Interview with Gamenauts CEO about Mobile Gaming Industry in Indonesia (Part 2)
This month, San Francisco based gaming publisher Gamenauts has sent the message to gaming developers all over Asia that it's ready to help them bringing the mobile games to US market. Gamenauts has signed four game developers from Indonesia and Malaysia and will promote their games in 2013. We have been talking to Stanley Adrianus, Founder and CEO of Gamenauts, about the situation of gaming industry, especially in Indonesia. Check out our Part 1 of the Interview before continue reading the rest:
Independent game developers in Indonesia have very niche segment and sometimes aren't fit into global market. How do you see this?
This is largely true, but on the other hand we have indie Indonesian game developers with games that achieved global popularity. One such indie developer is Toge Productions and their Flash title, Infectonator has been very popular worldwide. I think given more time and as indie developers grow in Indonesia, their awareness of the global games market will also mature.
What do you think about game developers that have small team, like 2-3 members, to compete with other players?
I think team size is not a barrier to creating a succesful mobile game. There's actually a good number of successful western mobile studios with 3 team members or less. The good thing about the mobile market is that it's still receptive enough to games with good concepts, without necessarily having extremely high budgets which require much bigger teams.
What do you think about "indie" game developers? How do you categorize which one is indie game developer and which one isn't?
My personal definition of an "indie" game studio is a small sized team (less than 10 or 20) that has total control of its future and the games they want to develop. Once you gain investments from a VC, angel, etc,. it tends to blur the definition because now your development priorities are influenced and affected by those investors. This is also the reason why we ourselves are still 100% self-funded since from the start.
Is there any specific genre that Gamenauts wanna bring from Indonesian game developers?
We are open to any genres, with the exception of casino games, simply because I think it's an over-saturated genre. The game developers in Indonesia usually love to make RPG and strategy games and while I'm a personal fan of those genres, I hope that the local developers can embrace more diverse genres.
In Indonesia Flash-based games is currently making more revenue for game developers rather their own IPs. How do you see this and what is your plan to attract more Indonesian game developers?
While I think the Flash games industry can still be profitable, there's no doubt that mobile gaming is the fastest growing sector worldwide. Sooner or later, the Flash game players will migrate to mobile and especially tablet I think Indonesian developers should really keep an eye out for this trend.
Our plan in working with our developers is to show our experience and track record in producing hits and in understanding the western mobile market. We're nimble enough to work with small, indie teams that need more guidance or support.
Is there any plan for Gamenauts to make something new, like new IPs or co-creation with Indonesia game developer?
Actually we consider ourselves as co-developers with our partners. A lot of publishers go through this process: sign up a developer, check in around Beta, sign off on Gold, launch with some marketing. One thing that distinguish us from other publishers is in how closely we work with our developers from the very start as equal partners in the process.
We are also investing in our new internal IPs although those projects typically take quite a long time. We're also very much open to co-investing in new IPs with Indonesian game developers.
