During his Casual Connect Europe 2015 lecture, Bogdan Iliesiu compared the risks and rewards of making innovative games vs. building on established IPs or gameplay. “If you’re making something innovative, users usually like it,” he says. For more, see the video below.
Bogdan Iliesiu is a “generalist” — generally speaking. Since 2003, he has worked in every role in the gaming industry he could get his hands on: 3D modeling, animation, programming, game design, management, public relations, business development and more.
“(I’m) trying to understand every technical and artistic aspect of game creation,” the founder and CEO of Angry Mob Games says. Now that he’s running a company, trying to do everything would be understandably exhausting. However, Bogdan notes, his background has given him an understanding of how everything works, allowing him to hire the best talent for each job he has open.
Friendly Advice
For those looking to increase their talents and abilities, the best advice Bogdan has is to start at an established studio to learn the trade and stick near a game development community to learn tips and tricks.
He also notes that when you’re starting out it’s perfectly fine to move from one studio to another to pursue your passion. “I see so many employed game devs who aren’t as good as they could be, simply because they don’t enjoy their daily tasks,” he says. “Some don’t find it challenging enough, others don’t find it creative and some find it super repetitive.”
He also notes that disconnecting from work and pushing yourself physically can help people whether they’ve been in the gaming industry one month or 10 years, noting that working out at the gym helps a lot with daily focus and energy levels.
In the Beginning…
While Bogdan has now been in the gaming industry for years, it was his love for computer graphics and games that first piqued his interest. Once in the industry, he found creating games was always a fun challenge, especially if you’re able to choose and design your own projects. Realizing this, Iliesiu launched Angry Mob Games in 2007.
Angry Mob Games’ first title, Guerrilla Bob, was released roughly two years later in 2009. Bogdan calls the timing of the release “just perfect. Development went so smooth. Our small team was super excited. And there were no outside factors disturbing our daily work tasks. There were no monetary constraints, no ad networks emailing you, no other games to compare to on the iPhone and a very welcoming and enthusiastic audience.”
Upon release, the game received great feedback and was featured by Unity and Apple — and also received a fair amount of mobile press coverage.
It’s these kinds of things — the development, the community, the feedback — that keeps Bogdan loving his job day in and day out. “Working in games feels so creative and rewarding compared to 99 percent of jobs out there. It always feels great to talk to the community and see how they love your creations!”
Aside from glowing reviews and feedback, one of the proudest moments for Bogdan was the opportunity to work on the Alien vs. Predator franchise. The company developed both Predators and AVP: Evolution for iOS and Android. Bogdan says the team members are huge fans and that working on such dream projects kept them super motivated throughout the game creation process.
Diversifying
Not every game can be Alien vs. Predator, though. So, for Bogdan and Angry Mob Games, the great unknown is generally the place to be. The company has had roughly five game projects so far — each of them different in order to keep things challenging. “It would have been pretty easy for us to just go create sequels for our existing games, but we decided to come up with something new each time.”
Bogdan notes that while coming up with entirely new games is challenging, and it might not be the best decision business-wise since it requires going after new audiences with each project, it’s also the most rewarding part of the business for everyone. “It was definitely worth it for the team, as a challenge is what makes our games great. Otherwise the team wouldn’t have been too happy to just keep creating content for existing games.”
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What’s Fun to Play?
One of the ways they try to keep things new and fresh is to see what would make a feature fun to play, as seen with their newest game, Toysburg.
The game, which revolves around trying to restore the imaginations of a town’s kids by turning them into toys to solve their problems, was built from scratch and created a setting the game team could “go nuts” with and create a lot of short funny scenarios for characters to participate in.
Once the team brainstormed an initial game design they turned a playable demo over to friends, and over the first year multiple features changed, most notably the feature where kids turn into toys. “That’s when things started to get interesting,” Bogdan says, “and the world in Toysburg got a lot crazier.”
Bogdan admits that developing Toysburg was a bit hard at the beginning and personally frustrating. Game prototyping took up 60 percent of the overall development time — over a year. Iliesiu notes that the sandbox world, with all of its interconnected systems, made it hard to tell in the beginning if the team was heading in the right direction.
However, he says the team kept a clear vision in their heads and eventually it was “super fun” when they were able to play it and start showing it to their friends.
Clear Vision Ahead
With Toysburg under his belt, Bogdan is continuing to look forward. While he says it’s clear that the mobile market is taking over gaming, he predicts current models of monetization like free-to-play games are unsustainable and there’s already an overabundance of games saturating the market.
As user acquisition costs continually rise and studios attempt to mimic more successful titles, Iliesiu says it’s as if developers are investing in the stock market, an increasingly stressful venture.
Instead, he says, Angry Mob Games will continue taking a different approach to gaming. “For us, we’ll try to focus on our community and on making the game as fun as possible. That feels a lot more rewarding for us.”
