Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Doyon Kim, CEO of Pangalore (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What are the top five things you need to do when you design a game to be a cross-platform social and mobile game?

Doyon Kim: One thing is you have to understand the technology. One way to do it is have one game for this platform and completely rewrite everything, maybe use the graphic assets for another platform, but that’s a doubling of resources. There are a couple of technology platforms that enable this multi-platform development. One of them is HTML 5, but you have to understand what it can do. HTML 5 is not really designed for gaming.

SM: It is not?

DK: It is not. It is basically more like a smart website. It supports video, audio, and animation.

SM: What’s missing, to design games?

DK: There are several things. It requires dynamic reactions, a lot of reactions here and there, like fireworks here or bombing on the other side. HTML 5 is not a suitable platform for that.

SM: How do you compensate?

DK: You have to understand the limitations and design the game so that it can play under the limitations.

SM: So, you don’t want story lines in the game that require blowing up stuff or creating fires and things like that. You need story lines that are appropriate.

DK: Right. Sequential, linear.

SM: Logic games.

DK: Right, logic games. And it’s getting there. I guess maybe in a couple of years, once you have better browsers and CPUs and everything, environments are more advanced, then it will not be a huge issue. But at this point …

SM: Those are the limitations.

DK: Right. So, for example, in a CityVille kind of game, the characters move around here and there. Your friend’s character is moving around. That’s not going to work very well.

SM: So, HTML 5 has animation limitations, is that what you’re saying?

DK: Yes, multiple things at the same time. We launched three small games. Considering our company is six months old, I’m very proud that we could pull this off.

SM: Tell me about the three games that you’ve launched, given that we now know the design philosophy of the games.

DK: One game we have is a card game, solitaire. [Editor’s note: The games are available from the websites below.]

https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=222931704426685

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wildwest-solitaire/id477664998?mt=8

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pangalore.Wild_s

SM: Why solitaire at this point in the history of gaming? Solitaire [as a computer game] has been around since I was in college.

DK: Right. We’re not trying to invent a new game. It’s a casual game so that people can know what it is and how to play right away … but it’s a different tweak. This game can be played on a mobile device or PC, wherever you go. The thing is it’s not just one game here and there. It’s more like continuous play. You start at level 10 on the PC, but while you’re on the go, you’re at the same level.

SM: Got it. So, you’re identity, as you log into this game, is being transported across the different platforms, wherever you play.

DK: Right. We use Facebook connect. With your Facebook ID, you access the same games here and there. So, say, for example, you plant a tree on the Facebook side, you can harvest it from your mobile.

SM: Right. Right. I guess one of Zynga’s most successful games is Words With Friends, which they acquired. Word games tend to be conducive to this kind of environment. Card games, word games, and board games are conducive to this kind of environment. Would you talk a bit about the royalty issues on all this? One of my observations is that the gaming industry is particularly bad at intellectual property protection. So, you come up with a game. Zynga can copy it without being penalized for anything.

DK: They’ve been doing that, yes.

SM: They’ve been doing that left, right, and center. All of their top games are copied from somewhere else.

DK: Yes. These days, not just in gaming, the technology is a commodity.

SM: Some … a lot of technology is commodity.

DK: Right, at least on the consumer side.

SM: Consumer and business also.

DK: Right. So, it’s about what you do with the technology.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Doyon Kim, CEO of Pangalore
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