“Today, you have enough tools to do a $5,000 investment and get 5,000 installs and see what your return on that investment is,” Juan Gril explains during a panel at Casual Connect Asia 2014. “If it is less that $5,000, don’t even bother. Fix your game until your return on the investment is higher than the money you had spent.”

Juan Gril, founder of Joju Games, decided on his career in the games industry at a very early age. When he was seven years old, his father took him to visit a friend who had just bought an Atari. He played with it for five minutes, then told his father, “I want to figure out how to make videogames.” And the decision was made.

Proving Yourself

Nine years ago, when Gril founded Joju Games, the greatest challenge was getting out that first successful game. He says, “It was a very stressful time because you have to prove you are good enough.”

Joju Games followed up the success of Bingo Blingo with Fringo, which they decided to self-publish. They are still deciding whether this was the best decision. Fringo is doing well per user, and still growing every day. Gril says his philosophy is, “If I have to pay for the development of a game myself, I won’t give it to a publisher who has not brought any value during the development of a game.”

Self-Publishing Challenges

He does not underestimate the difficulties of self-publishing; he advises those who are contemplating it to be sure they have a budget to survive for at least 12 months after the first release of the game. Otherwise, there won’t be enough time to tune the game in order for it to succeed.

When Gril considers the difficulties faced by young developers, he insists, “I don’t think the model of the developer taking all the risk developing the game is sustainable long term. There are a lot of young developers coming into the industry, and that is great because they are bringing a lot of innovation, but most of the time, they are getting ripped off by people who make them sign exclusive distribution deals, with little or no advance. They end up being screwed with no chance of taking their game to someone else.”

He emphasizes, “If we continue these business practices, we are going to create a hostile environment for newer generations to create games.”

Audience Expansion

In recent years, Gril has seen the audience for games expand. The majority of this expansion has gone to casual games in terms of reach and play time. He believes the games industry has been hugely impacted by this change, saying, “Just the other day, I was looking at the list of console game releases, which pales in comparison to 10 years ago.”

In the environment of the games industry today, Joju Games continue to put their emphasis on making great casual games. Although platforms have changed, social networks have come in, and business models have also changed, the essence of creating fun casual games remains. Gril maintains, “The only thing we do different now is we don’t have Gold Masters anymore. Instead we run ‘restaurants’. And I love it!”

As they move into the future, Gril tells us Joju Games will continue innovating on the social casino space and continue making great casual games. They are now ready to take Fringo to mobile and tablets are next.