![]() For the acquisition of new players the mobile version had to be another entry point. We wanted a full feature mobile version which could be played on all devices with the same account. The game was delayed by eight months and died in Open Beta, mainly due to technical issues.īased on the findings of our companion apps for Grepolis and Tribal Wars, we decided for a different approach to allow our browser-based blockbuster Forge of Empires to grow on mobile. We staffed our team initially with our existing ActionScript web-developers and learned the hard way that new technological challenges need experts to find sustainable solutions. While the design focused on allowing a perfect player experience on the phone, the developers needed to ensure high performance on a lot of different devices at the same time with one single code base. In addition, we decided for phone before tablet. In regards to user experience, we focused on the mobile platform and kept the browser version second. We used Java for our backend and Adobe Air for all frontends. ![]() Tribal Wars 2 still is an important addition to our Tribal Wars franchise, but it didn't reach the level of success we were hoping for.įor our (now cancelled) title, Rising Generals, we took a different approach while going fully cross-platform. By then, the concept of Tribal Wars 2 caught some dust and the competition already stood strong. This led to around ten additional developer hires and a delay of the mobile release by about 12 months. We then understood that a great gaming experience could only be ensured if we handled each device by itself. After six months of production, we recognized that we wouldn't be able to deliver the expected target quality on mobile devices with this approach and switched to native developments with Java and Objective-C for Android and iOS. The browser client in JavaScript and the mobile frontends were wrapped with PhoneGap. We decided to use PHP as the backend solution which would support all clients. The target platforms were browser, Android, iOS, tablet and phone - all at the same time, with the same feature set. Tribal Wars 2 was our first full cross platform production from the start. We didn't convert many new mobile players to our browser games though. Our main goal was to keep the challenge as small as possible while raising retention for our existing player base. Grepolis Mobile was developed with Adobe Air, while Tribal Wars used Objective-C for iOS and Adobe Air for Android. We set up two small teams with less than five people each. Instead, we focused on those gameplay elements which players have to execute frequently. We didn't implement the full feature set. Here we decided to start learning mobile development while supporting our core player base to use specific aspects of both games wherever they are with their mobile devices. The very first projects we could initiate quickly had been the companion apps for our browser games Grepolis and Tribal Wars. In all of them, we used different frontend technologies and target platforms to go full cross-platform on browser, Android, iOS, phone and tablet.Ĭross-Platform production - four different approaches, four different outcomes While setting up the first new production, we needed to answer questions we never had before in any browser-based project: "Portrait or landscape?", "How do we structure update cycles considering the Android and iOS approval processes?", "Is there any chance to upload a hotfix for our client on mobile?", "How do we create a game with a native user experience for such different platforms?", "How do we get featured by Apple and Google?", "Where do I hire experts?" etc.Īt the end, all of those questions came down to one: "What's the target platform to focus on: tablet, phone or browser?" We decided to go for four completely different approaches at the same time, to reduce the risk of total failure. In short, we determined that all new game productions would target the browser and mobile devices (Android, iOS) while having all features available on all platforms at the same time.īack then mobile development has been completely new to all of us. We just released Forge of Empires and knew that the browser market would reach its climax during the next few years, while the mobile market would stay on the rise. ![]() ![]() Our transition started in the beginning of 2012, during the kick-off of Tribal Wars 2. In the following, I will give some insights into what we tried at InnoGames, and how we have made very promising steps towards a highly engaged mobile player base. We followed several approaches to come to this conclusion, and for us, only one really paid off.
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