Mobile game developer Wozlla is an unusual beast. The Beijing-based game developer has just launched its debut game, Cake & Cake, but if you’re a China-based gamer, don’t bother trying to find it on the app store. Wozlla may be Chinese, but the company’s first game is, for the moment, exclusive to Australia. I sat down with Wozlla director of product Alan Olvera to find out why.
To begin with Wozlla is a China-based company, but it isn’t truly a Chinese company. Founder Zi Bin Cheah wanted to start a game company in Beijing because he knew there were talented local developers available, but the Wozlla team, while small, is an international affair. For example, Olvera himself says that he dropped everything and flew from Mexico to Beijing to join the company, a move he says he has “never regretted.”
Wozlla game maker
Olvera describes Wozlla as a “technology-centric game company,” and says the studio is working on more than just Cake & Cake, its cake-themed iOS puzzle game (Android and Windows Phone versions are also coming). “Our games go hand-in-hand with engineering research,” says Olvera, and Wozlla has also created a cross-platform game development environment based around HTML5. That project is for developers everywhere. But Cake & Cake is, at least for the moment, only for Australia. Why?
Olvera stresses that the Australia-exclusive debut is a temporary measure; there are plans to launch the game in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. But launching in Australia first was no accident. Olvera says that Wozlla chose the country because it has a small-to-medium-sized market that’s accepting of foreign developed games. Australian mobile gamers give detailed feedback in app reviews, and they are particularly receptive to puzzle games. This made the country an ideal location for a test-launch of sorts: Wozlla will carefully track responses to the game in Australia and may make changes as needed before launching the game in larger markets like China.
The Cake & Cake logo
Olvera also wants to be sure everyone understands: the Wozlla team decided that Australia was the best place to debut Cake & Cake specifically. Future game launches will be approached differently, depending on the target audience for the game. Wozlla is already working on a mobile RPG project that “is being prepared to satisfy the tastes of Asian players,” so I can only assume that that game probably will debut somewhere in Asia.
And of course, as a China-based studio, Wozlla is very interested in the Chinese market. The company just didn’t think China’s vast, crowded, and sometimes-unforgiving market would be the best place to launch and get meaningful feedback on its debut game.
Wozlla’s approach may be worth considering for other China-based game devs with global aspirations. China’s mobile market is fantastic—it is huge and full of willing-to-spend gamers—but Wozlla’s strategy of launching in a smaller market first and collecting feedback is likely to result in a stronger performance when Cake & Cake finally does hit the Chinese and global markets.
If you’re interested in Cake & Cake you can check out the game’s official site here.
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