PlayFirst Diner Dashes To Success
Over at casual site GameZebo, they've added a neat interview with Kenny Dinkin of PlayFirst, chatting to the producer at the California-headquartered casual game publisher/developer.
The most interesting part of the interview, for me, is the fact that the sequel to the Gamelab-developed casual game smash hit Diner Dash (PlayFirst's major slamdunk thus far!) wasn't actually done by Gamelab: "We were really lucky to partner with Gamelab on the first Diner Dash game, so the foundation for a great franchise was built when we took on doing the next one internally at our PlayFirst studio." In fact, it sounds like Gamelab didn't retain any of the IP to Diner Dash - not something I'm very used to when it comes to casual games - but not completely crazy, or anything. Just... surprising..
Dinkin has some great comments on some of the best casual game makers, too: "I respect what Patrick Wylie at Big Fish has done with the Mystery Case Files series. There's an attention to narrative immersion, and of course a really compelling (but simple and accessible) mechanic there. I also admire the games that are coming out of Sandlot Games. Tradewinds is a personal favorite."
He ends: " Mostly, I like to see developers that are taking new risks on gameplay and narrative - whether it's games like Q-Beez 2 or Fish Tycoon. Best of all, we have seen some amazing concepts from small indie developers, both from within the PlayFirst circle and from new groups. Check out Professor Fizzwizzle or Pirate Poppers to see what I mean."
Comments
I've always been somewhat amazed that what amounts to large flash games could garner such a following and earn so much revenue. I never used to respect them all that much, but that has somewhat changed. For every ten "mee too" puzzle games someone creates a decent, fairly new concept and some of those games are quite interesting.
Posted by: d | July 22, 2006 10:57 PM
Yeah, I had actually guessed that this was the case when I first checked out PlayFirst's page for Diner Dash 2, which listed the developer as PlayFirst and not Gamelab (Gamelab's most recent press release also does not mention the sequel).
It does in fact seem like Gamelab might have signed away the IP for Diner Dash, although their name does appear on the recently-released mobile phone version of the original. It remains to be seen whether Gamelab will be credited at all for the PSP, GBA, and DS iterations coming in 2007. I'd be curious to hear from a Gamelab employee as to the status of Diner Dash's intellectual property. It's all a tad confusing, but may help to explain the company's decision to become their own publisher... -sj
Posted by: Scott Jon Siegel | July 23, 2006 10:58 AM