2024
Events
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
The MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 | Middle East | May 2nd |
GameDev Atlantic 2024 | May 4th | |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
WN Conference Istanbul 2024 | Jun 11th | |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
Popular Stories
News
Apr 25th, 2024
Everyone loves Nintendo… Delta emulator hits 4.4 million downloads in its first week
News
Apr 23rd, 2024