Few weeks ago I caught up with Mills of ustwo to talk about iPhone development. ustwo have been sponsors of CAN for quite a while now but besides them being a ‘successful’ bunch they are really interesting creative studio. I thought it would be great to get some insight into the thinking and working of ustwo. As they have just released their new iPhone game named “.™“, that’s a dot with a trademark on it, Mills has sent us a little why, how and what next that makes a very interesting reading. Read on, and make sure you check out the “.™” as well as their fun “MouthOff” which is now also available as a free version.
.™ // by Mills of ustwo™
Over the last 5 years ustwo have been heads down in cliend projects. Over-delivering UI based solutions that ultimately benefit everyone but us! (meaning ourside of the direct project pay), locked into contracts that wipe clean any acknowledgement of the creators. Maybe this is a fair thing to do as we get paid, but it doesn’t go far to help us gain niceoriety in the digital design arena.
Growing a design studio capable of delivering client solutions is one thing. But it’s the exposure of the studio to the world that is the key to its real success. And this year we realized this more than ever. So what did we do? Well to start we have committed around £150k into the App area, building a quality iFocussed team, proportioning it over the first 12 months of the ‘new app age’, giving us the confidence to say NO to paid projects that the chosen developers would have been on. Thus the iPhelopers™ were born, and were able to concentrate on the one and only: iApps
The beauty of iApps is that we can contain all parts of the projects in the studio. We control the process, we control the budget, we control the direction. Sounds like the perfect situation to be in, but its not without its downfalls. Being designers, we naturally want to make everything perfect: welcome to the world of ‘scope creap’. For anyone who thought clients were the masters of this, self financed projects slip even further! And, although self promoting apps are about showcasing creativity, humour and skills, bottom line is making money needs to be part of the end game. There is only so far a dog will run without being fed. In the case of iPhone apps, every extra hour can be the equivalent of needing about 80 more 59p purchases, just to cover costs after Apple take their cut. In this case ‘time is apps’.
Our first App Steppin took months and lost us thousands (about £30k) but was our ‘learnapp’. Our second, ‘MouthOff‘, was massively successful in terms of exposing us to the world. MouthOffâ„¢ pulled in 15k to date and now brings in a steady £50 per day, enough to feed our beer fridge. Our third, Inkstrumental, will launch end of the year and early estimates are that the whole package will have cost us around £45k.
The issue we saw was that apps were taking too long to make, we needed to have a constant stream of quality apps. Got frustrated by not being able to talk about fresh apps, needed something to talk about prior to Inkstrumental™. Nothing better than producing quick turnaround projects. Pulling that crack team together over a beer one night. Simple task, we need something cool, something addictive, something that showcases quick thinking. We only produce what can be done in a 2 day period. Bottom line is that it has to go to Apple on hour 48.
So we created .™, the worlds first ’48hourApp’, Concept. Design. Development. Marketing concept. All produced in the space of 48 hours. The name of the game is survival. It’s simple (so are we!!). You are .™. Blue circles are food. Red triangles are death. starves and shrinks without food. Red death makes .™ hungrier. The gameplay is simple, and the name even more so, the name is the character.. and nothing better than trademarking a .!
The key skill in this project was being able to say NO to the extras that we all wanted, but couldn’t be done in the time. We wanted a global scoreboard, but it wasn’t possible in time. So we said to ourself that if we cover our costs, (enough = 5750 at 59p after apple cut) then we will update with new features. In this case it’s the reverse Kostner™, ‘if you buy it, we will build’.
Packaged and delivered to Apple, we started to market .™, asking the question ‘have you seen the .™’ via a Flickr group. Group members then took photos of what they thought the .™ is in different locations. Although the campaign engagement was on a small scale, it definitely built interest, allowed us a forum to slowly drip feed news about what the app was, releasing 3 teaser videos mixed in between the photos.
.™ is 1/6 of a suite of forthcoming apps from ustwo™, called 48hApps. Each of the apps is created in a 48 hour time period, and each is about simple, stunning design and simple, addictive game play. Collect all 6 games to complete the set. they are ‘cool’ectable™
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You can find out more about ustwo™ by visiting their site or follow Mills on twitter or check out his Diarite.
