Trials HD was recently voted Best Arcade Game by the Xbox Live gaming community, best Nordic Game of 2009, is rapidly approaching a million users on its Xbox Live Arcade Leader Boards - phenomenal achievements for a small game development studio from Finland. IndustryGamers asked me to talk a bit about the company's success and its approach to game creation.
Success brings a smile to the RedLynx boss
With record sales, Trials HD is our biggest hit to date and one of the most successful games on Xbox Live Arcade. We had always hoped for this kind of achievement, but we also planned and built for it too. Here are some of the keys to our success:
1. Solid gameplay that works
First, we knew the game was good because we had so much fun building, testing, and playing it right here in our office. Furthermore, we were working with a proven game design, as Trials had already succeeded first as a Web-based game then on PC with Leader Boards and a community, in Trials 2 SE.
2. Experienced team
This may sound a little obvious, but we have a highly skilled staff of programmers, artists and others who have been making games together for ten years. During that period we have made more than 100 games, some big, many small, and over time we have developed our own in-house tools and a basis of physics knowledge.
3. Proven Project Management
Developing a game for an online console is a big task. Fortunately we've had experience building games on this scale for devices such as the Sony PSP, the Nintendo DS, and Nokia mobile phones - the devices may have been smaller, but the projects were just as large, even larger in some cases.
This experience led to streamlined, proven project management methods that fit our company and the people who work here, a level of expertise some other smaller developers might not have.
4. Excellent Partner Support
Trials HD was our first Xbox Live Arcade game, but surprisingly we didn't have too many major challenges working on this new platform. It was our good fortune to have a great partner in the Microsoft team. They were professional, they were always helpful and available, and the Tools for Xbox 360 were very handy and well-made for our purposes. This helped quite a bit. We also worked extremely well with Microsoft's marketing team to help support our launch and post-launch activities.
5. Focusing on Online Opportunities
Without a great game, there is no business opportunity. However, that alone rarely is enough for long-term success. That’s why we have also been very systematic in building our company in a way that could make gamers aware of our games, and trying to serve them before and after they have got in touch with our games. This requires focus and the right type of activities (online is not the same as the boxed product business) in PR, marketing, sales and community management. With Trials HD, we have succeeded on these frontiers as well.
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Those are some of the key points that helped make Trials HD a success. Granted, a lot of these tips depend on things that you do. That’s because, as we say in Finland, Oma apu paras apu: you are your own best helper.
