At Contenido Movil I interviewed Matt Gillis, VP of business development for Cosmic Games, just after his panel with Suzanne Caporicci from Glu Mobile and Bill Woods from THQ Wireless. Cosmic Games is a five-man outfit (four coders plus Matt) which avoided venture capital during the lean years, and the interview gives a good idea of the challenges a small company faces and ideas of what needs to be done.
According to Matt the biggest challenge for small companies is getting their foot in the door, something Cosmic Games managed with Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, a successful, high-profile game.
However, that’s just for getting noticed. Companies need to sell original titles to generate significant revenue because of the small margin on branded games.
He also talks about the benefits of being in a small company (the president, Dave Dies, is also the chief coder leading to a strong camaraderie) and everything else I could think to ask. I think it’s also important to note that everyone in the company are reportedly big gamers… I think small game companies need to be staffed with people who are passionate about games.
You can download the audio of my interview with Matt Gillis here (9.24 mins., 2.2 MB).