Ex-Rovio executives are hoping to cultivate a franchise from the games in the upcoming Best Friends series, a planned trilogy for Android and iOS devices, and push the mobile game's story beyond puzzles and levels on smartphones and tablets.
Best Friends, developed by newly founded Seriously Digital Entertainment, has been described by its creators as a world filled with minutia, populated by cute and conniving critters. The first game has yet to be released, but plans to follow it up with two sequels indicate just how sincerely Seriously believes Best Friends has the potential of developing a global reach and bevy of offshoots onto other mediums.
The company has put the talent behind Best Friends to give it its best chance of long-term success and widespread endearment, according to Petri Järvilehto, Seriously's chief creative officer, and Andrew Stalbow, Seriously CEO.
"We decided to focus on building the story, the world of 'Minutia,' the characters, the conflict, and the overall premise, as well as a really compelling game design at the same time," said Järvilehto. "It works for us because we have a team of creative talent that have really bought into our vision."
"We want to differentiate ourselves by building something that feels Hollywood-level creative and original," said Stalbow. "Collectively, we have been influenced by a number of properties that we've all worked on such as The Simpsons, Max Payne and, of course, Angry Birds. We've taken everything we've learned along the way and are trying to crystallize it."
People have been shifting over to mobile media from TV and theaters much faster than a lot of people have expected, Stalbow stated.
"That's a lot of time being taken away from other things," said Stalbow. "We think that with the potential to reach a large, connected audience and the engagement you can deliver via a game, many of the next generation of entertainment brands will be built on mobile first. We are going to work very hard to be at the forefront of that shift."
Järvilehto said he was excited to work on something that was developed with mobile in mind from the start. A good number of mobile game publishers and developers have acquired licenses for content that was originally created for other platforms, said Järvilehto.
Zynga is one of those companies that has brought its successful intellectual properties to mobile devices, after prospering on other platforms.
Zynga moved its popular games from Facebook onto mobile platforms. But with it's acquisition of sports licenses under its Zynga Sports 365 brand, it has invested more into a mobile-first philosophy.
