Game Cooks developer interview
Two brothers, Lebnan and Arz Nader, have been passionate gamers for years. But instead of playing other people's games, the Nader brothers decided it was time to make their own mobile game, and thus Game Cooks was formed.
ArabicGamers spoke to Lara Noujaim, the marketing manager at Game Cooks, about the studio and the mobile gaming indusrty in the Middle East (ME) with a special take on Lebanon.
AG: When was Game Cooks established and how big was the team?
Noujaim: Game Cooks was established in early 2012, it comprised at the start of four team members.
AG: Has growth been consistent?
Noujaim: In terms of team size, Game Cooks grew from a team of four to 12 in three years. In terms of our portfolio of games, growth was pretty consistent in the first two years, launching on average two games per year. However during 2014, we’ve really pushed hard and have managed to push to market five mobile games on the iOS and Google Play store!
AG: Has there been much support from the government? Does it recognise the importance of game media and development as a significant growth area of the economy?
Noujaim: When Game Cooks was first launched, there was no such support, mobile gaming was still a novel concept in the region, particularly in Lebanon. It was still something very new. However, we are seeing a shift in Lebanon, in the sense that there is more attention now being paid towards this industry and recognising its growth potential, seeing it as an opportunity to make available new job opportunities in an exciting field and diversify the pool of job openings available to the young generation.
AG: Game Cooks was established to develop mobile games, why didn't you focus on consoles?
Noujaim: Being huge fans of mobile gaming had a big part to play in that decision. At the time, there were plenty of great international mobile games successfully making their way to the Middle East, and the thought was “ Why aren’t there any mobile games localised to the region? And wouldn’t it be great to have a game from the region that has an international reach?
The mobile gaming industry was picking up all over the world. However, the region lacked mobile games with culturally relevant content. We set out to do something about that with the launch of Birdy Nam Nam (launched prior to Game Cooks founding) and Run For Peace (Game Cooks’ first official game).
AG: Have you got any plans for any console games? If so, can you describe them?
Noujaim: Our focus so far is on mobile gaming. We have no plans for any console games anytime soon.
AG: Wouldn't it have been possible to create an Arabic game that could have been localised to other languages?
Noujaim: Absolutely! Run For Peace is a perfect example of such a game. Run For Peace is about a character called Salim on a peace-spreading journey through the ME, going from country to country. All elements, obstacles, design and music are inspired purely from the ME. The game is available in both Arabic and English. The game picked up regionally as it resonated well with the primary ME audience, however the game was also a big hit internationally, ranking high in the app stores worldwide. Run For Peace was launched during the Arab Spring, at a time where the topic of Peace in the Middle East was on everybody’s mind, and so to have a mobile game that revolves around that topic, people were definitely curious. A major factor that helped the game being pretty entertaining!
AG: Who is your target audience? Is it the Arabic audience or the world wide?
Noujaim: Being a Lebanese company operating out of the ME, the ME audience is always on our mind when we create a new game. However, we learned from our first few game launches that it is possible for a game created in the ME for the ME to have international success as well. The perfect example is Run For Peace, a game that was clearly inspired by the region’s happenings and created with the ME gamer in mind but that has achieved great success abroad as well. Since then, our mission became two folds: to create a game that our primary audience will relate to and an international audience can enjoy. Fast forward three years, today we create games mixed with the region’s local flavor, it can be from the names of our characters inside the game to elements that only people from the region can understand.
That being said, we also make sure our games will have a global appeal, to give our games a chance on both the regional market first and international market second.
AG: As a development studio in the Arab world we rarely see your games in Arabic, why?
Noujaim: Most of our games have little text content in them and so whatever content we do have, is typically kept in English. We do localise the important details such as app store details and descriptions to Arabic. However we have had games with all of its content in Arabic, the most recent being Haram Al Maarifa, a 100% Arabic trivia game.
AG: What are the challenges you face as a Middle Eastern studio?
Noujaim: One of the main challenges as any game development company in the region can attest to is game visibility. The app store is flooded with games and it is challenging to rank high and to do so with zero advertising budget. However, the region’s app store does provide some support and they do a good job when it comes to connecting with local game developers and bringing some attention to locally produced mobile games. In addition, when we first started, local mobile gaming talent was scarce, however this has changed in the past few years and we see the local pool of talent growing both locally and regionally and we could not be happier about that! We are seeing a new generation of students and fresh graduates who know they can turn gaming into a career and they can’t wait to get started!
AG: Do you feel that you have cultural restrictions or taboos that you need to shy away from? Do you feel the urge to censor your own product?
Noujaim: We’ve never encountered a situation where we’ve had to scrap out an idea or certain element because of taboos or restrictions. We’ve never felt the need to censor ourselves. We feel pretty free when working on a new game idea. However, since our primary audience is the ME, we are mindful of the content we include, making sure we are not crossing any lines.
AG: Do you have the resources you need in order to compete on a global scale?
Noujaim: Our most valuable resource we have is our team, a talented and dedicated team of designers, developers and communicators working their hardest to put Game Cooks on the global map. In terms of financial resources, you could say some games were more successful than others so looking at our overall portfolio it is safe to say that up until now, we have more or less broken even. We have yet to launch a game to make us million but hopefully we are not too far from that goal!
AG: What messages would like to convey through attending the upcoming MENA Games conference?
Noujaim: We are thrilled to have a Gaming Conference happening right here in Beirut. It is an exciting time to be in the mobile gaming industry, today more than ever! There is so much potential in this field in the region, there is a lot of growth, the numbers are promising and there is no signal of it slowing down anytime soon. We still have some ways to go before we can catch up with some parts of the world which have had a quite a head start but judging from the way things are going, we are on the right track!
Lara Noujaim will be on a panel at the MENA Games conference (26-28 March) with our editor, Tamer Asfahani. To find out more check out the site or keep your eyes open here on ArabicGamers for the latest news from the conference.