Ngmoco is encouraged by Android but sticking with iPhone
Building the next EA
Over on PocketGamer.biz, I've been talking to ngmoco CEO Neil Young about the company's acquisition of Freeverse amongst other things.
The good news is that both companies will continue to operate as usual, with Freeverse's current games remaining as they are.
"At this time, we don't plan to take games that are already in the market and make them free. We're not going to start charging people for balls on Skee-Ball or anything like that," Young explains.
In terms of future changes, some in-development Freeverse games will be changed to the free-to-play model that ngmoco has adopted, while other will be released as they've been designed.
"There are games in Freeverse's pipeline that will do very well as free-to-play games so we'll have to do a little bit of work to adapt them," Young says.
"There are some that won't. For example Warp Gate will be a premium paid game. In terms of new games, we want to build as many of those as possible under the free-to-play model."
Growing up cross-platformAs for the future corporate activity, it seems that ngmoco remains on the lookout for other companies and games it can buy.
"We will continue to look for acquisitions that make sense at a studio or company level and acquisitions of applications", says Young.
As for the wider issues of if ngmoco will ever release games for smartphones, the news is intriguing if not definitive.
"The iPhone is in a strong leadership position," Young explains when asked about going cross-platform.
"I'd say that among the pack of competitors, Android is the furthest advanced but it remains significantly behind the iPhone and iPod touch in terms of user adoption, ease of use, purchasing mechanisms, tools etc. I am encouraged at the rate at which Android is evolving, innovating and growing but for us the real focus is the iPhone OS."
As for Young's vision for ngmoco, he refers back to the company where he used to work.
"Our opportunity is to build a company in this space that's as meaningful, impactful and long lasting as Electronic Arts," he states.
You can read the full interviews over on PocketGamer.biz.
The first covers the Freeverse deal and the second the future for ngmoco.