Bulkypix's Vincent Dondaine on why its dev experience and 15% split make it the ideal mobile publisher

Spun out of Vivendi Mobile's internal studio back in 2008, Paris-based developer Bulkypix provides an interesting snapshot of how quickly the mobile space is changing.

For a pure play indie developer, it's now a busy publisher, still with its own development team, but also an office in San Francisco and to-date over 50 games published.

We caught up with COO Vincent Dondaine to find out where the company is planning to go next.

Vincent Dondaine: It's true, we made it to become a real publisher. It was a choice based on many friendly indie development partners who asked us to publish their games because of our previous successes.

We really don't regret this choice though because we kept our soul. We're still developers with our internal teams working on great upcoming games, and at the same time, we help mostly indie developers to showcase their games and get noticed in this big jungle of mobile games.

Regarding the business, we are very happy to announce we're growing fast, and creating value for more than 35 developers. We are very happy to receive publishing requests every day from developers all around the world. For example, last month we had discussions with companies from 26 different countries.

And we'll have a huge end to 2011 with tons of great games coming out such as Another World 20th Anniversary, Globulos and lots of others I can't reveal yet.

At the moment, iOS is still clearly dominating in term of revenues but from a pure business point of view, multi-platform development is really needed just because you're never sure your game will be a winner on iOS.

Sometimes a game isn't a success on iOS but has a second life somewhere else. It's a matter of finding the right audience, on the right platform at the right time. That's not easy to achieve.

Android is growing fast: there are tons of Android phones in consumers' hands. The main concern is earning money. Some developers are successful with ad-funded games but from a paid perspective, at the moment, the only interesting channel is releasing through carriers who have branded Android marketplaces.

Freemium is growing fast on Android too, and you'll hear more about Bulkypix games using this model soon.

Regarding Windows Phone, we think it's a strong new challenger, providing a solid gaming experience, but one that's still in earlier stages in term of market share. We will be releasing games on Windows Phone in the near future though.

When the App Store opened in 2008, it was a pure gold rush where nearly all developers were able to make their money pretty easily but now it's a jungle where you need to be visible. This is the publisher job: providing contact with reviewers; knowledge about market trends; and generally how to create enough noise around a game to get it noticed.

We are pretty efficient doing this, and from what I see every morning, more and more companies are confident about what we are doing. We are receiving between 5 and 15 game submissions per day.

From my point of view, it's also related on the fact that we're not like other publishers as we are developing our own games internally, so we speak the same language. And from a business perspective, we only take 15 percent of the revenues, so that's really fair. Also, we're now developing many games in co-production with companies that we firstly worked with on a pure publishing basis.

So yes, it's still easy to find high quality partners - there are tons of talented people in smartphone game development.

My Brute is the winner with a huge community of players and more than a billion fights in the arena.

Other successes are Babel Rising which is still selling well after two years, and Saving Private Sheep, which is now having a new life on the Mac App Store, digital content platforms and coming to connected TVs.

From a pure retro gaming point of view, Pix 'n Love Rush has also been a great success. Players are still asking Pastagames (our co-production partner) to provide more modes and they will have new content to play soon.

And regarding what I call niche games, we're really satisfied with the performance of Hysteria Project 1 and 2. We're trying to bring them to another ... let's just say big platform.

It's definitely the place to be: players' habits have changed very quickly and they now spend more money on freemium than on paid. It's a logical move following what we've seen with gaming on Facebook.

With regards to Bulkypix, we'll be releasing a freemium game called The Pirate Kings followed by one called My Perfect Man. Over time, we'll be releasing more freemium titles on all platforms where the model's available.

I think social games are new winners. It's something that's growing the playing population around the world. To play a game doesn't mean you're a hardcore gamer anymore. It's wide, open and casual. So combined with the fact that more and more people will have a smartphone in their pocket, it's a no brainer to try to expand the user experience between smartphones and Facebook.

However, the real question is, do you keep the same experience on both platforms or do you enhance the game with extra content to create an unique experience on mobile and on Facebook? The answer is very complex!

I will say it's our DNA. We have been game developers from the beginning and we are going to remain game developers. That's what we like to do; creating new games that are innovative and fun.

At the moment, our teams are working on the Saving Private Sheep sequel, My Perfect Man, which will be a global experience on Facebook and smartphones, and we're also working on The Nutz, which has crazy graphics. There are also two secrets projects we can't talk about yet.

From an hardcore gamer point of view, I'll say it's the Xbox 360 or PS3 gaming experience that we'll get on forthcoming devices, which have huge graphic capabilities and can provide rich gameplay experiences.

But from a business point of view, I think freemium games will be the best way for developers to survive and to grow.

You can keep up-to-date with Bulkypix's activities via its website.