99Games

IPhone has taken the world by storm. It’s a device that has constantly been in news. The competition in the smartphone market is heating up with each manufacturer trying to outdo the other with new features and innovative apps. A little more than a year ago, Apple launched the App Store, which proved to be a beacon of hope for the mobile app developers. 99Games was launched around the same time with a dream to be one of the leading players in this emerging space.

“Until the advent of the App Store, the only way application developers could get their content on mobile devices was by either working with the operator or the device manufacturer. App Store democratized the whole process by allowing content developers to reach the end consumers directly,” says Rohit Bhat, Managing Director, 99Games. With virtually zero start-up cost, the App Store lets a developer utilize their resources on the product rather than distribution.

99Games has been in the business of iPhone gaming for the past 18 months and has published eight games so far. The first two games that the company developed were Chess Pro and Chess Lite. It then released Aqua Jigsaw and Jigsaw Wild for puzzle lovers. Around that time, the popularity of word games was on the rise and so 99Games came out with WordsWorth. According to the company, the game reached the top slot in the word game category and also got featured in the ‘What’s Hot’ section of the U.S and European App Store.

When the company was started, its initial focus was limited to two or three specific game categories in the App Store, but now it has started venturing into other genres like action and adventure as well. “Though each of the games has its own competitors in the App Store, our games have a unique quality, which makes them stand out. The customization offered to the games helps enhance the game play experience and also extends the game play duration,” says Bhat.

Bhat believes that the two factors that differentiates 99Games from other gaming companies is the quality of its games and customer support. “All games are developed after a lot of internal brainstorming. We perform a lot of usability testing as well as game play testing to ensure that the game meets the end user expectation and that the user can play these games either for short durations or for an extended period of time,” says Bhat.

The company believes in continuous interaction with gamers and has been constantly updating its games based on their feedback. When our customers give us a pointer to improve a game they know it’s not going unheard. “We’ve implemented several of our user suggestions and still continue to do so,” Bhat added.