《愤怒的小鸟》创意来源编辑本段回目录
作者：Edge Staff
无论是在坐飞机、地铁的途中，还是在超市排队买单时，我们随处都能看到不少人在玩《愤怒的小鸟》（游戏邦注：它已成为继《英雄本色》之后的又一芬兰电子游戏代表作）。这款手机游戏目前下载量已经超过3.5亿次，它的遍及度如此之高并不令人意外。该游戏芬兰开发商Rovio最广为人知的面孔当属号称“通关神鹰”的Peter Vesterbacka（游戏邦注：他是在这款游戏成为热门大作之后才正式加入了Rovio团队），但鲜有人了解这款游戏背后的核心创意人员——创造了小鸟、游戏概念的Jaakko isalo。
Iisalo的职业生涯始于制作音频、图像和编写代码，然后才进入游戏设计领域，他在日前的媒体采访中讲述了这款游戏的起源以及对芬兰电子游戏产业的看法。
jaakko_iisalo_angry_birds(from next-gen)
你在90年代末和21世纪初主要担任音乐人、制作艺术家的工作，什么时候开始涉足电子游戏领域？
我一直都很喜欢游戏，我家里有60款左右的桌面游戏，还有多部掌机设备。我打小就是任天堂的超级粉丝，在学校甚至有人给起了个外号叫“任天堂Jaska”。记得原先在学校参加实地考察旅行时，就有女生取笑我在旅行期间无法继续当个游戏控，但后面我还是带了个Game Boy，所以这个问题难不倒我。
我有点怀念PlayStation时代，我是通过GameCube重返游戏领域，但我一直都在玩PC游戏。我玩过所有的现代游戏，比如《龙腾世纪2》、《使命召唤：现代战争》，但这些游戏都太费时间了，而我却没有多少闲功夫。
是否认为任天堂对你设计《愤怒的小鸟》产生了一些特定影响？
我认为《愤怒的小鸟》其实在许多方面都能和任天堂产生共鸣。任天堂游戏通常都很容易上手，让人感到非常放松和快乐，他们的游戏很重视核心玩法机制，总是确保游戏体验能够让人愉悦，所以任天堂的游戏理念也是我制作游戏的方式。
你是怎么想出《愤怒的小鸟》游戏理念的？
当时我们的团队规模非常小，也只是想尽己所能制作一款好游戏。Rovio在那时已经没剩下多少钱了，最多只能再做一款游戏，当大家都在寻思到底要做什么游戏时，我提出了许多想法和创意。我想出了好多游戏概念和角色，这些小鸟原先来自不同的游戏概念。我制作了一个以小鸟为主题的概念图，结果受到了工作室所有人的欢迎，所以我们就决定采用这个游戏概念。
绘图是我设计游戏的方式，这样便于察看游戏成型后的样子。我尝试自己将游戏玩法形象化，绘图正是实现这一目标的理想方式。我们花了不少时间思索怎样借助现有资源和能力，制作一款成功的游戏。我们查看了网络上大量基于Flash的游戏，研究了人们最爱玩的游戏类型。我们希望最小化项目风险，所以就要以用户的需求为导向。后来发现2D物理游戏在当时极有人气，那种向空中发射物体的游戏更是受到热捧，所以我们就决定制作这种风格的游戏，把团队成员都喜欢的小鸟形象植入其中。我们凭借这个概念图达成了《愤怒的小鸟》发行交易。
小鸟射向绿猪背后的故事逻辑是什么？为什么要在大家都知道鸟会飞这个常识的前提下，将小鸟设计成发射弹？
我一直就是个满脑子怪想法的人（笑）。我认为拥有一些不走寻常路的怪念头是件好事，将小鸟作为发射弹确实是种奇异的想法。我们当时敲定要制作这款投射类游戏时，其他内容和想法很快就接踵而至了。当时就差一些敌人的角色，凑巧我有很长一段时间都在画小猪。我妈看到“愤怒的小鸟”时，她并不是很惊讶，只是说我好像从上学时就一直在画小猪。所以我们后来寻找小鸟的敌人时，自然就把小猪推上场了。我想把这些小猪画得不那么像猪，所以选择了绿色和圆耳朵的外形。我很喜欢可爱的形象，但不希望小猪表现得过分可爱。我一直就不想做落入俗套或者司空见惯的事情，经常会尝试对事物做出一些新调整，即使是微不足道的细节也不例外。
