Nick Haggar, Project Director at Blue Tongue Entertainment, sat down for an interview with Mark Serrels from Kotaku AU on the Australian games industry. In the topic of the growing mobile and small games sector, Nick gave praise to the success of local studios, Halfbrick and Firemint, but expressed concern for the future viability of the rapidly progressing iOS platform. From Kotaku AU...
(Nick) "I think the iOS thing is good at the moment... but you’re even starting to see that transform. Look at games like Infinity Blade. That landscape is shifting, once it becomes cheaper to produce games of that quality all those disposable games – Dave Perry calls them Kleenex games – may not be as successful in the future. I mean how many Angry Birds can there be? Digital handheld content is seen as the place to be for aspiring developers, but I’m not sure how long that will last.
Nick gave comment on the independent game development sector where games like Braid are celebrated, but described that market as "a niche industry within a niche industry". He encourages others to think of the commercial reality and marketing games to a much wider audience. It's why he's a big proponet for commercial games development...
(Nick)“If your goal is to make a game and get it on the app store then, yes, you can get there. But if your goal is to succeed as a developer, to create a studio and a resource base that allows you to capitalise and make more games – and build from that – then, in my mind, the only way is up. You’re trying to build your studio so that you can continue to stay in business with multiple revenue streams."
The lessons learnt from the risk in commercial games development, Nick explains, is how developers are able to step up their abilities and capabilities for the next project. Commercial games development produces experienced developers, and it's an education that Nick believes is being skipped when new developers head straight into making it on their own...
(Nick) "If you look at those guys who are successful in the iOS space, they are seasoned developers. They did not start by creating iOS games – they moved here because they have the experience and they know how to make games.....
I'm not sure if we’re seeing the right fragmentation with seeds breaking off from larger groups and being the genesis for experienced developers."
Read the entire article over at Kotaku AU at the following link...
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Intelligent sounding fellow with some good insights.
It's been said before.
It's been said before. Unless your a complete idiot it really should be obvious that the mobile-app market has been changing. The days of releasing any old crap and making an obscene return based on the resources invested and no matter what the end app's quality. Are long gone ;).
However, I don't like the "tone" that suggests that unless you're one of the established big boys, then don't try. The subtext is suggesting that you should work for them instead, which, I don't necessarily agree with.
There's still room for upstarts and startups.
I very much doubt there is
I very much doubt there is any subtext that you should go work for them. Blue Tongue hasn't shown any interest in hiring lately, if the complete lack of job ads from them on this site is anything to go by.