How the iPhone rescued me

This article first appeared July 3, 2009.

The iPhone has completely transformed the landscape of the mobile telecommunications industry. The App Store has given thousands of entrepreneurs the ability to sell their products to millions of potential customers and created the potential to make a fortune in a matter of weeks.

Robert Murray, chief executive of mobile games development studio Firemint, says the iPhone and App Store also helped save the company after the downturn showed them their model wasn’t working.

“Previously we worked with game publishers who would search out developers to do the work. But we got our biggest project canned because of financial problems for the publisher. Now what we have is a flatter demand for development services than I’ve seen in our history.”

“But we are now developing apps for the App Store, which is putting us into our own publishing role at the same time. Consumers still want games even if publishers aren’t willing to foot the bill.”

The company produced its first game for the iPhone, Flight Control, earlier this year to extraordinary success. It has already recorded one million downloads worldwide, and at $1.19 per download equates to $833,000 in revenue in just under six months.

It recently released Real Racing for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which is expensive in the world of iPhone Apps at $12.99. The game has received extensive praise from the iPhone community and several awards, including the IGN Editor’s Choice award and three International Mobile Gaming awards.

iPhone-led recovery

While Firemint started in 1999 and has created a number of games for mobile devices and consoles, it is the iPhone that has finally delivered its extraordinary success.

But Murray says the next question is ‘how far the iPhone can be pushed?’ The App Store is a relatively new market, he says, and it is still uncertain whether iPhone games priced over $10 will sell as well as they do on traditional mobile gaming consoles, such as the Nintendo DSi or Sony PSP.

“There are two potential ends of the market. There is plenty of money to be made on a wide market game such as Flight Control, which costs about $1, but the jury is out on whether a typical, large title game can be made that’s a little more niche. Can you make console quality games and monetise them on the iPhone?

“The iPhone 3GS will enable us to do incredible things, but is it worth investing $2 million in a niche game that might not sell as well? We’re going to try to do some creative small stuff, but also deliver something that’s cost a bit above the market, and see if we can pull them up a bit.

“Someone has to figure out how to sell premium content on an iPhone, and do it cost effectively.”

Murray says the higher-priced Real Racing game was designed to push the boundaries of not only the iPhone’s technical abilities, but the pricing structure of the market itself.

“With Real Racing we’ve demonstrated what we can do with the platform, it’s the biggest tech achievement on the iPhone to date. We’ll find ourselves in a situation where the games aren’t limited by the hardware, but they’re limited by how much people can afford to spend on an iPhone game on development and what people will pay.”

A casual atmosphere

Murray says the Firemint office, with board rooms full of games consoles and bookshelves of fantasy novels, is designed to maintain a casual atmosphere that will allow designers to work at their best.

But keeping the atmosphere casual has a downside.

“It can be a bit relaxed for the juniors, and we do have problems with them not taking it seriously enough. At least I think so because I’ve got a hell of a lot on my shoulders, so there’s a massive gap between what they are seeing and what I’m seeing.

“Sometimes I wish it was more corporate with guys in suits saying what is going to be done exactly, but risks are taken when you are in a low risk environment. If we hold everyone to what they say, if we define these really strong boundaries, we lose something in the creativity.”

Murray shields the junior employees from the global nature of their work to keep their heads on the ground, but he says taking them to worldwide conferences often puts them into gear after relaxing for too long.

“Particularly when they first come in, they don’t know how much is riding on their performance and we don’t want to put it on them too early, because there’s enough they have to deal with. Our management works when the people distanced from the problems don’t know they are there.”

Starting out

Firemint started as a small mobile games studio, but Murray says starting in emerging industry led to several problems on top of running a new small business.

“I was pretty much on the poverty line, and it was hard to make ends meet. But that was the early days with mobile, then it grew and we were able to bring on employees. Then I started learning about business. I had to go from programming to design, to production, to management, to business administration.

“This industry is not lucrative and keeping bills paid until we could get that next person on was difficult. That was one of the hardest things, getting to the point where I could get two projects going at once, rather than just one client and one project.”

Murray says moving into a publishing role now has its own problems. Rather than deal with a publishing house, Firemint now deals with customers directly through the App Store.

“We’re moving past the publisher point, we’re worrying about publishing and distributing worldwide. Now I’m encountering these new challenges even when you think you know everything.”

A quality future

Murray says Firemint will continue to focus on handheld devices as their popularity grows.

“Apple is dominant in the most important music device, the iPod, and they could be prominent in the most dominant gaming device now. As time goes on, as new systems allow users to review and recommend, you won’t be just about brand recognition, it’ll be about quality.

“iPhone is just breaking it all down, and we have a place building apps into a strong industry.”