angry-birds-characters(from angrybirds-game.org)
在《愤怒的小鸟》之前，Rovio已经推出了51款游戏，你也参与了Rovio其中一些项目。从你在其他公司开发手机游戏，以及在Rovio就职的经历中，你获得了哪些有助于开发《愤怒的小鸟》的成功经验？
通过制作游戏，你可以获得开发游戏的现实体会，了解哪些是成功法则，哪些是失败教训。在之前的多数游戏中，我主要负责制图美工的部分，其他人则主要设计游戏玩法。
我自封为硬核玩家，但在休闲游戏领域，你得意识到休闲与硬核游戏的区别。你得将游戏设计得极为简单，突出显而易见的游戏机制，要知道即使是简单的游戏机制也可能难到一些休闲玩家。
很少玩家会查看我们在游戏中设置的新手教程，他们只是点击屏幕就开始玩游戏。这就很难向他们解释一些基本的游戏机制，例如点击蓝色小鸟可以让它们变一为三从而增加破坏力——我经常看到玩家只是单纯地将蓝色小鸟射向堡垒，但从来不在飞行过程中点击它们！所以最好让玩家第一眼看到游戏，就能立刻明白游戏的玩法。
这就是你们增加弹弓这一设计的原因吗？
是的。游戏原先并没有弹弓，我之前认为我们只要在屏幕增加一个箭头，向玩家指明发射小鸟这一操作就行了。
这听起来是非常典型的斯堪的那维亚半岛、非可视化的工程师作风。
没错，但即使是添加了弹弓，我还是会想弹弓的意义何在。后来大家都明白了弹弓的用法，也就不用多作解释了。
《愤怒的小鸟》中最重要的视觉元素之一就是前只小鸟射出时在空中划过的轨迹，它会在屏幕上停留，有助于玩家据此调整下次发射的角度。游戏设计之初就考虑到这个元素了吗？
没有，我们当初开工时也并没有考虑到这个功能。我们团队在设置直接跳向下个关卡的箭头时才想到这一点。在我们程序员想到箭头设置之前，游戏并没有这个功能。后来我们才意识到，这是一个显然本该就有的功能，它可以让玩家快速跳到下一个关卡，但在开发游戏过程中，你很容易因为一堆琐事而忽略了一些显而易见的设计。
Rovio一直在保证游戏质量水准的同时，不断为《愤怒的小鸟》推出新内容和新关卡。你们还能在不失操作简单的提前下，保证游戏玩法的新鲜性吗？
我们推出更多新关卡，面临的挑战就越困难，但我们并不只是重复劳作，每一个新关卡都有一些新创意或者独特之处。这些创意可能非常之小，例如根据关卡主题设计的视觉元素等个性化内容。
Angry-Birds-Rio-Guide-Carnival(from pocketgamer.co.uk)
有时候你还会想出一两个新创意，但多数时间是在尝试一些不同的东西。你需要不断迭代和寻找可以萌生新玩法的元素。我们推出的每一个主题都会有一些独特性，比如说《愤怒的小鸟：里约》中的沙地和汽球，《愤怒的小鸟圣诞节日版》中的雪地等。
每一个关卡都有各自获得三颗星的理想通关方式，休闲玩家可能不是很在乎获得几颗星，他们能进入一下关就万岁，但如果是硬核玩家，他们可能就会想要每一关都拿三颗星。
你对《愤怒的小鸟》开发工作完成后有何愿景？
我只是很开心终于制作了一款让自己感觉良好的游戏，对我来说这一点就足够了。电子游戏算是一种个人作品，但同时也是一种商品，所以你会希望其他人也喜欢你做的东西。
当你制作游戏时，你会明白它最终会不会好玩。我们制作这款游戏时，办公室的其他人开始玩游戏时每次至少投入了15分钟，而其他人也会聚过来看他们玩游戏，然后其他人也开始玩并且为之着迷，看到这种情况你就明白走对路了。记得我们发布游戏之前，我们首席营销官Niklas Hed把游戏拿给他母亲试玩，结果从未玩过游戏的母亲居然在上面耗了数个小时，她真的迷上了《愤怒的小鸟》。
