Lunagames prescribes daily dose of ‘feel good moments’
Amsterdam-based Lunagames develops apps and games for multiple platforms, but they have seen huge success with their Java-based games in the Nokia Store.
Amsterdam-based Lunagames develops apps and games for multiple platforms, but they have seen huge success with their Java-based games in the Nokia Store. They recently passed 150 million downloads across all Nokia devices.
They offer a broad mix of casual games (such as puzzle, match-3, strategy and action games) and entertainment apps – really something for every taste. And, because of their use of Java for game development, their content is available for virtually all Nokia devices on the market today.
You can learn more about Lunagames in this short video from Nokia Developer, and then read on to see what executives from the company attribute to their global success.
[rpsb_youtube]http://youtu.be/yLQeFu8ACRk[/rpsb_youtube]
A clear dedication to mobile
“Our mission is to deliver to consumers worldwide a daily feel good moment through mobile phones,” says Richard Hazenberg, CEO of Lunagames (pictured right). “We’re very dedicated to that vision with over 100 applications in the Nokia store today.”
He goes on to say: “You can have short moments of entertainment on your mobile phone. So you can pick it up, have a short moment of fun and lay it aside again and continue later. We believe that is particularly important on mobile.”
And that dedication to both moments of fun – and the Nokia platform – has clearly paid off for Lunagames.
“We’re very pleased to announce that we just passed – very recently – the 150 million download mark across all Nokia devices,” says Richard. “So you can imagine that we’re very motivated to keep, developing new apps for the Nokia platform.”
Strength in numbers
The company typically sees more than 300,000 downloads of their mobile apps and games from Nokia Store every day, and they are particularly strong in emerging markets around the world, including Brazil, Mexico, India, and much of Africa.
“We are a Dutch-based company, and we like to look at the outside world, but we have limited scope into local markets. By working with Nokia we can really localize products to match cultures,” says Richard.
Developer freedom
Jean-Marc Huijskens, CTO at Lunagames, notes that they have a team of nine dedicated programmers just working on Java. “With Java, we have a lot of freedom developing our games and we can use the tools to create a great, intuitive user experience.”
Recently, they have been using Nokia Asha SDK as a part of their game development work, which helps them to get games to market faster. “The tooling is great and we use it all the time to develop our games,” says Jean-Marc.
Lunagames generally offers their content for free using in-app advertising or in-app purchases to give consumers access to additional levels or other exclusives.
“We’re always pushing for new products and also enhancing apps that do well to make sure that new features are available for our fans,” says Richard.
The future for Lunagames
In addition to their tremendous catalog of games in the Nokia Store, they also have several titles available for Nokia Lumia in the Windows Phone Store, including Bubble Popper XXL, and BeZombied.
This past summer Lunagames announced that Linden Mobile Ventures invested €400,000 in the company. The investment is being used to add development capacity and increase international marketing.
“We like to invest in start-ups that develop solutions across multiple devices … With this investment, we expect Lunagames to grow even faster and become one of the major Dutch game development studios,” says Cornelis Mudde from Linden Mobile Ventures.
‘There’s an opportunity out there.’
When asked what advice he would give to other developers who are considering getting into the mobile app space, Richard cuts to the chase: “Understand the potential volume of the Nokia Store. It is simply amazing the amount of downloads you can see.”