Their name may be new to the iPhone platform but their roots began with gaming consoles such as the Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, Nintendo’s Wii and even the PC. Strawdog Studios has jumped into the iDevice arena with the launch of GEON HD for the iPad, a title that has been seen on the major gaming consoles before. I sat down with Dan Marchant, Business Development Director of Strawdog to discuss their experiences with major gaming platforms, the move to mobile devices such as the iPad, and their involvement with Chillingo as their publisher.

Company Name: Strawdog Studios
You’re Name: Dan Marchant
You’re Title: Business Development Director
You’re URL: www.strawdogstudios.com

Q: How do you think the iPhone and iPad has revolutionized the mobile phone industry?

Actually I don’t think they do much to revolutionize the mobile phone industry. The iPhone is an adequate phone at best – my G/F still carries a lame Nokia phone because she just wants a phone and doesn’t want “all that other stuff”. That’s not to say the iPhone/iPad aren’t revolutionary but their impact lies in what else it does beyond being a mobile phone….

Q: How do you think the iPhone or iPad has revolutionized the portable gaming industry with contenders such as Sony and Nintendo?

TFor me it is the user experience that is the game changer. Apple has a deeper understanding of the importance of the user interface/experience. They are miles ahead of companies like Sony, Nintendo etc. and the result is a vastly more pleasant purchasing experience. Making it easier and more user friendly for people buy and use content opens the process up to users who would never be willing to struggle through the convoluted systems that Sony and Nintendo have in place.

the use of touch screen and accelerometer controls also make a huge difference. They open games up to users who aren’t interested in/don’t understand the need to learn that pressing the X button equals jump or some other abstracted command system. Admittedly the iPhone/iPad don’t have direct brainwave input yet but touch screen is certainly something that less geeky users can understand.

Q: What separates your company from your competitors with mobile phone applications?

I can’t really discuss the processes at other developers but at Strawdog Studios we practice “total development”. By that I mean that early in the development process we think about the total package that makes up a game – beyond just the software. As well as creating visualisation videos of what we want the game to look like we also create a multitude of other creative items, such as post cards, mock up magazine covers, mini versions of retail store standees and a host of other assorted marketing mock-ups. Many of these will never actually manifest in physical form – you don’t need a retail standee if your game sells via digital download – but we create them so that the whole team can get a feel for the project as a whole at an early stage.

Q: What is your company background, size (employees, developers, etc), and company inspirations?

Strawdog Studios was formed back in 2003 and all the Directors had previously worked at large development studios or publishers.The founding ethos for the company was to do cross platform development of original games. That doesn’t mean to say that we do exactly the same game on every format – but rather that we build code, data and art assets in such a way that they can be re-purposed more easily. GEON HD on iPad is a good example of this. It makes use of work done for previous versions of GEON on other hardware platforms but the game play has been redesigned to work with the platforms controls and capabilities.

Q: Do you outsource any projects or development, if so, how much?

Like many independent developers we tend to use contractors who work in-house or close by, rather than outsourcing development (to other development teams). We have a core development team that expands and contracts as the needs of a project change.

Q: Advancements in graphics and animations in the mobile phone industry have astronomically grown within the past couple of years. How much time does your company devote to graphical, animation, and sound production for mobile applications? Are there areas that you focus on?

The art and graphic side of Smartphone development is certainly increasing as new devices have the power to run applications that have pretty sophisticated graphical and audio capabilities. For example amongst the current crop of iPhone products there are some very attractive and visually appealing games and Apps.

For Strawdog our focus will be on the deployment of sophisticated graphics and animation for user interface and in game. During the development of our soon to be released XBLA title ‘Space Ark’, we created an Adobe After Effect exporter that allows us to build very slick animated menu sequences and HUD graphics and this is something we’re definitely going to integrate into our future smartphone products. In fact ”Space Ark is on our to do list and will appear on iPhone/iPad later this year.

Q: How many applications has your company planned, developed, or created at any given time?

Planning is constant and on-going and as with most developers we have far more projects at the planning stage than we are likely to be able to actually develop. When it comes to actual development we are generally working on one or two projects at a time, depending on size and complexity. We have an Xbox LIVE Arcade game “Space Ark” that has been in development for well over two years. For most of that time it was our sole projects but there were times during that period when we also worked on additional titles such as iPhone “Turbo Duck” and iPad “Geon HD” and “Geon Wii”.

