Playfirst vice president of product management and marketing Becky Ann Hughes says that having recognizable characters is important to success on mobile platforms. A good example of this is the Angry Birds series, where the birds and pigs themselves make up much of the game’s charm.
“We did an analysis of the App Store a while ago and we looked at all the icons in the store, and most of the top games have strong, cute, compelling characters in the icon and screenshots, which really compels people to click and download the app,” said Hughes. “Having a brand and having recognizable characters is going to become more important than less important.”
“The character art in Clash of Clans has some real emotion, and Bookworm Heroes by PopCap is very character-driven,” she noted. “What we’re starting to find is the top apps in the App Store really do have some strong, character-driven brands. Even Candy Crush Saga has a story and a progression model, and it’s probably one of the most successful arcade games on the App Store right now,” said Hughes.
Playfirst is putting the lessons it learned into its latest title Deep Sea Deli for iOS. The game focuses heavily on the distinct character Narly the Narwhal.
“What we find is having those characters integrated into the core of the game mechanic is the first thing needed to be successful,” Hughes added. “The second thing is to make sure the characters are tied to the feedback mechanism in the game so they have some functional benefit to the game instead of just being tacked on.”
Source: Polygon