我们展开的用户测试非常有限，我们只是制作了一款自己人都很喜欢的游戏。我们确实很重视严格根据触屏控制系统设计游戏，因为我们确实很不喜欢使用屏幕上的控制器设置。我讨厌这种设置。我们收获的下载量非常惊人，我原本认为有100万下载量已经很不错了，后来又向1亿次冲关，之后下载量仍然保持增长势头……但现在我工作或者在家的情况一切照旧，没有什么变化。我只是继续工作，我喜欢制作游戏，所以发现其他人喜欢你的作品，这种感觉棒极了。
你们在手机平台有何成功准则或者锦囊妙计吗？你认为手机游戏之所以获得成功，运气成份和对App Store等平台的运营技巧各占多大比例？
这大部分要归决于运气和时机。就像我之前说的，我们花了大量时间调查哪种休闲游戏最有市场，从而最小化失败的风险，我想这一点是大家在某种程度上都可以重复使用的方法。看看《Tiny Wings》这款出色的游戏，你就会发现在它问世之前，市场上与之类似的Flash游戏非常之少。
假如你发现了可能会人见人爱的游戏类型，那就得对它进行一些优化和调整，让它比竞争对手更加独特，当然，做到这一点还是远远不够的。
我们之前没有广告旗帜，如果你观察我们的销售高峰，就会发现这与其他App Store开发商没有什么不同。当苹果注意到我们的时候，我们就在App Store挂出了旗帜广告，然后销售就一路飙升。我们确实花了不少时间让游戏在应用商店获得曝光度。
你必须在初次销售高潮结束时，趁热打铁为产品创造其他曝光机会。我们知道游戏在应用商店获得曝光度之后，就制作并发布了第一个故事预告片，希望借此赚足人气。需要注意的是，你的游戏必须拥有一个强大的创意，它得有心灵和灵魂。对我来说，这一点最为关键。我见过很多在技术上无懈可击的好游戏，但它们都没有什么灵魂和内涵可言。
《愤怒的小鸟》角色极为重要，我认为角色远比游戏本身更为关键。当然，如果没有游戏，没有人会认识这些鸟儿，但游戏走红之后，角色才是树立品牌的相关元素。
你已经亲眼目睹Rovio从原先只能再做一款游戏的9人小团队成长为现在拥有150多名成员的公司，见证了《愤怒的小鸟》成为全球文化现象的过程。请问你的职业生涯现在有何变化？
变化不大。当然，我现在已经无法认识团队的所有成员，我们有一个专门的开发区域，它和授权、营销部门相互分离。以前我们只有几个成员时，大家的交流和沟通远比现在方便，但现在团队就像是一部大型机器。
我曾经一个人制作完成所有关卡，但现在有一个专门的团队负责此事。但只要我们又有一个在新平台运行的游戏版本，我都会从头到尾试玩一遍，以确保一切准备妥当。
担任要职当然是件好事，但这样你就会总在处理一些琐事而无法去想新游戏创意，这一度让我感到沮丧。但现在我们都适应过来了，我又有时间从事一些创意工作，这真是太好了。
Rovio现在增加了一个掌机游戏开发团队，可能将拓展《愤怒的小鸟》业务，但人们更关心的是Rovio还会不会开发其他原创游戏呢？
从长期来看，我们当然想这样做，但前提是找到真正的好题材。《愤怒的小鸟》现在很红，盈利也相当可观，所以我们当然还会再推出更多游戏。我们希望涉足平板电脑等多个平台，让《愤怒的小鸟》无处不在。
我们现在还处于初始阶段，可以扩大小鸟品牌影响力，制作不同的小鸟游戏，就像马里奥拓展多种游戏类型一样。小鸟角色还有制作成多种游戏的发展潜力，我对此非常感兴趣。
你是否希望最终可以制作一些更为传统、规模更大的电子游戏，比如Xbox 360和PS3游戏？
不会。我对《超级食肉男孩》这种独立游戏更感兴趣，希望做一些像《PixelJunk》这种类型的游戏。AAA游戏需要大量的人力，而且你无法掌控游戏开发的各个环节，而我的兴趣就在于兼顾游戏的方方面面，我还是喜欢小团队工作氛围。
对Android和iPhone这两个平台的游戏开发、销售各有什么看法？
