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When I first got into the world of game creation, I was developing simple, easy-to-play card games and selling them directly to phone companies and manufacturers. My small operation, based out of Minneapolis, was working hard to bring mobile apps into the digital market space at a time when the industry was just taking shape.
In 2004 our team developed “Aces Texas Hold’em” which performed very well for our partners at Nextel. From there, our company grew exponentially as we began developing mobile games for major video game brands like Tetris and UNO.
Over the past few decades, the way we interact with digital products, especially apps, has completely changed. As a developer myself, it’s been exciting to watch the mobile gaming ecosystem update – from here at Twin Cities. We went from charging up to $20 a game to a free game, from limited phone support to over 10,000 phone models, and from simple games to complex live games. I’m proud to have built a team of highly skilled tech professionals who love what they do, and to have the support of an amazing tech startup community. Of course, being able to reach customers all over the world and allow them to easily play our games anywhere has been critical to our growth.
Gone are the days of pre-downloaded games, and now consumers have access to a wide range of entertainment at their fingertips. The ability to change our role and work directly with consumer marketing applications through platforms like Google Play has changed everything for us. The phones’ ability to process high-quality games has allowed our team to expand our app development to major sports. Recently, we have had a successful partnership with the PGA Tour which has already passed 2 million downloads in its first two years.
The modern app market is getting deeper and more developed in favor of developers. We now have a large number of feedback points from our users’ experiences using the analytics platform, which we use to improve products. We also use tools to get information about issues that may arise with our games which we can then fix before customers have to come to us.
Using analytics to proactively fix issues or community feedback to improve the experience, we can create products that allow users to play their way. The age of the Internet allows us to develop and leverage dynamic advertising and purchasing strategies in our games. For example, we leveraged an innovative ad mediation tool to maximize ad revenue by allowing companies to “bid” somewhere in our games. This has the advantage of allowing our local, community-based business to diversify our revenue streams as well as increasing access to our software through free versions of our games.
I don’t know how my team would coordinate across the complex areas of game development and production without the support and structure of the digital market and the tools that we’ve been given. The data-driven designs we can create — thanks to the analytics that app stores provide — were paramount to connecting with customers beyond what they imagined when creating the app world.
Of course, no market is immune from scrutiny. The digital market has certainly seen its fair share of political and regulatory panic. But I hope our elected leaders here in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., recognize the potential unintended effects our developer community could feel if this scrutiny leads to overcorrection. While I encourage my team to do so – let’s recognize the diversity and competitive nature of today’s app ecosystem. This will allow companies like mine to continue to do what we do best.
As the app developer community has grown from a few in-house app makers to tech hubs and startups across the country, it has been an exciting process to watch and even more exciting to be a part of. I love being on the front lines of growth and innovation in the industry, especially as we continue to expand our operations here in Minneapolis with worldwide reach.
Keith Bichlman is the founder and CEO of Concrete Software Inc., based out of Minneapolis.
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