Trends in a Growing Mobile Gaming Market

The global games market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.7 percent to $86.1 billion by 2016, according to market researcher Newzoo. The fastest growing category of the gaming market is smartphone and tablet, i.e. mobile, gaming, which experienced 35% growth and reached a value of $12.3 billion last year. The market is obviously expanding very rapidly and global growth is occurring to a variety of factors. The mobile gaming market is still relatively young and has some growing up to do in terms of revenue models, customer security, gameplay development given the unique aspects of mobile platforms, etc. However, certain companies are already beginning to lay stake to the mobile gaming ecosystem and are attempting to make as big of an impression as Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony and others have in the console gaming market. Supercell has created super successful revenue models with Clash of Clans. Rovio and PopCap/EA have created lovable franchises in Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies. And we are about to see King, the creators of Candy Crush Saga, about to file an IPO that will put the company at a multi-billion dollar valuation. We would also be remiss if we did not mention the wildly successful game that put Dong Nguyen, an indie developer from Hanoi, Vietnam, on the map, Flappy Bird!! 

So how will The Lost Tribes attempt to distinguish itself amongst such a large and growing app market? It will do so by pursuing its purpose with a passion; This purpose is to bring a kid's perspective back to gaming and and allow kids to become an integral part of the bringing to life of a mobile game. Within the broader scope of our purpose, we will distinguish ourselves in the following ways.

1. Revolutionizing tower defense games - The Lost Tribes brings you four different perspectives on the story line as you are able to play in four different biomes or environments - the arctic, the woods, the plains, and the desert. This will not only help bring you a story and characters with whom you will come to identify with as much as other games but present unique challenges and opportunities that break up the monotony of traditional tower defense games.
2. Mobile is all about social and multiplayer - Mobile gaming and communication have ushered in a new era of gaming, yet traditional game companies are still figuring out how to best take advantage of the unique features of mobile platforms. At Higgy Ziggy we believe that games should be social but not spammy or social for the purpose of increasing user numbers. No, social should be about playing together with your friends. The Lost Tribes will let you communicate and play with your friends in ways never before seen in tower defense games. Multiplayer campaigns are a feature we are exploring for this purpose. The Lost Tribes wants to bring people together in new ways through gaming.
3. Our unique customer development process makes the game about what our users want. Throughout the development lifecycle of The Lost Tribes, we will be using a customer development process that prioritizes user feedback and real world ideation sessions with our users. Gaming shouldn't be all about revenue, gaming should be about providing the user with a customizable, unique, and enjoyable social gaming experience. 

We hope you will join us on our journey. Leave a comment below with any advice, comments, or feedback you may have. 

Introducing Higgy Ziggy, The Lost Tribes, and Twin Engine Labs

We are happy to announce a new collaboration between Twin Engine Labs and Higgy Ziggy. Higgy Ziggy is the company started by Luke Higginbotham, a 12 year old boy from Ruston, LA. Luke has the full support of his entire family, especially his parents Suzie and Gary. They all are extremely excited about working with Twin Engine Labs and have an intense desire to learn how the app development process works and how to break into the growing gaming industry with the launch of their first game, The Lost Tribes. Here is a little more about Luke; we cannot be more excited to see such a young kid pursuing a dream and something he loves with such an entrepreneurial spirit. 

Luke is a gamer and has been drawn to games and making his own games since he was very young. Every time he got a new Lego set, he would create a new game and make up a set of rules, which his supportive mother would type up and turn into rule sheets for him. Growing up he played baseball and currently he is a member of the Jr. High Golf Team. He currently attends A.E. Phillips Lab School on the Louisiana Tech campus. 

What makes Luke want to be successful in the gaming industry is his passion for games and his desire to bring a child's perspective back to gaming. Luke knows what him and his friends want in a game, what he would change about current games, and wants to bring this passion to his own company, Higgy Ziggy.  When he decided he wanted to create a gaming app, he did his own research and reached out to another app development company. After he started getting sales calls from app companies, however, his mom stepped in and through her research helped him find a local shop with the right talent right in his backyard. After a few meetings with +Twin Engine Labs, attending an AFCEA ArkLaTex luncheon, and some careful planning and consideration with his parents, they chose to work with us to bring his project to life. In the upcoming month, we will be helping them launch a crowdfunding campaign to help support Luke's dream and beginning the design of the application. Stay tuned for more information on the crowdfunding campaign and how you can help bring a child's imagination back to gaming.

The game will be entitled The Lost Tribes and we will be releasing more information through our blog and the social media sites for The Lost Tribes throughout the month. The Lost Tribes will be a tower defense game where you need to help The Lost Tribes of 4 different biomes (plains, desert, woods and arctic) re-establish their homes and reclaim the right to become the most powerful tribe in all the land. It will be heavily focused on the social community aspects of gaming, as Luke says this is the reason him and his friends keep playing games. It will be an incredibly interesting project for us and we are excited to be getting started on it. 

Leave Luke some inspiration and comments below! If you also have a dream and want help bringing it to life, CONTACT US here at Twin Engine Labs.