iPhone是一个相对封闭的平台，设备型号很少，销售也很集中。这对我们来说就很容易操作，但为Android平台开发游戏，总让我回想起之前开发Java游戏的情形。你得针对不同设备型号、规模、屏幕大小开发游戏，所以这是一个很复杂的平台。
Android同时也是一个开放性平台，这当然有它的一些好处，但是在Android平台发售游戏却更为棘手——这也是我们为何要推出免费版Android游戏，通过广告赞助实现收益的原因。
芬兰游戏开发领域现在呈现生机勃勃的盛况，因为《愤怒的小鸟》以及《Trials HD》等成功游戏的问世，许多初创企业和投资者纷涌而至。你对整个芬兰游戏产业有什么看法？
这个产业看起来非常不错。芬兰游戏产业之前的代表作是《英雄本色》，后来沉寂了一段时间，但最近又开始复兴了。不少开发团队已经推出了一系列叫座的好游戏，例如Housemarque的《Super Stardust HD》，以及RedLynx的《Trials HD》。
《Alan Wake》（游戏邦注：由Remedy Entertainment开发）也是一款好游戏。数字渠道为这里的游戏产业打开了一扇大门，在我看来，这一行的情况发展前景很乐观。政府部门也逐渐意识到应该加强对游戏行业的扶持力度。
现在的芬兰开发者与过去相比有什么变化，或者说他们有何进步之处？
技术一直就是我们的强项，真正的变化在于态度。这里的开发者过去基本上是一帮跟我一样只知从自身角度出发，而不考虑商品本质的游戏呆子，但现在我们不同了。
我们已经明白游戏开发是一桩生意，我们是在为受众制作游戏。我们已经有不少成功案例，开发者也都能睁大眼睛看清哪些方法可行，哪些套路行不通。
我得再重申一次，关键在于制作一款有灵魂的游戏，必须有人准确把握游戏的发展前景。纯粹山寨他人作品是不会有出路的，但这一行拥有独特创意和想法的人还不多，你看看市场上大量的小鸟克隆游戏就知道了。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）
Meet the man behind Angry Birds
Edge Staff
Jaakko Iisalo tells us how Rovio made the world’s most successful mobile game.
No matter if you’re in an aeroplane, on the Tube or waiting in the queue at the supermarket, people everywhere are playing Angry Birds. With over 300 million downloads racked up to date, the series’ ubiquity should be no surprise. The public face of Rovio, the Finnish studio behind Angry Birds, is often the ‘mighty eagle’ Peter Vesterbacka, who joined the company after the avian-themed physics challenge became a hit. Little is known of the game’s small development team and of thirtysomething Jaakko Iisalo, who created both the birds and the game’s concept.
