Interview with Nitrome’s Matt

FlashJolt — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:10:27 +0000

Hey matt, thanks for joining us today.

Alternative Video Interview with Matt

First off, tell us about how Nitrome started and what/who inspired you to develop flash games?

Matt: Nitrome was started by myself and Heather Stancliffe. We had worked together previously with her doing programming and me doing the art and we had known each other since University where we both did Graphic Design degrees. We both already had a background in working with flash for projects for large corporate clients and felt we wanted to do our own thing so started a company together. We had no set plan when we started so we did some work for hire for some larger companies and even mostly made a mobile game that never got released before trying to actually make money from free flash games. Incidentally it was very difficult to start with to make money from them but it got easier with time.

Most/All of nitrome’s games use pixel art. Any particular reasons?

Matt: That was almost accidental…..I had been dabbling with pixel art for our mobile game that we were trying to make and really enjoyed it. At the time all my work was in vectors and there was no way we would have got commissioned by one of the companies we were working for to do anything in it so when we made our first free game I jumped at the chance to do it in pixels….I wanted to give it the same feel as the games we used to play as kids The second game also used bitmap art but wasn’t strictly all pixel art and the third game was actually drawn in vectors which is slightly ironic as it was based on our unreleased mobile game witch had been in pixel art! The fourth game was kind of bitmap but not pixeled again and the idea was to not settle on anything as a style, When we got to our 5th game though I wanted to do some more very retro pixel art and on reflection felt the art for the two pixel based games was working better than the others and getting better received so we decided to follow with it for a while. It really got set in stone though when we started to take more artists on as we looked for people who could also do pixel art. I think it would be hard to change that now as we are so well known for it

What software(s) do you use for your games? And do you use AS2 or 3?

Matt: We use Photoshop for all the pixel art and some of the team use Promotion to animate where as others just animate directly in Photoshop. The games are coded in Flash so that’s really the only other package we use if you discount sound. The Music is actually the only part that is not created in house as we don’t really have the space for a sound studio. We do have two very talented freelancers who do the music though using their own studios and we try to keep them close members of the team…no idea what they use though to create what they do!

We used to do the games in AS2 so a lot of the earlier ones are but we a long time back moved to AS3.

What’s the main source of income for your games? Ads, Sponsorship etc.

Matt: The main source of income has really changed a lot over time. Originally it was definitely Sponsorship that produced most of it with Ads, Licensing and Royalties being a welcome but small amount on top. Now though most of our money comes from the advertising….it’s amazing to see just how much that part of our business has grown over time!

Have you tried other ad networks opposed to Mochiads? and which ones performed the best?

Matt: I don’t think you can always say there is one that performs the best so I wouldn’t like to take sides…..they can perform better for different things that they specialize in and it also depends on your circumstances. We have had networks that we have tried early on that didn’t perform well but later when we were larger turned out a lot better for us. I would say it is best to try as many as you can and monitor things over time…..check they have a good reputation first though!

Distributing your games, whats the process behind getting your games on as many sites as possible? Do you submit games to other sites, email webmasters etc?

Matt: Actually we don’t usually distribute the games at all. Our focus has always been on keeping as much value within the games and our site as possible so we tried to keep them on ours and our sponsors/licensors sites exclusively. We have in more recent years decided to distribute a few choice games freely to help promote our brand but we usually find that just adding them to Newgrounds, Kongregate and Mochis distribution service is enough to get them to spread.

Would you still make games, if you don’t make any money from it?

Well that’s a tough question! Obviously we need to make a living! I think I would personally always make games but if I had to do another job to pay my bills I wouldn’t be able to make very many! If money was no issue I would probably still do it too but I’d probably make slightly larger games over a longer timeframe.

Any insights for upcoming developers? What they shouldn’t and should be doing?

Matt: If you want to stand out you need to do something different so try to do your own thing but try to make it as polished and playable as possible. Also I think try to recognize when you are possibly not skilled enough to do a role and try to team up with someone who could do that role as well as you need.

What was your biggest success (game)
Our biggest game was probably Icebreaker or Skywire……not sure which actually did better.

How big is his team?
Matt: There are now 10 full time members of staff and two freelance musicians.

Anything else you would like to share with us?

Matt: Hmmm nope I think that’s about it

Thanks again!

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Interview with Nitrome’s Matt