Tag Games to become iPhone publisher

In the increasingly competitive App Store world, it's becoming almost impossible for all but the biggest games, brands and publishers to stand out from the crowd.

Particular in the case of small developers, it's no longer enough to have a great idea and hand out some promo codes.

But you don't have to spend a lot of money to make a splash, according to Paul Farley, MD of Scottish developer turned iPhone publisher Tag Games.

Taking time to build anticipation for your games, both with the media and consumers, combined with targeted ads, a well polished experience will take you a long way, as the studio proved with the iPhone release of its Car Jack Streets.

"Some developers seem to be scared by marketing," Farley explains. "That's fine. Many developers just want to make games, but if so they need to realise they'll need someone to do it for them."

"At Tag, we have a good understanding of what works in terms of marketing as we showed with Car Jack Streets. We're going to be a boutique publisher that's looking to release games with a creative twist as well as a commercial edge."

The studio also has internal quality assurance, and the ability to oversee the complete development cycle to ensure the final release is as polished as it can be, and will make its way through Apple's approval process and onto the App Store bugfree.

"I can think of three or four really nice iPhone games that didn't sell well, either because the visuals didn't match the context or target demographic of the game, or because the marketing's been poorly delivered or just plain non-existent," says Farley.

"We can help in those areas. iPhone publishing is going to be a major focus for the business going forward. We'll be taking more of a partnership approach with the developer than perhaps our established rivals are taking."

Tag expects to publish its first iPhone games before the end of the year, and are targeting a regular release schedule of around one title per month.

You can keep up to date with Tag Games via its website or Twitter.