As with so many people who comprise the Scandinavian game industry, Iisalo got his start in the demoscene composing tracker music, creating graphics and writing code, before moving on to designing games. Now he’s one of the creative forces behind a franchise that has become Finland’s biggest videogame export since Max Payne. We sit down with Iisalo as he takes some time off from his busy schedule in his hometown of Helsinki.
You worked as a musician and graphic artist during the late ’90s and early 2000s – when did videogames enter the picture?
I’ve always loved games. I’ve got about 60 boardgames at home and I own every console out there. I was a huge Nintendo fan as a child. Kids in school had a nickname for me: ‘Nintendo-Jaska’. I remember that when we went on this school field trip, the girls were teasing me that I wasn’t going to able to play games for a while, but then I got a Game Boy, so problem solved.
I kind of missed the PlayStation era and I came back into gaming via the GameCube – and I’ve always played games on the PC. I do play all the modern games like Dragon Age II and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, but they just require so much time, which I don’t have.
Do you think there’s any particular Nintendo influence in your design work for Angry Birds?
I think Angry Birds is very Nintendo-like in many ways. Nintendo’s games are always easily approachable and they tend to be quite relaxed and happy by nature. Their games always concentrate on the core gameplay mechanic and making sure that the gameplay experience is an enjoyable one, so the way Nintendo makes games is the way I want to make games as well.
How did you come up with the game concept at the heart of Angry Birds?
We had a really small team and simply set out to make the best game we could. We had the opportunity to make one more game, as Rovio didn’t have any more money left.
I pitched lots of ideas when we thought about what kind of game we wanted to make. I had dozens and dozens of game ideas with various characters. The birds were originally part of a different concept. I had created a piece of concept art featuring the birds – which everybody loved at the studio – so we settled on using them.
The way that I design games is by drawing pictures. I have to see how the game looks in order to understand it. I try to visualise the gameplay for myself, and drawing it helps. It gives me a feel for what the game’s about. We spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of game we could make that could be a hit. We looked at a lot of games on the web, such as Flash-based games, and we studied what kind of games people liked to play. We wanted to minimise the risks, so to speak, and go with what seemed to work for people. Two-dimensional physics-based games were really popular at the time, especially the kind of games where you launched something in the air.
So we decided on that genre and then put the birds that everyone liked into the game. We got the publishing deal for Angry Birds based on that single piece of concept art.
What was the logic in pitting birds against pigs? And why did you design the birds to work as projectiles – surely they can fly?
I’ve always been a bit strange with my ideas [laughs]. I thought that having something a bit offbeat and unexpected would be a good thing. In this case that meant using the birds as projectiles, which I thought was something that would be weird in a good way. Once we settled on having a game where you shoot at something, everything came together quickly. We required an enemy and for some reason I’ve been drawing pigs for a long time. When my mother saw Angry Birds, she wasn’t too surprised; she just said that I’ve been drawing pigs since I was in school. So when we thought about enemies for the birds, the pigs came in quite naturally. I tried to make them a bit less piglike, which is why they’re green and feature round ears. I like cute, but I didn’t want them to be too obviously cute. I always try to avoid doing what people expect or doing something that’s very familiar. You always have to try to come up with some kind of new twist on things, even if it’s just some small thing.
Rovio had shipped 51 games prior to Angry Birds, and you had worked on some of those, as well as on several mobile games at other companies. What did you learn from those games that you were able to utilise in Angry Birds?
Well, by making games, you learn the realities of game development and you gain the knowhow of what works and what doesn’t. I was a graphic artist on most of those games, while others did the gameplay design.
I consider myself a hardcore gamer, and in the casual space you have to learn certain realities. You have to make things incredibly simple – you have to present mechanics that are immediately obvious. Even simple gameplay mechanics can be very confusing for casual players.
Very few players even look at the tutorials we have in the game. They just tap the screen to get to the action. It’s challenging to even explain the basics, such as how the little blue bird splits into three when you tap the screen. People don’t even get that – I so often see players just launching the blue bird and never tapping again to split it up! [Laughs.] When you see the game, you immediately have to understand how it works.
