The digital publishing scene is undergoing a transformation right now, between being almost exclusively low budget titles to the rising importance of high-quality titles now possible on the increasingly powerful smartphones. NaturalMotion is riding the rising tide with their technologies and with their games. We talked with Torsten Reil, CEO for NaturalMotion Games / NaturalMotion.

Talk to me about the response so far to Backbreaker. Has it exceeded your expectations.

Absolutely. We released it on iPhone a year ago and released Backbreaker 2 in December. We never could have expected the response we got to the first, which was one done internally in Oxford and Backbreaker 2 that was done by IdeaWorks in England.

Is there a reason that a British company decided to “tackle” American football?

The reason we did that was to create a game that’s high end in graphics and animation. Our technology makes animation look realistic and Endorphin for iPhone makes tackles look that much better. The U.S. is our major market, but we’ve found that if you make a successful game it can appeal anywhere; for instance, Backbreaker has its highest penetration percentage level in the U.K. and sales in other European countries like France and Germany aren’t bad either.

That’s interesting. I know it has a following in the U.K. but we’ve never been sure of how big.

It’s getting more and more popular, and we have NFL games in Wembley Stadium that sell out almost immediately. The important part is going beyond the sports following and appealing to a larger crowd.

The way we design our games is [for users] to be able to hand off the phone and have fun straight away in the game. That was exactly the idea behind Jenga; people know how to play it and we thought we could contribute to something to it. [Jenga is] difficult to make because it relies upon realistic physics, but that’s what we do as a company. We see something with potential and we picked it up for the project.

The other other thing with Jenga and Backbreaker is we use console quality pipelines; it comes pretty close to what you can do on console version.

It’s been interesting to see the rise of AAA mobile titles. iPhone has been a platform for indie-style titles for a while, but now you’re seeing things like Infinity Blade doing really well.

I totally agree. What’s fascinating is seeing something like Infinity Blade get to the top of the download charts. Even people who haven’t seen the game before are impressed when they get their hands on it; there’s an even bigger market than people think for high quality content.

Sometimes companies get pigeonholed because of their specialties, like for game engines. Has Backbreaker helped change how people perceive NaturalMotion?

 It’s added to it. It hasn’t necessarily changed, because our technology business is important to us as well. It’s changed things because we’re using our own technology and creating something that’s successful and creating believable physics technologies is our goal and the feedback we’ve gotten is great, whether it’s from the pipeline or something else.

It’s pretty incredible now what can be accomplished on mobile platforms. Do you expect to see more AAA titles on iPhone using your technologies?

What’s changed over the past three years is that mobile games can run console style games and it opens up new possibilities, that’s for sure. It doesn’t diminish consoles but it opens up a whole new market. We’ve been extremely positively surprised for the demand for these sorts of games on iOS.

Would you look to do more promotions for Backbreaker 2 like the one with KFC?

The way we look at it, it has to be the right brand and contribute to the game. KFC worked really well, and we were able to have some gameplay elements incorporated like the Chicken dance. We got a ton of feedback on that, and it also meant a great deal for sales of the game, so it was extremely encouraging.

Have your own games helped promote your various game engine technologies?

I think so, yes, from feedback and anecdotes and customer reactions. For Backbreaker, we’re at 3.4 million downloads. And we find that people know us and that’s helped with exposure for the company and it’s helped with both businesses.

Jenga is, to say the least, a very different sort of game than Backbreaker. Was it a conscious effort to try and make your game offerings have as much variety as possible?

A bit. On one hand, we’re trying to think of the ways to combine the three things we want to do. They have to fit our technology, be easy to pick up and be socially accessible. We thought [Jenga] was beyond what most devs can do, and we saw and opportunity because of our physics background. We’re familiar with sports, but Jenga was too good to pass up. Choosing to do Backbreaker was more of a strategic decision, based upon where our technology was.

What sort of marketing lessons have you learned from the release of Jenga and Backbreaker?

I think the biggest lesson is how much polish and word of mouth make a difference. The game was on the charts and still is and we know that’s [a byproduct of] people showing it off. They hand it off to their friend and they get a kick out of it. That’s what you get out of Backbreaker 2 right off the bat and the same with Jenga and that’s important to us — making sure the game grabs you from the start. We’ve also gotten our games featured at launch, which has helped.

Has the success of these games opened any new doors?

What’s happened with Backbreaker is it gave us experience development-wise and knowledge of what people want. People are also approaching us, like KFC, and what we’ll hopefully find, is that we’ll build up more experience and momentum with the next game.

Any big plans in the next year for big releases or things based around your technology?

We’ve have a pretty packed released schedule, and I can’t talk specifics, but we have very big plans. It’s an exciting time for us and it’s great to see all the momentum that we’ve gathered.

How have your experiences in digital publishing affected the development of NaturalMotion as a company?

It’s interesting because there’s really two sides of it. We’re historically an engine company for games like Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto IV, but we’re also seeing digital publishing companies looking at our technology and I think that’s a really strong [business opportunity]. It’s a big trend on the technology side. On the NaturalMotion Games-side we’ve focused on socially connected games and we’ve also learned how to see how people play and reflect on that. We can see what people say about the game immediately on the App Store. What people were looking for we gave them for Backbraker 2, like hurdling and the like.

It’s funny how much that’s changed in just a few years — now feedback from fans is just a click away. It’s also vital to capitalize on for any digital company to stay afloat.

You’re right in that with digital feedback you can act upon it easily. We knew the difficultly was good for some people, but some people asked for a pro mode and we added that in two or three weeks. Seeing customers’ reviews allowed us to react to customer feedback and we saw a major sales surge. Seeing positive feedback from people, that’s crucial with digital publishing to keep your game in the minds of people. We’re following the same strategy of free updates over time for Backbreaker 2.

Anything you’d like to end with?

It is really interesting what’s happening in the game industry right now with digital publishing and console quality hardware. There’s a huge amount of commercial opportunities . . . When it comes to in-game sponsorships, I think you’ll see more games get exposed to more brands, and if there’s value it’s a win for the game maker, the customer and the brand.

Thanks Torsten.

 

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