Interview with Gibson Tang, AzukiSoft and PieceHunters

Are you currently developing a iPhone application that you intend to submit it to the iTunes Apps Store? How is it like to be an entrepreneur who spent time developing a game on a new platform and how to find ways to monetize them? We have Gibson Tang, the founder of AzukiSoft, who created the iPhone game “PieceHunters“, a casual game for iPhone owners all over the world. We catch him here in SGE for an interview and let him tell us his story and the trials and tribulations for developing a iPhone game in the casual games industry.

BL: Tell us about your background. What were you up to before setting up AzukiSoft?
Gibson Tang: I studied in Nanyang Polytechnic in the 90s and spent a lot of time playing computer games in between lessons and during lessons. That provided the spark for me to think about creating my own games in the future. So, after my graduation, I joined the Navy and served as a technician for 6 years while still reading up on game programming and other related disciplines. Then after my 6 years contract, I joined a local insurance company for a year in order to gain some experience and after that. I started my journey into the field of game development by joining a local game development company developing mobile and PC games. After about 2 years of working there, I grew restless and decided to venture out on my own and do some freelance game development before deciding to focus development on my own IP.

BL: What inspired your team and you to come up with the game PieceHunters?
Gibson Tang: When we decided to do a game for the iPhone, our original prototype sought to make use as many features of the iPhone as possible, but we forgot about the most important factor and that is fun. So we ended up with an original game, but one that was not fun. Then, we decided to scrap the original design and start a process of rapid prototyping. After trying out 20 over prototypes, we decided upon the puzzle matching design with a twist and that became Piecehunters. Overall, I would say that we spent more time on design than the development of the game which is not the norm when it comes to most real world software engineering projects.

BL: Why have you chosen to develop on the iPhone platform and have you considered other platforms?
Gibson Tang: One reason was that the iPhone SDK was in the midst of getting launched in USA in mid June 2008 and we knew that the iPhone could be a great development platform with the touchscreen, multi-touch and accelerometer. So we decided to develop for the iPhone, but we did not start testing on the actual device until September 2008 as Apple had a huge backlog of applications to approve and our application to be iPhone developers only got approved in September 2008

BL: What are the interesting features in PieceHunters that you want your users to know?
Gibson Tang: Piecehunters has a forum which players can access from the game and this is useful for us to communicate with the players regarding new features or to update them about the game. We also have multiplayer support where players can play against each other in real time on their own devices.

BL: What is the business model for the game PieceHunters and how do you see it evolving?
Gibson Tang: Currently, we are looking at paid downloads as the business model to use for now, but as Apple’s App Store matures and with new improvements to the SDK such as the in-game transaction feature for iPhone OS 3.0. We are looking at microtransactions as a possible business model. Our options are pretty open at this point in time, but the business model that provides the most value for the customers will be the one that we will follow.