Is that why you added the slingshot?
Yes. We didn’t originally have it in the game. I thought we were fine just having an onscreen arrow that you used to launch the bird.
That sounds like a very Scandinavian, non-visual, engineer type of approach.
True, but even when we put the slingshot in, I kept thinking how that would make sense and fit into the bigger picture. Then again, everybody understands how a slingshot works; you don’t have to explain it.
One of the most important visual elements in Angry Birds is the flight path of the previously launched bird, which stays onscreen and helps players to adjust the following bird’s path. Was this something that was always part of the design?
No, that’s another feature that we didn’t have from the beginning. The team came up with that, just as it did with the arrow button that allows you to skip to the next level. We didn’t have that in before our programmer came up with it. In hindsight, it seems like such an obvious thing to have, something that allows you to quickly get to the next level, but while making games you end up working in a bubble of sorts and don’t always realise the obvious.
Rovio has released constant updates and new levels for Angry Birds, while retaining a high level of quality. Can you still keep the gameplay experience fresh without losing the simplicity?
It’s getting tougher when there are so many new levels published, but we don’t just churn them out. Every single level we create has to have an idea or some sort of unique gimmick behind it. It can be something very little, such as a visual element that we repeat and sort of turn into the level’s theme to give it a unique personality.
Sometimes you just come up with an idea, but mostly it really comes from trying out different things. You just keep iterating and finding elements that you can turn into a new type of gameplay. Every episode we bring out has to offer something unique – new materials such as the sand and balloons in Angry Birds Rio, for example, and the snow in the Angry Birds Seasons Christmas episode.
Every level also has an ideal way of completing it so that you can attain all three stars. For the casual gamers, they don’t care – they just want to get to the next level – but if you’re one of the hardcore out there, you can go for the three stars [on each level].
What were your expectations for Angry Birds when its development was finished?
I was just happy that I finally got to make a game that I felt good about. That was enough for me. A videogame is a personal thing, but it’s also a commercial product, so you hope others like what you have created.
When you make a game, you get to a point where it finally becomes fun to play. When we made the game and people in the office started playing it, they stuck with it for at least 15 minutes at a time and others would gather to see someone playing. Then everybody starts to play it and really like it – and then you know you’re on to something. I remember that before we shipped, our COO Niklas Hed gave the game to his mother to try out. She never plays games, but she played it for hours and she loved it.
We had very little user-testing. We just made a game that we all liked. We really emphasised extremely accurate touchscreen controls because we definitely didn’t want to have any sort of onscreen joypad. I hate those. The amount of downloads we’ve gotten is crazy. I thought one million downloads was amazing. Then you get to 100 million and it just keeps going… It’s difficult for me to grasp. When I’m at the office or at home, nothing’s really changed; you just keep working away. I love making games, so of course it’s a great feeling when others enjoy your work.
Is there any formula or checklist of features that increases your chance of success on mobile? How much is success due to happenstance and how much is it due to manipulating platforms such as the App Store?
A lot of it’s down to luck and timing. Like I said, we did spend time looking at what was popular on the casual gaming side to try to minimise the risk of failure. I think that’s something you can repeat to some extent. If you look at the success of Tiny Wings – which is a great game – there were quite a few very similar Flash-based games around before it arrived on mobile devices.
Once you find something that seems like people could like it, you have to take that and improve it – make it somehow unique and better than the competition. Of course, that’s not necessarily enough.
We had no advertising banners. If you look at our sales spike, it’s very familiar to anyone who has dealt with the App Store. Once Apple took notice of us and we got the banner in the App Store, our sales skyrocketed. We did spend a lot of time getting there in order to gain that visibility in the store.
