The mobile entertainment team at Seriously has, ahem, made some serious progress with its Best Fiends game, as it has been downloaded over 15 million times since its release back in October, boasting 1.3 million daily active players.
With that, the company has big plans for the game, with a trilogy in the works (the second game will release for mobile later this year) and a raising of $18 million in Series A funding, including backers like Northzone, Korea Investment Partners, and current investors Upfront Ventures, Sunstone Capital and Daher Capital, have also led to an overall fund-raising total of $28 million, which Seriously will apply towards building on production teams and investing in other first-marketing programs.
We had a chance to talk with Seriously CEO and co-founder Andrew Stalbow about the Best Fiends franchise in general, as well as partnerships with companies and YouTube broadcasters, such as the highly popular PewDiePie.
What are some ways Seriously is looking to expand the Best Fiends mobile game into a global entertainment franchise?
We treat our mobile app as a platform for our intellectual property, and are continually releasing new updates, characters and gameplay. What’s interesting about mobile is that it offers the ability to have a direct connection with your audience. We’ll continue to expand the Best Fiends brand with new content and expanding to new platforms that are a fit for the brand.
How will the Best Fiends franchise be marketed?
We are continually looking for new and unique ways to break through with industry-first marketing programs. For example, we have launched campaigns with some of YouTube’s biggest stars like PewDiePie and recently announced a partnership with the Premier League’s Norwich City Football Club, in which Best Fiends is an official partner of the Canaries. It is understood to be one of the first ever mobile gaming sponsorships of a Premier League football team.
What do you think the key ingredient to making a mobile game a success in today’s market? Or is there more than one?
At Seriously we are aiming to build the “Pixar of mobile” with quality games and a strong attention to detail. We are focused on building a fun, entertaining and addictive game. If you can create a game that’s fun, you can build a business and extend the brand from there.
You’ve teamed up with the likes of Kidrobot and PewDiePie for Best Fiends promotions. What do you think is most vital when it comes to said partnership?
Partnerships need to be organic and a natural fit for the brand. Kidrobot is the premier creator and dealer of limited edition art toys and was a natural fit. We’ve worked with PewDiePie on a few different promotions for Best Fiends. He tried the Best Fiends game out and enjoyed playing it. If he didn’t enjoy the game, these opportunities wouldn’t have existed.
Finally, if it’s popular enough, could Best Fiends expand to other platforms Or will the focus remain on mobile?
We treat our mobile app as a platform for our intellectual property. Since launching less than 10 months ago, we have focused on continually enhancing the experience with frequent updates featuring new characters, events and addictive gameplay. We recently released our collectible Best Fiends toys with Kidrobot and announced a soon to be released localized version of Best Fiends for the Korean market through a partnership with Incross. We have further plans to expand Best Fiends in the near future as we continue to build out the brand into a global entertainment franchise.
For good measure, check out the amazing statistics on Best Fiends in the infographic below. The game is available for download now.
