That was the year that was: Vincent Dondaine, Bulkypix
In-app purchases in My Brute are already a great success
As the year draws to an end, it's time to look back at what happened in the world of mobile gaming during 2009.
Equally, the lessons of history are useless without a future to demonstration what we've learnt, so as well as asking various notables about their view on the past 12 months, we're also getting them to look ahead to 2010.
You can see the full list of our end of year interviews here.
French developer Bulkypix had a busy 2009, releasing iPhone games such as Hysteria Project, BaDaBoo and most successfully a version of online title My Brute. It also become one of the first developers to go into publishing, with its first thirdparty games released in December.
COO Vincent Dondaine is a co-founder as well as sales and marketing director.
Pocket Gamer: What was the most significant event of 2009?Vincent Dondaine: From my perspective it was the new iPhone in-app purchases and specifically the ability to use them in free games and applications.
Why? Because it is a great alternative to the 99c rush. With in-app purchases, you can have a reasonable price, and grow your community by adding and selling the features that players want. It is already working on Facebook, and it's going to be the next big move on iPhone.
We've implemented it on My Brute and we can already say it's a great success. It will help us to regularly release new content and features.
What was the most significant event for Bulkypix?We had our first birthday. In October 2008, we joined this iPhone gaming jungle.
Because we've been successful, other studios have asked us to publish their games so now we have plenty of games in our the publishing pipe. We are signed with nine studios.
This Christmas was a good example of the kinds of games we will bring to the App Store. In December we published Twin Blades, Magnetic Sports Soccer from Revo Solutions (the creators of F.A.S.T. and Skies of Glory, a hockey version will come early 2010), and Babel Rising.
But we haven't forgotten that we are also developers, so we will continue to make our own games for iPhone, and in future for Facebook and PSPgo
What was your favourite mobile game of 2009?My favourite is Peggle on iPhone. I was already fan of the PC version and the ergonomics are perfect. From my point of view PopCap is one of the best game makers ever. Look at Plants vs Zombies. I haven't seen a game so well designed and tuned as that. I can't wait for it to come to iPhone.
What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2010?I think it will be cross-platform gaming so people will be able to play their favourite games no matter what the platform. For example, iPhone and Facebook are complimentary, and now with in-app purchases available on iPhone, we can imagine new games where you decide if you want to play on PC or iPhone.
The only remaining issue is we're not allowed to have a virtual money in iPhone games, but Apple is moving so fast that I'm sure it will enable this soon.
If you could enforce one New Year's resolution, what would it be?Be careful in terms of the budget you spend when developing your mobile game because success stories are not the rule!
Thanks to Vincent for his time.You can follow Bulkypix via its website, Facebook or Twitter.