You have to have a product that has legs once the initial sales spike is over. Once we knew we’d get that visibility in the store, we created the first story trailer and released it. We tried to take as much advantage of the visibility as we could. You have to have a great idea for a game. It has to have heart and soul. For me, that’s the most important thing. I see a lot of technically great games, but they have no soul and the content is lacking.
The characters in Angry Birds are super-important. I think the characters are almost more important than the game. Of course, nobody would know the characters if it wasn’t for the game, but once it ships and takes off, it’s the characters that are associated with the brand.
You were working at Rovio when it had shrunk to nine people and could only afford to create one more game. Now the company’s grown to over 150 employees and Angry Birds has become a global phenomenon. How has life changed for you professionally?
You know, not that much. Obviously, I don’t know every employee any more. We have our game development area, which is separate from the merchandising and marketing folks. When we only had a few people, communication was far easier and things were more personal, but now we’re more like a well-oiled machine.
I used to create all of the levels myself, but now I have a team creating them. Whenever we have a version of the game shipping on some new device, I still play the builds from beginning to end to make sure that everything is as it should be, as I know the game inside out.
It’s nice to be in an important position, but then you end up doing a lot of random stuff instead of coming up with new ideas, which had me quite miserable for a while. Lately, we’ve been able to accommodate things so that I have more time to be creative and think of new ideas, which I feel great about.
Rovio is staffing up a console development team, presumably to expand Angry Birds’ reach even farther, but will the company ever work on another IP?
It wouldn’t hurt! I’m sure in the long run we want to, but we have to find something that’s going to be really good. Angry Birds is the hot thing right now and pays the bills, so of course we’ll make more. We want to be on every platform – tablets and so on. We want Angry Birds on everything.
I think we are only at the beginning. We can expand the franchise and make different Angry Birds games, kind of like how Mario has expanded into all these different genres. There’s a lot of potential to make different games with these characters and I’m really interested in doing that.
Do you eventually want to work on more traditional videogames on a bigger scale, on Xbox 360 or PS3?
Not really. I’m more into the indie stuff such as Super Meat Boy. I would love to do something along the lines of the PixelJunk games. Triple-A games require hundreds of people and you can’t control every aspect of the game, which is what I want. I’d love to have a small team that could spend a while working on a game.
What would you say are the pros and cons of developing and selling on Android and iPhone?
The iPhone is a closed platform with very few devices and with centralised sales. That makes it easy for us. Developing for Android reminds me of working with Java games back in the day. You have to port the game to machines with different specs and different display sizes, so it’s a more complicated platform to work on.
Then again, it’s an open platform, and there are benefits to that as well. Still, selling on the Android platform is just much more complicated – which is why we give the game away for free on Android platforms and generate our revenue via advertising.
The game development scene in Finland feels vibrant right now, with many new startups and investment coming through thanks to the success of games such as Angry Birds and Trials HD. How do you see the Finnish game industry as a whole?
It looks really good. We had success a while ago with Max Payne, and then we hit a bit of a dry period – but now it seems that we’re on a roll. Quite a few development teams have been able to generate hits, such as Housemarque with Super Stardust HD, and of course Trials HD [developed by RedLynx] has been huge.
Alan Wake [from Remedy Entertainment] was good, too. Digital distribution has really opened the doors here, and, to me, the scene feels really good. The government has also slowly begun to understand that our industry is something that should be supported.
What are Finnish developers doing differently or better than they were before?
Our strength has always been technology, but what really has changed is the attitude. We used to have a bunch of nerds like me making the kind of old-school games we wanted to make without any consideration of the fact that we were working on a commercial product. That’s changed.
We understand that this is a business and that we’re making games for an audience. Now that we have had success stories, developers’ eyes have opened as to what can work out and what can’t.
I keep coming back to the fact that you have to have a game with a soul. Someone has to have a strong vision for what the game is about. You get nowhere by just copying and producing a lifeless clone. There just aren’t a lot of folks out there with fresh, good ideas. Just look at the number of Angry Birds clones that are out there.（source:next-gen）
