At the tail-end of last year, when Martin Edmondson completed his long-term consultancy role on Driver: San Francisco - the latest instalment in a series that he created - a lot of people were watching to see where the industry veteran would go next.
Now, he and his brother Gareth, who headed-up Ubisoft Reflections throughout the studio’s work on Driver: San Francisco, hold fulltime management positions at mobile developer, publisher and distributor, Thumbstar.
Co-founded by Martin in 2008, Thumbstar boasts Gareth as CEO and Martin as CCO (chief creative officer), and when two industry veterans with a combined development career spanning some 43 years make a whole-hearted move into mobile gaming, it warrants attention. But why now, and what makes the mobile scene of 2012 so appealing?
"We’ve not really been able to do this before now because we were so busy with Driver," Martin explains.
“ The fact that I sit in front the television, or on a plane or on a train and reach for my mobile; it was that point where I stopped switching on my PlayStation quite so often.
"We could see the numbers: increasing distribution channels, increasing revenue. But the actual point where you say ‘this is going to be massive’ was probably not related to the business side but actually related to my own habits. It’s the fact that I sit in front the television or on a plane or on a train and reach for my mobile; it was that point where I stopped switching on my PlayStation quite so often."
In truth, Driver San Francisco’s protracted development has likely helped the Edmondsons hit the mobile market at a prime time. Thumbstar has grown to support 140 worldwide distribution channels, establishing profitable and useful connections as far away as South America and Asia and helping combat the well-documented problem of discoverability.
"Just being good isn’t enough," stresses Gareth, before going on to demonstrate the benefits of pushing distribution beyond the avenues open to small, independent developers. "The numbers are fairly simple: if you do just a thousand [units sold] in each of those 140 channels, that’s still decent numbers for a mobile product and offers much better odds than pinning all your hopes on just two channels [Apple’s App Store and Google Play]."
Moreover, Thumbstar supports distribution on as many mobile platforms as possible. While Apple and Google dominate in localised areas, a worldwide distribution network allows the brothers to appreciate the bigger picture, as Gareth explains:
“ Our reach is massive and we need to be able to adapt quickly. When you stop looking at just the US and UK and look at the rest of the world there’s huge diversity.
"Our reach is massive and we need to be able to adapt quickly. For example, BlackBerry in Latin America is huge, almost 50 percent of the smartphone market is BlackBerry. In Indonesia, there are 200 million mobile subscribers, almost all of the smartphones are BlackBerry. When you stop looking at just the US and UK and look at the rest of the world there’s huge diversity."
And then there’s China, which has traditionally been something of a black hole market due to the lack of both IP regulation and copyright enforcement. However, Thumbstar recently completed a deal to partner with licensing outfit Viva Red Limited and the government-run China Telecom, a mobile phone operator with 130 million subscribers that grows at a rate of around 3 million per month.
The deal opens up a huge potential market for Thumbstar’s own newly established internal development teams as well as for the third-party developers that it partners with. Most crucially, the deal has the backing of the Chinese government, which has pledged to protect intellectual property and enforce copyright protection across its mobile network.
Of course, numbers and deals are worthless without content and, happily, Thumbstar’s business is primarily about games. The Liverpool-based company has recently committed to roll out two games per week across multiple platforms, the first of which come from publishing deals with developers Mylodon and Ant Hive Games to deliver multi-format titles, Clumsy Pirates and Porkchop and Mouse.
“ The Vita certainly has potential, but the question is: do leave the house with your iPhone and your Vita? Sure, some people do, the hardcore players, perhaps, but the vast majority wouldn’t.
The former is a timed vertical puzzler with cartoon visuals, while the latter is a charming interactive story book created by children’s author Fiona Roberton. These will be followed by i3, a cube-based mind-bender created by Found in the Future, and the humorous, power-up-laden match-three puzzler, Grumble and Piccolo’s Fishing Trip from Fairplay Media. All of these games share a high level of polish, a commitment to multi-format availability and small, independent developers hooked up to Thumbstar’s far reaching distribution networks. Hands-on impressions suggest all are worth checking out.
Looking further into the future, Martin Edmondson believes mobile gaming provides an opportunity that traditional games consoles, even dedicated handhelds, cannot.
"The Vita certainly has potential," he concedes. "But the question with the Vita is: do leave the house with your iPhone and your Vita? Sure, some people do, the hardcore players, perhaps, but the vast majority wouldn’t.
"That’s where this opportunity arises, as a market grows like this, the price of handsets comes down and there’s this wide range of players, old and young, male and female. Then there’s the 10-minute scenario where you’re sat in the train – I mean, you never fire up your PlayStation for just 10 minutes, do you?"
It’s foolish to think that the mobile gaming scene will cannibalise the more traditional console market, as some seem to fear. Instead, its moving towards a state where it will be capable of delivering high quality gaming to whatever device you choose to carry with you, wherever you may be. Thumbstar demonstrates that the mobile scene’s combination of a plethora of bright, new talent and experienced industry veterans offer the very best of both worlds. As a gamer, I can't help but feel it should be both welcomed and enjoyed.
Source : ign[dot]com
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