Mobilate: We self-published the game because it's time

Yesterday, a game from the Russian studio Mobilate – RoverCraft Racing appeared on the windows of the App Store. We talked about the new project with the company’s CEO Anton Belov.

Congratulations on the release of RoverCraft, which, to be honest, I started waiting for from the moment when you demonstrated it at White Nights 2014! The first question is about the publisher. You used to release almost every product with Chillingo, but you published RoverCraft yourself, why?Anton Belov

Thank you for the congratulations, we hope that the game will give pleasure to you and all the other players.

We decided to publish the game on our own simply because the time has come. We have gained experience working with Chillingo, and we want to publish RoveCraft ourselves. As for Chillingo, we continue to successfully cooperate with them on other projects.

How are you planning to promote the project now?We will promote it in stages.

Now we are working with such large providers of our own targeted traffic as Facebook and Admob. We use both CPI and CPC models. In addition, this time we want to try to work with video advertising from Flurry, as well as pay great attention to the media environment. And, of course, we hope for a feature from Apple.

The novelty is a mix of two very popular casual titles Hill Climb Racing and Bad Piggies. After the first hour of the game, I got the impression that the game is more difficult than both. Why did you decide to do this?We just tried to make RoverCraft less casual.

It seems to us that it will be more interesting this way. It’s like in classic RPG games: you start the game half-naked, a peasant who knows nothing, for whom even a small monster is an insurmountable obstacle, but over time you pump up, buy cool artifacts, and now you’re not afraid of anyone.

Also in RoverCraft: an obstacle that seemed insurmountable at first ceases to be a hindrance after the second or third race on an improved car. It is this “gradualness”, and not complexity, as it may seem at first, that is the highlight of our game. But you can also be smart and assemble a physically suitable rover for the desired location from the available parts.

The game has an amazing production, although, to be honest, the interface seems raw. How long did you draw and, in general, make the game? How many people worked on it?We decided not to overdo it with the UI as it usually happens.

We are constantly improving the interface, and we will try to refine it in the updates. On the whole, they worked on the game for about six months, a small team of 4 people worked. The last month has been over.

Now in a number of games, the minimum payment no longer starts from 33 rubles, but from 66 rubles. You too. Why did you make such a decision, aren’t you afraid that it will alienate doubting users from buying?I think not.

Dollar IAP seems to be affordable, but usually useless. It’s better to make a Starter Pack for a dollar, and currency IAP is better to be more expensive right away.

And the last question: usually developers first launch a product on Google Play, polish it, and then on iOS. You did something else. Now the game is only available on the App Store, what is the reason for this decision?The Android version is on the way, but we decided to start with the App Store.

The fact is that Apple is very jealous of new releases and the chance of being noticed is much higher if the game is first exclusively released on iOS. Google Play is more democratic in this regard, so we hope to get into the feature on both sites.

Thanks for the interview!