Q: What do you think of the iPhone or iPad Operating System in comparison to other mobile platforms? Are Apple’s competitors finally producing a comparable product or has the iPhone already monopolized the niche market?

Our studio has for many years been a PC only zone and it was quite an event when we unwrapped our first Apple Mac 18 months ago. Currently we’ve only ever developed for the iPhone/iPad operating system and I must say we’re all pleasantly surprised by how easy it is develop for the platform. At the moment Apple do seem to have a sizeable advantage over the competition since their entire infrastructure is built around the extraordinarily influential iTunes digital delivery system. It’s changed the music industry and is doing the same for mobile applications.

However, the Google ‘Android’ phones are the ones to watch over the next 12 months and once we get some clear sales data for how well applications are selling we’ll be able to make a business case for developing our games on that platform.

Q: Is your company currently developing for other mobile platforms, if so, which ones and why?

Our large commitment to Space Ark XBLA has resulted in limited resources for development on other platforms. iPhone and iPad are the only two mobile platforms we are currently supporting but this may change now that Space Ark development is finished. We may or may not jump onto other mobile platforms immediately but we are certainly poised to start a number of new iPhone and iPad projects (and in fact have an iPhone version of GEON in development now).

Q: Marketing an application can be a very difficult task. With so many applications being developed and released on a daily basis, capturing user attention in an App Store is challenging. What have you found to be an effective way to market your products to users?

One of the biggest challenges for a developer, especially when moving onto a new platform, is to get noticed. It takes a lot of time and effort to build and maintain contacts with the press and generate meaningful coverage for your game. Publishers with a wide portfolio of titles can dedicate resources to building those relationships and because they have multiple titles they have more to talk about with the press. Working with a successful iPhone publisher like Chillingo means that our games benefit from their contacts and expertise in Marketing/PR.

Q: Following the response above, what do you think of the store review process? Is it helping or hurting your business? What are some recommendations in order to speed up this process?

Many developers complain that Apples system is ill defined and opaque compared to those on other systems. It’s not always clear what is or is not acceptable and there isn’t a lot of communication during the process. We haven’t had any review problems with either Turbo Duck or GEON HD but I think that a more transparent, well defined review process would certainly be beneficial for a lot of developers.

Q: What do you think about other application review websites? Are they effective at providing in-depth reviews of applications and helping market your products? Or is your company experiencing challenges of trying to find quality application websites? What do you think of Appmodo?

Sites such as Appmodo and iPadmodo are fantastic. They help consumers cut through the clutter of games on the App Store with their insightful information that helps influence purchasing decisions. From a Developer perspective, reading the Pros/Cons of reviews also helps us create better games, whether if it’s in an update or for future development. We’re also very excited about iPadmodo’s recent launch, which brings that same level of quality information geared towards Apple specific devices.

Q: What is your favorite application?

Here’s a quick poll from a few of the guys in the studio, all of whom have iPhones;

Paul – ” I think ‘Pocket God’ is a great game App. It’s interesting how the game deploys in App purchases and it constantly entertains my 7 year old son with it’s updates and incremental additions”
Simon – “Guerilla Bob is another favourite and I especially like the bold art style and and audio implementation.”
James – “PopCap’s ‘Plants V’s zombies’ is a brilliantly balanced game and is perfectly suited to the touch screen interface and I’m sure it will be great on the iPad “
Derek – ” ‘Talking Carl’ is a great App if you have young kids but be warned, it will eventually drive you mad, especially on long car journeys!”

Q: What is your most popular application? Have you received any awards or achievements for that application?

“Turbo Duck” iPhone is our most popular game. It is also our first :)
We haven’t previously had the resources to focus on the iPlatforms so Turbo Duck was our only game prior to “GEON HD”. Now that we are freeing up resources we are planning a big push on iPhone and iPad with “GEON” for iPhone, a big update to “Turbo Duck”, and iPad/iPhone versions of our XBLA title “Space Ark”. Fingers crossed there will also be some other iPlatform titles coming soon, which we can’t talk about yet.

Thank you very much Dan Marchant and Strawdog Studios for your time.

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