GDC China Speaker Spotlight: Halfbrick's Phil Larsen Ponders The Evolution Of Fruit Ninja
Halfbrick chief marketing officer Phil Larsen recently reflected on the astounding success of the studio's Fruit Ninja over the last year and a half, attributing a large portion of the game's growth to the fact that its premise "requires no explanation."
Since its iOS debut in 2010, the game has maintained a high position on the App Store charts, and has expanded to encompass new platforms like Android, Windows Phone 7, and even new interfaces like Microsoft's Kinect. Of late, Halfbrick has turned it attention to China, where it expects the game to see an additional 70 million downloads.
At this month's GDC China, Larsen will dive even further into the series' growth in a session dubbed, "The Rise and Rise of Fruit Ninja: Developing, Marketing and Supporting a Hit Mobile Game," which will cover the game's initial development and the tactics the studio used to evolve the game over the last 18 months.
In anticipation of his talk, Larsen reflected on Fruit Ninja's success, and offered some insight into how Halfbrick grew the game from a small-scale mobile project into the company's most valuable brand.
What would you say have been the key factors to Fruit Ninja's success?
Simplicity, satisfaction, theme and marketing! It was abundantly clear that the game is so simple to play that it requires no explanation. Only a tiny fraction of developers have managed to achieve this in the mobile market. From there, the input and feedback from the game's squishy fruit means that it's satisfying to simply slice over and over, let alone compete and aim for high scores.
When you have a game with clear value and rewards to the player, then it makes an even stronger message when communicating the game through marketing channels. Talking with platform holders, meeting with the media, chatting to fans online - everything runs smoother when the game lends itself so well to fueling discussion.
What tactics have you used to maintain the game's success since its original debut?
We've definitely worked hard to keep the momentum going after launch, and the consistent sales have been proof of our success. After launch we focused on both updates to the game, continued PR support and building the Fruit Ninja brand. For example, we listened to customer feedback and were able to continually add new fruit, new blades, new online features and even new game modes. It's this kind of support that keeps fans playing and keeps them talking about Fruit Ninja.
We support every major update and milestone with targeted PR, and further build on the success by increasing brand awareness. Merchandise, TV, social networking and expanding the universe of Fruit Ninja is an ongoing task for us and our chance to ensure that the mainstream audiences are aware of how massive mobile gaming is in a global entertainment market.
