Dansk indie-udvikler satser på Apple i et forsøg på at få erfaring

Lille dansk spiludvikler udgiver mobilspil i et forsøg på at få erfaring. Overskud kommer i anden række.

AF: JULIAN MØLLER

Harry the Fairy er et spil, udgivet på Apples App Store, udviklet af danske Zaxis Games. Direktøren for firmaet aflagde for nylig redaktionen et besøg, til en snak blandt andet om de økonomiske aspekter der har gjort sig gældende under udviklingen af spillet.

Spillet er produceret med økonomisk støtte fra en offentlig pulje. En mindre del af finansieringen ved at Zaxis udførte normalt arbejde for andre firmaer undervejs. Spillet har endnu ikke givet overskud, men det er heller ikke ambitionen: 

Selvfølgelig vil vi gerne tjene en milliard kroner på det, men vores økonomiske målsætning har bare været at få det til at løbe rundt, sagde Jacob Honore, Zaxis direktør.

Men økonomisk success har heller aldrig været det primære mål for Zaxis med Harry the Fairy:

Vi ville gerne gøre os en masse erfaringer. Dels med udgivere, dels med det team vi har dels med den teknologi (vi bruger, -red.), som stadigvæk er relativt ny for os. Vi ville skabe noget erfaring, til forhåbentlig at få en større økonomisk forretning ud af vores kommende titler.

Samtidig har det også været en læringsmulighed for Zaxis at beskæftige sig med udgivere samt processerne på Apples App Store, som er den eneste platform spillet pt. er udgivet på. 

I virkeligheden ville vi rigtig gerne have været ude på alle platforme samtidig for at få en sneboldseffekt, sagde Jacob Honore. 

Zaxis valgte dog, i et forsøg på at få Apple til at feature spillet på forsiden af App Store, at undlade at udgive spillet til andre platforme i en periode. 

Historisk set, sagde Jacob, så er sandsynligheden for at man bliver featured højere hvis man eksklusivt er på App Store. 

Forsøget bar dog ikke frugt, og Harry the Fairy fik ikke smutvejen ind i det forjættede land fyldt med succes og høje salgstal.

Siden udgivelsen er Harry the Fairy dalet en del på ranglisterne, efter at spillet toppede lige uden for top 10 i visse markeder kort efter udgivelsen. Zaxis er dog også kommet videre, og er for tiden i gang med at udvikle et nyt spil til mobiltelefoner. 

Deres blog indeholder mere information.

“I wasn’t sharp enough to say cut!”

Zaxis Games recently released their game “Harry the Fairy” in the App store and as it seems to be doing pretty well in sales, soon an Android version will come out too. We talked with the CEO Jacob Honore about Harry and other “fairies”.

By Katarina Prevelianaki

There were so many changes in the character, how did you decide the current character was “the one”­?

There are actually 2 different reasons why it ended up: one was we had to create a likable character. And since it became too difficult to make the snail crawl around, we needed a character that could actually fly, so it was not intentionally going that way, it kind of evolved. Then we ended up with a character that is very likable and also it could navigate in the environment that we wanted the game to take place in.

How do you think your experience so far will help you develop your next game?

We learnt so many things, and if I were to do it again I’d probably do most things in a different way. First of all, I think it was good (or maybe I was lucky) putting together a team that really worked well, on that side I wouldn’t really change anything. In terms of the game, I think we could make it in maybe 25% of the time because we had so many iterations and we hadn’t done a lot of testing on the technical side. So what we set out to do was actually maybe 2 years too far out in the future (on the technical side) so we had to change it a lot of times to make it workable game which was kind of really annoying.  I think I wasn’t sharp enough to say “ok cut, now we take all this out”, so we tried to make it work and it took way too long time to actually realize that it wasn’t a way we could pursue.

Harry the fairy looks like a game that could be played by all ages. Did you have a specific audience in mind while developing the game?

We had a slightly older target group in the original plan that actually turned out to be a younger age group. We changed the game to be simpler because we took some of the advanced controls out, so if we had stuck to the original idea I think we would have hit our target group. Since we took out a lot of the difficult navigation things and dexterity issues, it turned out that a younger audience could actually also play because it’s really simple.

Opening up for the American market sounded like something you really went after, do you think it paid off?

