Dave Bisceglia is Co-Founder and CEO of The Tap Lab. At this mobile game studio, based in Cambridge, MA, Dave focuses on game design, product management and business development. During the past two years, since Gamesauce last talked with Dave, The Tap Lab has transitioned from self-publishing their own IP to working with major publishers and third-party IPs. Dave’s role as CEO now is concentrated much more on business development and relationships with publishers and IPs. They emphasize, “We’ve been fortunate to work with some great partners on projects we’re passionate about.”
As the studio has grown, the CEO responsibilities for product management and business development have also expanded. Unfortunately, with less time to participate in building the games, Dave reveals “I’ve had to fire myself from many roles that I love over the years.” But The Tap Lab has been able to hire people who excel at filling those roles.
A Vertical of Games on Each Engine
The type of games The Tap Lab chooses to develop are those they believe will be fun to play, fun to work on and successful in the market. Then they build engines for these specific types of games. They use internal game jams to build prototypes, get feedback on them and “find the fun.” Their next step is to build multiple games using that engine. As a result, they become subject matter experts in that specific genre and build a vertical of games on each engine. For example, they built their Camera Game Engine to launch their own IP, Bigfoot Hunter, published by R2 Games, and then used the same engine for BMO Snaps, an Adventure Time game, published by Cartoon Network.
Business Development is Crucial to Success
As Head of Studio, Dave’s responsibilities for business development are crucial to the success of the company. Closing deals is not easy, especially in today’s market, and the pressure is acute. Other developers are fighting for the same deal and it takes time to secure it all. Dave describes, “I had a proposal that we worked on for months (creating a GDD, making mockups, building a prototype, etc.) that eventually fell apart. Six people on my team put a lot of work into the project and we got nothing in return.” But the experience taught them a lot and they were able to repurpose most of the work and use it for proposals that did succeed. And in addition they were able to use the playable prototype as a project to ramp up the team on some new tech. This is definitely an efficient team!
AR and Micro-Location
Two years ago, Dave was anticipating that micro-location, indoor location and augmented reality would become important trends in the game industry. In the time since, indoor location has not progressed significantly, and Dave believes that trend is still a few years away. But augmented reality and micro-location are suddenly vital aspects in gaming. There has been tremendous investment and progress coming from Magic Leap, Occipital, Google’s Project Tango, and Microsoft’s HoloLens. And Dave is especially excited to see what will happen now that Pokémon Go has been launched with its merging of augmented reality and micro-location on mobile. “I’m really rooting for the team at Niantic Labs and hope this is the first of many branded augmented reality games we see in coming years.” The Tap Lab also has some plans for games that involve augmented reality and micro-location.
The Most Visible Trend
Dave still considers virtual reality to be the most important emerging trend, until today it has become the most visible trend in the industry, with a lot of hype and some promising opportunities. Last year The Tap Lab did some lightweight AR/VR with their Camera Games on mobile; currently they are looking at multiple VR RFPs. However, the economics of VR are tricky at this stage, according to Dave. “While publishers and IP holders are paying premiums for the content, there is not a large enough install base to generate meaningful backend revenue for developers, based on how these deals are structured.” But The Tap Lab has Vive, Oculus, Gear VR, Cardboard and other VR platforms at the studio and they love playing around with them.
In the coming years, Dave is sure the entire industry will be watching VR and AR. Device manufacturers such as Microsoft, Sony and Google have invested heavily in these areas, and it would be a good thing for the game industry if consumer adoption of these modes of play meets or exceeds analyst expectations. Tap Lab currently focuses on mobile, but they will continue to explore opportunities in VR and AR.
Another trend in the industry that excites Dave is the way game developers are incorporating subscriptions into mobile games. For example, Apple has announced that they will be allowing developers to offer subscriptions on iOS 10. Currently, The Tap Lab is exploring ways to add micro-subscriptions into their free-to-play models.
Paying It Forward
One of Dave’s passions is contributing to the game industry community through lecturing at educational institutions and speaking at industry events, including Casual Connect, PAX, GDC and SXSW. At these events, they have not only met and become friends with key advisors, investors, hires and others involved in the industry, but have also been able to close some of their major deals. And Dave insists that The Tap Lab would not exist without advice from mentors and fellow developers, saying, “I feel obliged to pay it forward.”
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