Android is big challenge and an even bigger opportunity; especially for companies which can gear up their processes to handle simultaneous game releases with iOS.

For despite the differences between the devices' user groups, enabling cross platform virality is the easiest way to maximise your chances of launch success.

And this was the thinking behind Miniclip's decision to come up with its own inhouse Android porting technology.

Twice as good

Called X-Port Genie, director of Miniclip's smartphone division Antonio Sergio Varanda says it's the product of 12 months hard work.

"We develop all our iOS games natively using cocos2d so we wanted to maintain that workflow as well as adding support for Android," he explains.

X-Port Genie takes Miniclip's developers' ObjectiveC code and compiles it, spitting out a native Android game.

"It means we still work from a single code base and get game performance that's the same as on iOS, which wouldn't be the case if we were using Java as Google recommends," Varanda says.

The technology can also handle Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10, although Miniclip isn't supporting the latter at present. 

The hard part

The process isn't totally straightforward, however, as iOS services such as Game Center, iTunes links and other monetisation methods have to be stripped out and replaced with Android-centric items.

For example, Miniclip typically sells its iOS games for 99c, while its Android games are free but ad-supported.

"It takes two to three days to get an Android game running properly and a couple of weeks per title to complete the other elements," Varanda says.

Helping hand

This technical ability provides Miniclip with the option of releasing the iOS and Android versions of its future games simultaneously; something it now expects to do as standard. 

It's enabled it to extend its third party publishing operations too. 

"We're now working with a lot of indie developers who have had success on iOS, but aren't big enough to bring their games to Android," reveals Varanda.

One such example is Ndemic Creations and its game Plague Inc., which Miniclip will be publishing on Google Play.

"Miniclip's technology and industry expertise made them the right partner to bring Plague Inc. to Android," commented James Vaughan, the one-man-band behind Ndemic Creations.

"Plague Inc. captivated iOS players earlier this year, performing beyond expectations, and we now expect big results for the game on Android."

Using X-Port Genie also means that once launched, iOS and Android games can be kept in sync in terms of their update cycles; something increasingly demanded by gamers.