Interview with Gibson Tang, AzukiSoft and PieceHunters
July 20, 2009 by Bernard Leong
Filed under Featured, Interviews
Are you currently developing a iPhone application that you intend to submit it to the iTunes Apps Store? How is it like to be an entrepreneur who spent time developing a game on a new platform and how to find ways to monetize them? We have Gibson Tang, the founder of AzukiSoft, who created the iPhone game “PieceHunters“, a casual game for iPhone owners all over the world. We catch him here in SGE for an interview and let him tell us his story and the trials and tribulations for developing a iPhone game in the casual games industry.
BL: Tell us about your background. What were you up to before setting up AzukiSoft?
Gibson Tang: I studied in Nanyang Polytechnic in the 90s and spent a lot of time playing computer games in between lessons and during lessons. That provided the spark for me to think about creating my own games in the future. So, after my graduation, I joined the Navy and served as a technician for 6 years while still reading up on game programming and other related disciplines. Then after my 6 years contract, I joined a local insurance company for a year in order to gain some experience and after that. I started my journey into the field of game development by joining a local game development company developing mobile and PC games. After about 2 years of working there, I grew restless and decided to venture out on my own and do some freelance game development before deciding to focus development on my own IP.
BL: What inspired your team and you to come up with the game PieceHunters?
Gibson Tang: When we decided to do a game for the iPhone, our original prototype sought to make use as many features of the iPhone as possible, but we forgot about the most important factor and that is fun. So we ended up with an original game, but one that was not fun. Then, we decided to scrap the original design and start a process of rapid prototyping. After trying out 20 over prototypes, we decided upon the puzzle matching design with a twist and that became Piecehunters. Overall, I would say that we spent more time on design than the development of the game which is not the norm when it comes to most real world software engineering projects.
BL: Why have you chosen to develop on the iPhone platform and have you considered other platforms?
Gibson Tang: One reason was that the iPhone SDK was in the midst of getting launched in USA in mid June 2008 and we knew that the iPhone could be a great development platform with the touchscreen, multi-touch and accelerometer. So we decided to develop for the iPhone, but we did not start testing on the actual device until September 2008 as Apple had a huge backlog of applications to approve and our application to be iPhone developers only got approved in September 2008
BL: What are the interesting features in PieceHunters that you want your users to know?
Gibson Tang: Piecehunters has a forum which players can access from the game and this is useful for us to communicate with the players regarding new features or to update them about the game. We also have multiplayer support where players can play against each other in real time on their own devices.
BL: What is the business model for the game PieceHunters and how do you see it evolving?
Gibson Tang: Currently, we are looking at paid downloads as the business model to use for now, but as Apple’s App Store matures and with new improvements to the SDK such as the in-game transaction feature for iPhone OS 3.0. We are looking at microtransactions as a possible business model. Our options are pretty open at this point in time, but the business model that provides the most value for the customers will be the one that we will follow.
BL: How do you garner and gather more users and what the challenges involved in building a community?
Gibson Tang: Right now, I have the in-game forums where I look at the users who have registered in the forum and then I email them about the game. In return for their valuable feedback on how to improve the game, I send them a $5 USD iTunes gift card as a token of appreciation. 1 major challenge in building a community is trying to keep everyone happy with the improvements that I have made for Piecehunters while also trying to make sure that the changes that I make provide good value and enhance gameplay for the players.
BL: What are the next steps in PieceHunters?
Gibson Tang: I am currently working on a FB version of Piecehunters so that people without an iPhone are able to enjoy the game. Being a strong advocate of the lean startup approach by Eric Ries on his blog where he constantly advocates the fast and regular deployments of software to find out what works and what doesn’t work. The FB version will allow me to test features effectively and instantly and then I can aggregate the features that work and implement it on the iPhone version.
BL: What are the three important tips that you will tell someone who is developing iPhone games to know?
Gibson Tang:
- Finish up all the necessary paperwork way before you submit your app as the paperwork could take a few weeks to process, so to avoid any roadblocks. It is best to get all paperwork ready before you even start coding
- Apple has a human interface guidelines document which can be downloaded from the iPhone developer website and this is a must read for all developers as Apple is quite strict on the adherence to these guidelines. Read them and then follow the guidelines so that you can avoid any unnecessary delays during submission.
- Hang around some iPhone development forums and try to establish yourself in those forums. This will be helpful in getting information about the latest iPhone SDKs, how to fix bugs and ultimately, those forums can also serve as a marketing tool for you to promote your game when it is done. Personally, I prefer http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/
BL: Which are the three traits that you consider the most important for an entrepreneur?
Gibson Tang:
- Stubbornness is a good trait to have as stubbornness will help an entrepreneur forge ahead even in the face of difficulties and trying times
- Flexibility is another trait. This may contradict with #1, but actually it is more of a complement than a contradiction as flexibility enables the entrepreneur to adapt and change to fit the times while stubbornness forces the person to move on, but in a different direction. After all, if Paypal stuck to their original idea of payment using the Palm device, they would have been shutdown long ago if they did not have the flexibility to switch from a Palm payment system to an online payment system.
- Love of reading would round up the final 3. Reading will provide an abundance of knowledge which is often not taught to an entrepreneur in their normal academic curriculum. An entrepreneur will have to master many skills and read as much as possible since they need to know everything about running a business and it also opens their minds to potential business opportunities and strengthens their knowledge.
BL: We wish you all the best in your endeavours for AzukiSoft. :)
Gibson Tang has been enamored of games ever since he laid hands on his very first green monochrome game. Since then, many hours were spent playing games while fulfilling his typical schoolboy duties of neglecting his studies and spending more time in the arcades playing Street Fighter 2 than in the classroom. Countless tokens and Hadoukens later, he found himself at Nanyang Polytechnic enrolled in their Information Technology course where he was introduced to programming and head bashing bugs. After a stint in the Republic of Singapore Navy where he gained a degree in Computer Science. He finally felt that he had leveled up sufficiently to enter the deep dark dungeon that is game development. Now he is in the thick of the action, slaying level 23 logic bugs with his +2 Mac Book Pro and traveling to various new and exotic lands such as Facebook world and iPhone land.
Author’s Disclosure: BL has invested in PieceHunters under Thymos Capital LLP.
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