What can you tell us about Digital chocolate?? (Arjun) Tell us something more about Hawkins??

(Aashish) Where is the company present and how did he decide on these places?? (Ashish Badyal) What are the major challenges he faced?? (Ruchir) Hows the game distributed?? (Ankur) Core values & Performance review?? (Kaushik) How did he handle the global operations?? (Arjun) What can you tell us about great game developers?? (Aashish) Embracing the iphone. (Ashish Badyal) What is social gaming and how did he spot an opportunity in this area?? (Ruchir)

Group 4

Neha |Aashish | Ashish | Ankur | Kaushik |Nagarjun | Ruchir | Sajid

About Digital Chocolate

Founded in 2003 by Mr.Trip Hawkins
Made unique brand of games Over 100 different award winning games

Cross Platform Mobile Game makers

The philosophy of a delicious snack

Present in 80 countries with over & above 200 channel partners

Trip Hawkins
Education

Strategy & Applied Game theory Major from Harvard Stanford Business School Alumni

Career

Director of Business Strategy, APPLE Founder Electronics Arts Founder 3DO Founder Digital Chocolates

Recognitions

8th person on Academy of Interactive arts and Science Hall of Fame Among 26 most Fascinating Entrepreneurs

Locations

Critical for co-ordination. India :Good English speaking college graduates.

Spain: Creative team and good entry into Latin America.

San Mateo : Proximity to cutting edge developers. Finland : best teams for electronic development.

Major Challenges
To select Locations

To find a cultural fit

Time differences Difficulty in standardization of cross platform applications

Game Distribution
Buyers Power is high Key decision makers
Wireless Carrier

Through App stores High Competition

Customer Marketplace

Core values & Performance review

Young, Multicultural team with global view. Focus on creativity Focus on Attitudes Performance review 3 questions Last year performance Most important strength of employees E-I-E-I-O

Handling Global Operations

Staff from 32 different countries 145 in Helsinki, 140 in Bangalore, 25 in Barcelona and 40 San Mateo Took the role of Business Development himself demonstrating Flexibility Twice a year to Finland and once a year to India and Spain 100 mails a day and texting, phone calls & Instant messaging

Handling Global Operations contd..

Monday morning meeting with 40 senior team called T-staff Whats going well?? Whats not going well?? Opportunities & threats Any asks?? Decisions made with after all the board members are in accord

Game Development at DC

High creatively exhausting process Games of all genre created, puzzle, word, action & adventure, sports, racing, social entertainment and cards & casino. 2-3 games per month to cater to large demand Multi platform supported games Published on app stores and websites like facebook

Game Development process at DC

Suggestion s Filtering
Based on target audience Characteristics of Top 10 games

YDC
PPTs on ideas Validation discussion with top management

Development
3 months on designing 3-4 months on development

Sought from all employees 300+ ideas

Testing
Online played by any employee

Embracing the Iphone

Hawkins was little apprehensive initially to start going into Iphone games development Major Reasons were 1.Rate of development of new platforms is high and risk to reward ratio is not desirable 2.Apple didn't have a store and Apple emphasize more on applications rather than games 3. There are serious billing challenges

Embracing the Iphone Contd..

4.Hawkings don't want to distrupt the current projects in the pipeline However, on seeing the exponential growth in acceptance of Iphones games The digital chocolates team responded well by converting top selling games into iphone applications and the result was astounding with first four games made up to top downloads and iphone platform turned out be most profitable platform for future development

Why Social Gaming

Multi-player interactive games over different platforms Awareness from childhood-designed board games Devised characters & strategies interest Increased. DNA @ 3DO No hardware/software support

3 ways ahead
Acquire a Social Game development company
1

Create dedicated social Gaming office for avoiding distractions

3

Designated group of employees from each location

Group Discussion
Pros
Cost saving Experts Save Time

Pros

Dedicated work on social games Quality control Better resource mgmt

Cons
Quality mismatch Culture mismatch

Cons
Difficult to find specialized teams Lack of edge on normal games

Pros
Geographic coverage

Cons
Poor coordination Poor skill set

As The Future Revealed

Digital Chocolate acquired Sandlot Games, which is based in Bothell , USA & St. Petersburg, Russia.

Sandlots founder and CEO Dan Bernstein will become VP of Digital Chocolate for St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Bothell.

Q&A
Group 4
Neha |Aashish | Ashish | Ankur | Kaushik |Nagarjun | Ruchir | Sajid