I think if you look at the percentages right now, we have around 75-80% of the games board bought on the American and Canadian market, so I think in that respect it is a success. We would have liked to have larger volume but if you look at the percentages, I think having an American publisher was a wise decision.

Zaxis games' CEO talks about Harry The Fairy

Interview with Jacob Honoré CEO of Zaxis games concerning their recent release of Harry The Fairy and the future of Zaxis games.


By Rene Korsgaard


What are the unique selling points of Harry The Fairy?
We played a lot with feelings creating Harry and we feel that the player can relate to that. Furthermore we have spent a lot of time on making sure that the visuals are really beautiful. And lastly the audio interacts with the player in a really nice way, responding to his choices and whereabouts to create the right mood. So the focus has really been the audiovisual aspect as opposed to the game play, and we hope people will respond to that.


Being a company originating in creating high-end 3D graphics, how did your modelers cope with the technical restrictions of creating models for smart phone games?
That is an excellent question, because it was a difficult process. In the end the decision was to hire artists specifically for this project, and then just have my other artists assist them with what expertise they had. In this way my artists did not have to convert to this other platform.


Speaking of platforms, why did you choose the smart phone?
Well primarily the choice of platform came from the fact that we needed a gyro-scope for the type of game play that we wanted and the iPhone happened to have that. Furthermore it can be a lot more expensive to develop games for other platforms such as consoles.


Do you have any plans for moving to other platforms in the future?
We do not plan to leave the smart phone platform par se, but we would like to create multi-platform games with different control schemes for different platforms. In this way you could play the same game using kinect, x-box controllers, touch screens, etc. 

Meet Harry the Fairy

The game Harry The Fairy is now available in an App store near you, and IGN met up with the creator of the game for a talk about who Harry the Fairy really is.


By Nanna Florang Pedersen


Harry the Fairy is about a cute green fairy that needs so save all of his girlfriends. In each level a girlfriend is hidden somewhere in a cage, and Harry needs to release them. We believe Harry the Fairy sounds like a fun character so we wanted to get to know him a little better. We caught up with lead director Jacob Honore about Harry’s personality and how Jacob and his team came up with his name.


The game is a puzzle game set in a dark world with caves, so Jacob and his team wanted to create a contrast to the dark universe. They came up with the green. Jacob explains this and adds that “We wanted a character that felt out of place.”


The first character the designers did had him wearing big teeth and looking scared. This was something the test audience found funny, so the team wanted to keep his funny traits and look.

But how on earth did the creator come up with the name? Jacob laughs at this question and explains how it was a Friday afternoon after work that the creators sat down drinking a beer or nine. They began pondering about the character design, and they came to the conclusion that the he looked kind of gay, therefore the name Harry the Fairy. 
They kept the name as a working title, but after meeting with the publisher they decided to keep it.


“The publisher liked the name laughing for half an hour, and asked if we could stick to that or hold on to that. So it was rather a coincidence that we ended with that name.


The big question we are all wondering about after the revelation of the name is: So is Harry gay? 
“He is not a homosexual but he has a lot of female friends. It (The gay joke) is funny if you get it but it you don’t he is just a cute character” said Jacob.


This was a little about Harry the fairy and we are looking forward to bring you more news about the game in the future. 

Imagined Times: Interview on Harry the Fairy

In the past years, many business entrepreneurs have taken to developing games for mobile platforms, with IOS and Android being the most well-known of these. 


Imagined Times met CEO of Zaxis Games, Jacob Honore, for a quick talk about the difficulties his company has faced getting their game, Harry the Fairy, on the market: The pitfalls of having a publisher and signing off your rights to titles, target audiences, and some hard facts regarding the numbers involved.



By Jakob Fischer 

Having previously talked to Jacob, where he revealed his plans to eventually move the company away from their publisher, Chillingo, we asked him what his plans are for getting season II of Hairy the Fairy to the market:


“In regards to season II, we are actually in a position where we can’t do anything but publish it through Chillingo, since they own the rights to all future titles with this name. In other words, we can’t publish this, or future titles, with anyone else. So, we’re kind of locked down in that regard.”


