Last week, during GDC Online in Austin, Texas, I saw a panel run by Newtoy’s David Bettner. Later in the week, Bettner himself met up with me to talk about the company and its popular Games With Friends titles for the iPhone. Though the company is doing great with its own App Store games (Words With Friends has over 10 million downloads and a surprisingly active user base), the first game that I asked about was actually We Rule. Newtoy designed that one for Ngmoco, and it’s become one of the pioneering “freemium” titles on the App Store, using in-app purchases to fund a free-to-play Farmville-style game.
Bettner told me that We Rule was the product of two companies, not just a work-for-hire. “It was a fun collaboration with Ngmoco,” he said. “It was not the typical publisher/developer kind of a relationship. It was more of a collaboration of ideas.” The idea for “mojo,” the in-app product that pushes We Rule’s gameplay forward, actually drove the whole project, both from a design and a monetization standpoint. “It was a fantastic sort of thing where as soon as you use mojo on a crop, you’re like oh, I get this now, ” Bettner said. “It’s this magic thing that I can do to speed things up.” Players have been split on the use of microtransactions in App Store titles like that, but Bettner said the model very much appeals to iPhone developers — “the total lack of friction” on in-app purchases makes it easy to sell items in-game.
TUAWGDC Online 2010: Interview with Newtoy’s David Bettner originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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