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Posted: Fri, December 20, 2002
Jester eyes its next target Jester Interactive counts 2002 as one of its best years to date. The Flintshire-based games developer
successfully expanded its operations to include a publishing venture and then proceeded to publish the first of its motor sport titles
for the Sony PlayStation 2 platform, Super Trucks - the official game of the truck racing championship. In addition to new releases of some existing bestsellers, the company secured the entire 23-game back catalogue of veteran games developer Graftgold, and the rights to two of the most fondly remembered video games of all time - Manic Miner and JetSet Willy. It's with Manic Miner that Jester Interactive has staked out its new area of interest - game development for mobile phones. It launched a mobile phone version of the game just before Christmas, in time to entice users of Java-enabled phones. It also continued development of the highly anticipated Isle of Man TT Superbike racing game, due for release later this year. It's no surprise then that the company was named as one of the Welsh Development Agency's Ambassadors of Innovation. Martin Kitney, Jester Interactive's marketing manager concurs - it has been a great year for the company and mobile gaming is definitely a feature on the company's roadmap for the future. "We shipped in excess of 1.5 million games for PlayStation, Nintendo and PC globally, and we're enjoying the Java experience - Manic Miner for Java has been well received. People are taking it very seriously, and we'll be developing a few more back-catalogue games for other mobile gaming platforms, such as the Gameboy Advanced." Jester Interactive's games are already distributed across Europe, Japan and the US; the publishing arm was established to gain better control over that distribution. It was then that a more dedicated approach to corporate relations was required, and Jester Interactive's external PR company was dropped in favour of a dedicated, in-house marketing team. As Kitney explains, "The publishing arm has been our big focal point. We had the right products to go ahead with that, but we also needed hands-on management of the marketing involved. We've published Super Trucks, our first attempt at a racing game. Now we have racing technology that we can adapt for future titles, like the Isle of Mann TT Superbike game. There are not that many quality bike titles on the market, so we're looking to capture this market." Jester Interactive is increasingly viewing alternate platforms as the next set of business opportunities. "The company has been developing console games, primarily for the Sony PlayStation platforms, since 1997. It has had some success with games developed for PC, and is looking to build on that, in addition to developing for the X-box and Gamecube - not to mention interactive TV," says Kitney. The secret behind Jester Interactive's success, says Kitney, is its agility, and its hunger for new avenues for artistic expression, which are equally commercial viable - something he says is the best advice anyone could give to those seeking to make a mark in the game development industry. Contacts
Jester InteractiveTel: 01244 537 770 Email: management@jesterinteractive.com Web: www.jesterinteractive.co.uk |
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