It's been a stellar year for UK publisher Chillingo.

It kicked off with the release of Angry Birds - the year's best selling game - followed by release of Cut the Rope - the year's fastest selling game - and ended selling out to EA in a headline $29 million deal.

Happy days then for co-founders Joe Wee and Chris Byatte, now officially titled as Chillingo's co-general managers.

Still, people don't just buy your company and then allow you to sit back and smoke fancy big cigars, so their focus is now on realising the potential synergies in 2011.

"Our expertise is in identifying and working with developers all over the world. Couple this with EA's publishing skill and reach, it's great opportunity to push out our games to an even broader audience," says Wee.

Byatte agrees. "The deal doesn't change the fact that we see ourselves as the developers' publisher. Any developer can talk to myself or Joe. That personal relationship is very important to us. We don't want to lose that connection. It's something we've worked hard to nurture."

The human touch

Still, after the deal, there was a perception that the marriage between a small independent publisher and one of the world's gaming giants would affect Chillingo's working practices more than it would EA's.

The reaction of Angry Birds developer Rovio, then kicking off its own expansion push, that you didn't need publishers for mobile games didn't help matters either.

Byatte says this was an isolated case.

"There's been really positive feedback," he reveals. "Joe and I know our developers personally. All of them said this is a great deal. Of course, they need some clarification in terms of what it means for their game, but it means good things, better things."

Wee points to the ability to plug into EA Mobile's commercial and marketing arms as being key.

"For developers, it means expansion in terms of discoverability via EA's reach, so we're bringing another dimension to the business and distribution, in terms of access to carrier decks and the like."

New horizons

It's an interesting point as to-date Chillingo has almost exclusively focused on iOS releases. Both wider industry trends and the EA deal will accelerate its move into other mobile platforms, from other smartphones to potentially the Java and Brew markets that EA has been traditionally very strong in.

The co-general managers won't get drawn on specifics however.

"We've dipped our toes in the Android Market, and are looking at Android and Windows Phone 7," says Wee. "There is a lot of promise there, and of course challenges in terms of the purchasing experience [for Android], but these things will come out in the wash.

"In general, this means a larger addressable market for developers and that's what it's all about.

"And don't forget that even on iOS, there are a multitude of monetisation methods including freemium games."

The pair won't reveal any more about their plans in this area, although Chillingo has already published freemium MMORPG My Kingdom, and has recently announced The Witcher: Versus, which is a freemium game in its original browser version.

Byatte won't confirm the monetisation scheme for the iOS version however. "Watch this space," is all he will say.

The same but better

Instead, citing that it's "still early days" in terms of integrating fully with EA, what the pair want to stress is that Chillingo circa 2011 will be much like Chillingo circa 2010 but with more resources and potential for its developers.

"Chillingo is a synonymous with good games, working with indies, polishing those games, and promoting them while the EA piece give us a larger publishing reach. It's a really good compliment to what we're already doing," Byatte ends.

"We are still fully autonomous, doing our own thing. We're running our own roadmap, expanding our operations of course, but the bottomline is we're highly concentrated on the products. EA understands we do what we do well, and it wants that to continue."