Hi guys,
Nice to meet you, my name is Aviv and I’m one of Mo’Minis founders. I’ll start by apologizing to anyone who was offended by the way we contacted him. Thank you for all of your comments and feedback, I will do my best to answer your questions and I apologize again if you find this reply too long
To tell you a bit about our history (I hope this won’t bore you to death), we are game devs with a special passion for mobile. 3 years ago we started developing a tamagotchi-like mobile game. That’s when we first faced the challenges of developing for the mobile world. We also found out that after you finish making a game, you have to port it to 100s of handsets… and if all of that was not enough, we have heard from various studios that for an indie, selling a game to a mobile operator is near to impossible.
Familiar with the concept of game engines (Klik & Play, Game Maker, etc.), we recognized a great opportunity here - creating a mobile games engine which will enable indie game devs like us to develop for mobile and make some money. We dropped our original game project and started working on this right away.
In a brief, we offer a solution which includes a platform for the rapid development of mobile games, automated porting technology (to 100s of various handsets) and a games commercialization service (sharing the revenues with the developer). In addition, we invest many efforts in establishing a vibrant community where creators can collaborate, consult, share ideas and game assets. (You are welcome to read more about the company at:
http://gigaom.com/2008/08/05/mo-minis/)
To answer Cymon and Hideous, we aim at offering a full service which includes a strong business model for the game creator (and not produce “yet another” game making software). Put into simple words, what we do is to let you to focus on the gameplay and creativity aspects of the game, while we take care of all of the rest (porting, distribution, etc.). We have already partnered with Orange Israel, the leading operator in Israel with over 2.5 million subscribers, and we are now exploring partnership opportunities with several additional operators and aggregators.
I’ll try to answer some specific issues you mentioned:
well, the beta is free only
now for developers
The studio will remain
free after the beta.
What I can gather from their FAQ is that the distribution of the games is controlled by them somehow, so you can't just make your game with it and publish it the way you want.
Loophole found!To make it clear, we do not try to exploit the situation, but to offer you
a real service. There is no loophole we are trying to hide.
As you know, in the PC world, it’s fairly easy to distribute games but rather hard to make real money.
In the mobile world, it’s the total opposite – hard to distribute games but the client is more than happy to pay. Unfortunately, mobile operators will tend to ignore indie developers which offer them a few games. By offering them 10s-100s of games created by our community, we are in a very strong position to bargain. This is a partnership so if you don't make money.. we don't make money.
Nonetheless, as stated in our FAQ, if you do wish to distribute a game by yourself, you are more than welcome to contact us and we will be happy to assist you doing that.
To conclude, it’s actually very frustrating to witness indie games succeed in the PC world, with no actual equivalent in the mobile arena. I believe that this is a great opportunity for indies to enter the rapidly growing mobile games market. The contest is a good way to add a mobile game to the portfolio, while potentially making a nice profit and enjoying a lot of exposure.
Like every other product in beta stage, the studio has bugs and is continuously being improved. We would really like to bring a change to the mobile world. We will appreciate your feedback, suggestions and willing to answer any further questions you may have.
p.s. you may also find our FAQ (
http://www.mominis.com/faq.php) and forums useful.
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