News

#GDC 2013: Mobile is solidifying, so developers need to jump in now

The next 12 months in F2P mapped out

#GDC 2013: Mobile is solidifying, so developers need to jump in now
According to the free-to-play round up talk at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco, Facebook gaming has much in common with Donald Trump.

It's big, it's successful with what's quickly become a track record of serious successes, but it's also now looking past its best.

That' was the take of Dave Rohrl of HTML5 games platform Goko. Mobile, he claimed, is quickly becoming the new focus point for social and free-to-play studios, with future growth on former favourite Facebook looking increasingly unlikely.

The handover

"Facebook gaming is a big business, with a slowly declining growth rate," summarised Rohrl.

"On the other hand, we see very rapid growth in global mobile gaming – it's already twice the size of Facebook."

In short, the Facebook race "has already been run", Rohrl added, claiming that incumbents are firmly in charge of the market. Newcomers are finding it far too hard to break into a platform increasingly dominated but just a few major players, he said.



"This has led to a lot of developers abandoning Facebook for mobile, many are at least putting equal weight on mobile, if not more," he added.

"Mobile is still open, but it's going to get harder to break in there as well soon. It's hard to say if it will solidify as quick as Facebook did, but it will probably do so over the next few years."

Supercell superstar

In short, Rohrl's advice for any developers looking to make a mark on mobile at any point in the future was "get in now".

Indeed, as many developers will already attest, such is the sheer weight of competition that mobile can often be just as hard – if not harder – to break into as social gaming platforms like Facebook.

One such studio that has managed to become a major player, added Juan Gril of Joju Games, is Finnish superstar Supercell.

"Supercell has been one of the most interesting companies in this space during the last year," added Gril, just hours after the Helsinki studio was named as the top developer of 2013 by PocketGamer.biz.

"For people just starting out, Supercell is a very interesting case study. Amazingly, they're really successful, but they're still a 70-person company – they just focus on making succuessful games."

Another outfit that, with release after release, perfects its craft is King.com.

The newly branded firm – now referred to simply as King – is successful mainly because it had a plentiful supply of just one thing, said Playdom's Steve Meretzky.

That one thing is patience.

Try, try, try again

"The main lesson we learn from King is to have persistance," he added.

"It's not often you'll get it right first time with free to play. A lot of companies jumped into Facebook thinking it would be easy, failed, and jumped out. It took King a few games to hit it big – until Bubble Witch Saga."

The studio's next big release – Candy Crush Saga – actually proved to be the first Facebook chart topper not published by Zynga since 2009, said Meretzky.

"King continues to innovate within its Saga formula. With each time out, King tests with its mechanics – they learn and get a little better."

With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.