INTERVIEW: Securing a Legacy

What are legacy’s plans in Europe? Do you guys have a distributor / HQ in the UK or elsewhere in Europe?
Legacy is fortunate to be working with some terrific partners in Europe who publish and distribute our games. Currently we partner with Ubisoft, Mindscape, Jo Wood, and 505 Games.

You recently picked up the rights to Paramount movies. What sort of new audiences could these games bring you?
We believe that the audience for these games is primary female. Fans of the movies, who either watched the movies at the theatre or subsequently on cable, will be 12 - 30 in age.

Given the genre of games (Hidden Object, Fashion Puzzle, and Match 3), we think that women ages 40+ who like playing
games on portals such as Legacy Games and Big Fish Games will also enjoy playing the Paramount games. These aren't "new" customers for Legacy, by the way, since most of our games are geared to this same demographic.

Could they help make you one of the true leading third-parties on DS?
Legacy is only creating the PC versions of the paramount games, so sadly, this will not contribute to our Nintendo third-party status, but we do have other games coming out on the DS like Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals, Emergency
Room: Real Life Rescues, and others that we plan to announce in the future.

What do you look for in a game that you’d bring to the DS?
Unique use of the stylus, gameplay that is popular with the demographic sweet spot (girls 6-10), a license that is known to this audience.

What’s your relationship with 360 and PS3? Do you think these could ever truly become ‘family’ consoles like Wii or DS?
Sure, but we are a small company and have decided to focus on the platforms that we believe have the largest potential for our types of products and best match our skill set, namely PC, DS, and Wii.

What about the iPhone and iPod?
We're working on it, but have nothing to announce at this moment. I recently bought an iPhone, and I'm a huge fan. They are completely addicting devices, unfortunately for my family.

What territories do you think are furthest away from saturation when it comes to casual games? Both console and PC/online? How can you best take advantage of these?
The DS is pretty much saturated at this point, particularly in the pets category which has been a big one for Legacy since 2000. The hidden object style of game in the pc downloadable space is also saturated, although we believe there will still be opportunities with big brands in the future.

We will hopefully have some exciting announcements soon. But I really think there are lots of opportunities with the Wii to create great games that are unique and compelling, particularly given how a new version of the controller will be much more sensitive in the near future, opening up new applications. I think Wii development is wide open.

How do you see the casual gaming space maturing over the next few years?
It is more important than ever that a publisher control their customer list, which is one of the key advantages of online distribution. It is essential to know who your customer is and how to sell them new games and services.

Anything that gets in the way of a direct relationship with the customer is hard to justify, in my opinion. This is one of the key reasons why Legacy is making significant investments in building a community on our game portal at
www.legacygames.com and on Facebook.

What do you make of traditional publishers such as EA, Take Two and Midway all rushing to start casual gaming divisions? Are these companies a threat to you?
Of course they are a threat. But the truth is that we have been a casual game developer for more than ten years, catering to the girl/women audience long before Nintendo made it fashionable. We know this audience.

Legacy has also spent considerable time and energy learning the downloadable games business over the past three years, and making lots of mistakes along the way, I might add, that we have learned from. We have a bit of a headstart in that category as well, and hope that will continue.