Many in the sphere of traditional gaming have been switching over to social and mobile games. One such person is Jamil Moledina, who moved from EA Partners to Funzio because he felt like it reflected the future of the industry.

“One of the things going through my mind lately is, ‘What really is the future of games ‘ The successful game companies of the next five years will be those that have figured out how to provide compelling game experiences to everyone, no matter what device they’re using, no matter what platform or what technology,” said Moledina. “It’s as much a business challenge as it is a technology challenge,”

“You have different visions of the future. Some companies think it’s primarily browser-based and mobile is kind of an afterthought,” he continued. “Then you have other companies that are more in the social/mobile space and they say mobile is the future. From my point of view, I think Funzio has placed the bet correctly in that they are focusing on a cross-platform approach. They are bringing great entertainment out with a view to removing the barriers of platform and technology. If you look at Crime City, it’s a game that works perfectly well on both Facebook and Google+ as well as iOS. And by approaching it that way, by focusing on great entertainment, you’re able to be much more flexible as platforms rise and fall.”

While social games are sometimes seen as low quality experiences, Funzio is looking to help change that. “One of the things Funzio is incredibly excited about, and something that maps very well to where I see the future of games going, is that they are very much focused on triple-A action games that have much higher visual fidelity and deeper gameplay,” said Moledina. “In fact, one of the terms that we use is RPG Plus, where the games have an added layer of depth to them; for example, Crime City features boss battles. There’s also PvE and PvP multiplayer capabilities… so if you combine the gritty visual look and high quality design, there’s definitely a vision at Funzio to bring the sophistication of traditional games to the social market.”

“I’m not sure we need to bypass consoles to get there,” he added. “For example, look at Netflix – this is a great example of a company building a bridge to a cross-platform future. For me, it’s companies like EA, Netflix, Zynga, PopCap (before EA acquired them). With Netflix you’re accessing entertainment on any device wherever you are. You can get it on your iPad, on your 360 and PS3, on your PC, on your iPhone, etc. In this way, the consoles remain current and vital and relevant because they offer the service, plus they offer a unique way of accessing this service.”

Source: IndustryGamers