Chillingo is taking a cut of 35 % from all games they publish for Zaxis. Adding the App Store’s cut (30 %) to that, Jacob previously revealed to us that they would need to triple their sales for the coming 
“Harry the Fairy season II”, in order to break even:


“Right now we are at 28.000 units sold. We need to sell 75.000, and would very much like to hit 100.000, since it’s such a nice number. “


Lastly, we got to ask him what changes, compared to Season I, they had planned to ensure this:
“One of the main critiques we’ve received is that our game is too easy. So, the difficulty of the levels we are bringing with season II will be higher. It will be more complicated. As it is right now, the audience that is actually playing the game, is quite a bit younger, 3-4 years younger, than we actually anticipated, compared to what we thought was going to be our primary target audience. And we actually want to try and hit our originally planned target, which is more like 8-15 year olds, whereas now the average player is 7-8 years old, which we think is too low.”

Indie-Developer Zaxis Felt Let Down by Chillingo

Still going to continue making games and even thinking about expanding

By Bert Baker

After their debut release “Angry Vikings” got unwanted but helpful publicity from a Russian hacker who broke the game and published it for free, indie developer Zaxis wanted to take the high road with their second game “Harry the Fairy”.

This high road included “Chillingo” – the publisher and marketer who helped Rovio make their “Angry Birds” a huge success. After having a lot of trouble getting in contact with Chillingo Jacob Honore, CEO of Zaxis Games, hunted down the representative of Chillingo and persuaded him into taking care of Zaxis Games and Harry the Fairy.

But this care taking did not work out so well, as Honore told us in an interview:

“They could have, with very little effort, answered all our questions and make sure that we produced a better product in the end.”

This was even more confusing for Zaxis due to the fact that Chillingo was in for a cut of 35% of the revenue of a sold unit of Harry the Fairy. Having Apple taking another big chunk of the profit, there is not that much left for Zaxis to begin with. Nevertheless, Honore told us that Zaxis is staying in the gaming business and even thinking about conquering new worlds.

“In our future productions we are going to actually make sure […] that we can export the games to different platforms. […] There is going to be a lot of different devices that we want our games applied for and build them for different control schemes for the different platforms.”

Taking this course Honore hopes to put their skills in high-end 3D graphics, which they worked with prior to games, into use making games, because he believes that “gaming and high-end 3D is – somehow – going to fuse […] in the future.” Until this happens Zaxis will publish a second season for Harry the Fairy and work on a new gaming project – this time without Chillingo.

Interview with Jacob Honore

By Joanna Duda


Today, Jacob, a developer from Zaxis Games announced the sequel of Harry the Fairy – a puzzle game available in the Apple App store. 


A brief press conference took place, where Jacob explained how the new instalment will look like, what will be the main gameplay elements and what new features players can expect. 


You can watch the press conference HERE.


However, there were two issues that Crab Games found interesting and Jacob did not talk about. That is why we managed to get a very fast interview with Jacob himself and ask him about some aspects of the future of Harry the Fairy.


Crab Games: Hi Jacob. First, we look forward to see the sequel to Harry the Fairy. The presentation looked interesting. Still we would like to ask you quickly about a few things you did not cover in the conference.


Until now, you have been releasing games for the iPhone and iPad. During the conference, you said that you will expand the platform range to Windows phones and Android. Our question is, are you considering moving to console platform such as Playstation Network or XBOX Marketplace?


Jacob: We haven’t really considered it, at least not for Harry the Fairy. It is very expensive to launch on the console market and Chillingo, our branding company, and the App store are already taking quite a part of the sales income. We might move to consoles in the future but it will be with other, new project. Harry the Fairy 2 will be released for mobile platforms only.

Crab Games: Good luck with that then. Another thing you said during the conference is that you want to make the game more difficult, that way reaching an older audience. However, looking at today’s games, you can see that they are actually becoming easier with constantly instructing the player what to do and when. Are you worried that making Harry the Fairy 2 more difficult will be more of an issue than an advantage?


Jacob: Not really, no. By making the game more difficult we provide the players with more gameplay elements and more gaming time. So, we are, in fact, providing a better and more engaging experience. Also, I think it’s important that the players get a game that they cannot finish in 30 minutes only, even though they did not pay much for it.


Crab Games: Thank you very much for making time for this short interview despite your tight schedule. We wish you best of luck and a lot of success with Harry the Fairy and any other projects you are or will work on. Goodbye. 

