Space Ape’s treatment of Supercell’s Boom Beach “built on the learnings of sever | Pocket Gamer.biz
Following Supercell’s furthering of its stake in Space Ape Games, escalating to 75 per cent with a $37 million investment in the Beatstar developer, interim CMO and founder Simon Hade spoke with PocketGamer.biz about their plans and what has been enabled by that injection.
But with Supercell and Space Ape Games excitedly sharing news of the Boom Beach: Frontline’s second soft launch wave in August, this felt like the perfect opportunity for a teaser, as we discuss Space Ape Games’ shift away from R&D to active production.
“We’ve just come out of nearly five years of R&D, during which time we experimented a lot with what to make and how to make it. Our upcoming slate has been built on those years of learnings from multiple attempts in each genre.
“The teams have grown stronger through that process and we now have a lot of pattern recognition about what good looks like at various stages in these genres. I wouldn’t say we’ve mastered any of the genres yet, but I’ve never felt more bullish on our slate than ever before.”
What does this mean for Boom Beach?
Hade’s bullish feel validated by the performance of Beatstar – the firm’s greatest success to date – but there’s another source for that confidence: the luxury of making mistakes.
“Boom Beach: Frontlines is entering the second wave of soft launch next month. It’s built on the learnings of several failed multiplayer games, and many, many years of mid-core game development.
“It benefits from literally 10 years of expertise in the category, with many on the team having worked together on Transformer Earth Wars and Rival Kingdoms. There is tremendous buzz from the community, given that it is a Supercell IP, and the bar for living up to the promise of the brand is higher than anything we’ve done before.
“But if we can deliver to the community’s expectations then the sky’s the limit.”
Check out the full interview exploring Space Ape Games’ plans, backed by Supercell funding, in the very near future on PocketGamer.biz.
