Charlie's Blog

Mini Review of my 2011

It’s a bit late, but here’s a quick review of my 2011.

2011 was a strange year, with its fair share of ups and downs.

First, the good …

• We released First Touch Soccer in May. FTS was without doubt my and the team’s biggest achievment of 2011. It was critically acclaimed, currently with a metacritic score of 90%, which I think it the highest reviewing game I’ve been involved in. It was number one in various App Stores around the world, ahead of the likes of Angry Birds, in countries including the UK, Italy & Japan. There are things I’d change if I had the chance again, primarily our pricing strategy and the fact that it wasn’t as stable as I’d have liked when first shipped, but it was still a great achievement for the team regardless of all this.
• I founded First Touch Games in September as part of the restructure of Exient. I started my games dev career with a small studio focusing on what we wanted to do, and FTG is (or should be) a return to those days. Things have changed massively since the late 90’s and the days of the Net Yaroze, which was my springboard in the industry, and whilst it’s now arguably easier for small, independent developers to get started, the competition of course is still huge.
• We developed and released our first true freemium title Dream League Soccer in around 2 and a half months. Of course we had a codebase and a lot of tech to build upon, but our Perforce Branch for DLS was September 23rd, and we released it on the 8th December. We had some short projects at Exient, but this is a pretty good result all round. The first month for DTS has been good. We weren’t featured by Apple anywhere until the 19th, but even before that we had fantastic downloads particularly in the far east, South Korea & Japan. I’ll likely write an article covering DLS in more detail in the coming weeks, but overall it’s been a really positive experience. We’ve learnt loads about a new business model, and it should make a profit.
• I got my excitement back for the industry. There’s still a lot about the games industry I don’t like, but by the end of the year I was back looking forward to going to work to make games, which hadn’t been the case at the start of the year.

next, quickly, the not so good …

• Exient, the company I jointly founded 10 years ago went through a turbulent period, resulting in a restructure mentioned above in September 2011. It was a great 10 years, but I’m no longer part of the new Exient, and I wish Dave, Jason & the rest of the talented team there all the best for the future.
• As a result of the restructure, and other departures, I’m no longer working with some of the great guys I’ve worked with over the past few years - Shane, Sedge, Bradders, Des and others all moved on, and following the restructure I’m no longer actively working with the great guys remaining at Exient. It goes without saying again, that I wish the best for everyone I’ve worked with, whatever they’re doing now. Chances are I’ll work with some of them again I’m sure.

.. and the future …

It’s difficult to predict how things will pan out this year, but here are some of the things I’d like to achieve.

• Hopefully First Touch Games will release 4-5 titles.
• Most of or games will be on iOS devices, but I’d like, and it’s in the plan, to release something on at least one other platform over 2012.
• Most of our output will be arcade football related, and whilst we plan to release a couple of slightly different football games, we hope to also release at least one non-football game.
• I’d like to maintain our team size to 10 or fewer. We’re currently 7, soon to be 8, and we have a couple of regular freelancers & part-timers, but I think 10 is both small enough, and large enough to do what we want to do.
• Above all I’d like to end the year with FTG proving to be a viable, sustainable business, with a happy team creating well received products.
• Finally, of course, it should be enjoyable (most of the time).

Special Effect

This afternoon I had the opportunity to visit the studio of games charity Special Effect. Based not far from Oxford in Charlbury, Special Effect is a charity dedicated to helping all young people with disabilities enjoy computer games.

Games get a lot of stick on the press, and media in general, most of which is unjustified of course, but here is an example where even the most ardent opponent of videogames couldn’t argue with.

At First Touch, we’re hoping to get involved more actively over the coming months, whether thats in raising money via one of their many events, or applying some of their techniques and recommendations to our games.

Find out more at their website: http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/

GamesIndustry.biz have recently highlighted the work that Special Effect are doing which can be seen here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-11-08-something-special-editorial.

Introduction

First entry, a bit about me.

Charles Chapman, Director of First Touch Games, and developer of football games, including the critically acclaimed First Touch Soccer on iPhone.

I went to Keble College, Oxford, where I read Maths & Computation, before starting my first small software co, Live Media, after graduating.

I then went on to co-found Exient Ltd in 2001, with Dave Hawkins, which I was part of for a mostly successful 10 years, before demerging the football and sports business to form First Touch Games in September 2011.

I live just outside Oxford with my partner Siobhan, and we have a lively little boy Carter (2, at the time of writing).

This is a personal blog, and though it will mostly be about work, including development, programming, games-industry stuff, it’ll probably contain other stuff that I care to write about.