Interview with Jacob Honore

By Tommy Rousse

I sat down and spoke with Jacob Honore, CEO of indie game development company Zaxis Games, about launching Harry the Fairy for iOS with mobile publisher Chillingo. 

Zaxis Games is a team of four based in Copenhagen working on its first major title; Chillingo is a juggernaut of casual gaming, counting massive hits like Angry Birds as part of their stable. 

To bring the two together, Honore flew out to Chillingo’s U.S. offices and called every day until he was able to land a face-to-face meeting with an executive. The exec liked what he saw, and the fruit of that meeting is Harry the Fairy, released March 15^th to Apple’s App store.

Honore explained some of the advantages of working with Chillingo: by uploading all of their massive hits to the same account, they’ve built up a brand and a network capable of distributing and promoting a game worldwide. But getting that kind of help comes with a cost: after Apple and Chillingo take their cut, only 35% of the revenue from each game sold goes back to Zaxis. Here’s what Honore had to say about why it’s worth it:

“It’s a question of volume actually. Since we don’t have a billion dollars in the bank, we have to focus on the economical side.  We have to make this amount of money, and if it’s a small percentage of a large cake or it’s a hundred percent of a small cake, I couldn’t care less.  Also with Harry, it’s one of our first real titles; we wanted not only to have good revenue or income but to have our name out, especially in the American market.”

I asked Honore about how the label “indie” fit with working with one of the biggest players in mobile gaming. While the hardcore indie studios emphasize their self-sufficiency and uniqueness, Zaxis is targeted at a different crowd. Honore said:

“I don’t think the users reflect on those kind of things. The usual casual gamer, I don’t think they give a f— who owns it.”

Maxis and the municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark, join forces with city planning using Sim City

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, March 20th, 2012 ---- The future is here! Maxis, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, today announced that the next edition of the city simulation series Sim City, is so advanced that it will be used in the planning works of a real city, allowing the city to save dozens of suitcases of money.

Today the municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark, in collaboration with Maxis announced, that the entire city council of Copenhagen has received early beta access for the forthcoming city simulator "Sim City". The beta access will be used to cut expenses and administration, by using the game to determine the best courses of action to take when deciding what to expand, build and demolish in the Nordic metropolis.

The municipality of Copenhagen has dire needs to save money, so it looked for innovative solutions, that could reduce bureacracy and spending as well. When the municipality approached Maxis, they quickly discovered that this would be a good match.

"The simulation in Sim City proved to be so precise and acted so much like a real city that we decided to give it a testdrive", said Frank Jensen, Lord Mayor of Copenhagen. "When toll booths proved to be a bad idea even in Sim City, we discovered that we could avoid a lot of bad decisions simply by playing games all day. We believe we can evolve Copenhagen in major ways with this new tool."

Maxis is thrilled that their new game is being used for other things than fun. 

"That our city simulator can be used in the decision making process in an actually city, is a great accomplishment. Our team of programmers have been partying around the clock because of their accomplishment," said John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts.

 "Our marketing department is drafting new campaigns as we speak, touting the accomplishment."

The work to reduce the spending and close down several of the departments in the offices of the municipality will formally begin in April, but select high payed workers have already been laid off. Their replacements will be Sim City afficionados, who in will be responsible for all counceling and guidance with regards to the future development of Copenhagen. The use of Sim City will allow the municipality to view city planning in a new light, and will help bring Copenhagen into the top tier of the metropolises of the world.

If the project proves succesful, it will be expanded to encompass all major Danish cities within the next couple of years.

To view the video that made the municipality get the idea, visit the Sim City YouTube channel here 

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ABOUT THE MUNICIPALITY OF COPENHAGEN:
The Copenhagen Municipality is the largest of the municipalities making up the city of Copenhagen. It covers 91.3 square kilometers and has a population of 549,050. It is the capital of Denmark and also houses the Danish government.

ABOUT MAXIS:
Maxis is a subsidiary of major game developer and publisher Electronic Arts. Maxis is the creator of one of the best-selling computer games of all times, The Sims. It also developed the original Sim City games, other sim games such as SimAnt, as well as other games like3D Pinball for Windows. It also created the evolution-based game Spore.

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Press Release by Julian Møller