Pocket God has been one of those success stories of the App Store, catapulting Bolt Creative with its success. Looking to expand on the success, they tapped Frima to bring the game to Facebook and they worked with them on adapting the game to the new platform. We talked to Frima’s Senior Brand Director Jake Theis and CEO Steve Couture about Pocket God, social games and more.
Talk to me a bit about the success you’ve had with Pocket God so far on Facebook.
Jake Theis: We’re kind of in a really interesting space. You see things cropping up on new platforms a lot now and this was such a good opportunity. We saw they were offering this and it was obvious they were passionate about the brand. They’ve obviously been successful on iPhone and we saw a tremendous opportunity for Facebook.
Why did you think Facebook was a good spot for Pocket God? Are you seeing new users or cross overs from the mobile version?
Jake Theis: We’re definitely seeing both. [Pocket God] has this enormous user base; people are checking in on the game from Bolt’s blog. Facebook as a gaming platform is immense and there’s a large audience for this sort of experience; it’s a very simple game but rewarding. We can’t have all the tactile features of the iPhone game but we’re able to offer things iPhone doesn’t; we have something with leveling and progression that pays off weeks and months from now. It’s a great solo play for iPhone, but we have some more intimate features with Facebook. You can talk to your friends, or spawn pygmies based around people you know and, say, throw them in a volcano or drop a shark on your boss’ head and then you can let them know it!
Are you pleased with the response to Pocket God for Facebook so far?
Jake Theis: Yeah, absolutely. We see the opportunities to grow. Soon, we’ll reach the 10 million pygmies kill mark in the game. We’re digging into stats like that, like how many times people use certain features, and it really tells us how to build things up.
Do you think there’s a good natural connection there between Facebook games and mobile games?
Jake Theis: Absolutely! From an industry standpoint, we see it going both ways. People are buying into the brand on iPhone and then bringing it to Facebook. You’ll probably see more mobile conversions of Facebook titles too. It’s a mistake to launch an iPhone game on Facebook, though; it’s good to take a concept of a game on iPhone and adapt it to Facebook. You have to use the medium to the best of your abilities.
We’ve noticed you’ve done work for several different platforms.
Jake Theis: That’s one of the great things about our company; when we see an opportunity, be it working with others or our own brand, we can take it on. We think there’s a lot of opportunities there on consoles. As new technology becomes available, we consider it for development.
Steve Couture: We have a great R&D team, we can launch on most every free platform; it’s more a question of business model. We do a lot of work for hire, yes, but also our own stuff. In this case, Bolt’s really been a great partner. They’re playing it and giving us feedback. There’s also all the data, which is very valuable. Jake, for instance, has been killed hundreds of times and on a typical day 360k friends are killed in the game!
What has to be considered when launching a game on Facebook as opposed to other mediums?
Steve Couture: Facebook is a social environment, but we don’t necessarily make the [games] social. They’re not as social as MMOs; you can’t chat with your friends, so the social components are not in real time. You need to make a social experience but you also need to have a deep gameplay experience with your friends. We need to use a technology that is simple, like with Flash. Our statistics show that if people have to download an external player, they’ll probably leave. So we need to use a technology that’s in wide use like Flash. The new version will make Flash more immersive, but for now it’s very basic for gameplay components, so we need to be careful.
For Pocket God, there were some really neat features, like shaking your iPhone to create an Earthquake; obviously you can’t do that with your laptop! Things are adapted to the mouse to produce some of the effects of the Facebook game; it’s about bringing the spirit [of the game] onto the new platform.
How is creating titles for the downloadable environment different for the PSP?
Jake Theis: We’ve had great, great reviews for Space Shooter For 2 Bucks; we’re getting a lot of love for truth in advertising. That’s the first touchstone with the game. For a game like Pocket God on Facebook, we released the game once we were comfortable with it and we’re going to continue developing it, but [for consoles] initially you have to overwhelm them with value. Space Shooter touches something that’s familiar, but you can also trick out your ship, so it twists it on its ear, and it’s open ended with randomly generated levels. You’re able to explore, too. [A console game] has to be really solid from the start.
Steve Couture: This is one of the biggest differences between social games and console titles. For the console, it needs to be as complete as possible, but on social games, you don’t launch with 100 percent of the features you want; you want to react to the metrics and the player patterns in the games. You want to figure out what they’re doing with the game, then you can create the game based upon what your players want. It’s less the feel of the game designer; its designed by the market instead. We see this as a new trend.
How are the players different on each of the platforms?
Jake Theis: Each platform has its own customer base: console gaming is big but so is Facebook gaming. We have passionate iPhone users, as well. They’re mostly separate but there are places where the Venn diagram overlaps. I think the general feeling is, when you do the console title, you’re painting a painting, but for social games, you’re painting a mural that’s never ending.
With console games, most of the heavy lifting is done before release, but it almost seems like it’s better to plan for changes over time.
Jake Theis: Launching a console title is like Christmas day, but social games are like having Christmas 52 weeks a year!
What do you look for when changing social games?
Jake Theis: The first thing I’m looking forward to in the morning is the statistics and what people are doing. One of the things we look at are what powers people are using and unlocking. As we get a better idea of what people do, it’ll dictate what people would like to do. We have social quests that will have more direct ways to get new items and quests, which is really popular, but we’re going to have something similar that you do with your friends in huge projects; that’s driven by what’s popular.
So word of mouth is generally what you rely on to get the word out.
Jake Theis: There’s traditionally the seep of gaming news and there’s also conferences and other things. There’s also talking to fine reporters from established media sources! We do t-shirts, promotional items… I don’t think we’ve unlocked some new marketing. Reviews are very important, I’d like to add.
Talk to me about growing the company, and your extension onto new platforms.
Steve Couture: Most of what we do is work-for-hire for entertainment companies. We appreciate that business, and we want to work with independent partners like with Pocket God, but we want to do more where we own the IP; in short term, this is what we are doing, and Jake is here to manage this part of the business. We’re building a new division for special FX for television and 3D animation for the next generation of gaming console in 4-5 years, when we’ll probably be managing a lot more polygons. The special FX that’s in movies is what you’ll see on the next generation of platforms; that’s part of our growth. We’re 260 people and we’re still hiring as we continue to grow the business.
Guys, thank you for your time.
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