paul croft for the ii creative economy forum
DESCRIPTION
Paul Croft - co-founder and Director of Games, MediatonicPaul has been designing, developing and producing online games for the past 8 years. Since co-founding Mediatonic 6 years ago he has helped grow the firm to a team of 40 staff based in Covent Garden.Paul was recently featured in Develop Magazines '30 under 30' feature on rising stars in the video-game industry. In total, he has been involved in the creation of over 100 games.Paul is the winner of the British Councils ‘Young Interactive Entrepreneur of the Year’ award. At Mediatonic Paul's role primarily involves managing Business Development and Creative Direction.MediatonicTraditionally Mediatonic has worked with major entertainment brands to being their content to the web in innovative new forms. Mediatonic clients include EA, SEGA, Disney, Nickelodeon, Lego, Universal Pictures, Cartoon Network, Popcap and Namco.Key commercial projects include the official web games for the Beijing and Vancouver Olympics, an online Sonic level editor for SEGA and Amateur Surgeon for Adultswim. In the past few years Mediatonic has expanded into developing and publishing its own original content focusing on digitally distributed platforms such as social networks, PSP and iPhone.So far Mediatonic has developed and self-published several critically acclaimed titles including ‘MUST.EAT.BIRDS’ for iPhone and ‘Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess!’ for PSP Minis with several new social games launching over the next few months.Mediatonic was recently picked out by the Sunday Times TechTrack 100 as one of the ‘Ones to watch’ in the fastest growing UK tech companies.TRANSCRIPT
The Story of Mediatonic
Paul Croft
Mediatonic 2011
Developing a Creative Business
Who are Mediatonic?
Game night at MT
We have designed and developed over 100 games played by more than 300 million people.
We partner with large games companies
Cutting Edge of Digital Gaming
2001
Education
Setting up Business (registration, bank, office, etc) Setting up
3 things needed in UK
• Register company
• Bank Account
• Premises / Address
Government Support – Start-up
2004
(C) Google Maps
Sweat equity
• Grab land
• Operate on a shoestring
• Focus on new relationships
• Prepared to work for nothing
2005 2005
Demonstrate traction
• Create something tangible
• Demonstrate the results
2006
• Punch above your weight
• Attend conferences, network
• Don’t waste money on severs,
offices, marketing etc
• Don’t pay hourly/daily rates
2007
Culture & image
• Perception
• Team culture
• Premises
2007
Team
• Employ smart people
• We went with students
• Create a start up mentality
2007
Breakthrough moments
• Creativity has value
• Do you best on every project
• Our focus is on quality
2008
Growing the business
• Sustainable growth
• Double down on strengths
• Stay nimble
PlaySega.com
2009
2009
Staying Nimble
• Expanding new platforms
• Creativity is transferable
• Market moves fast!
SLIDE ON MEB
2010
Building lasting value
• Original IP & Technology
• Builds value in the business
• Recurring income, but risky
Government Support – On going
2011
Reaching Scale
• Key focus on Culture
• Difficult to scale Creativity
• More infrastructure needed
EIS Scheme
Global Competition
Staying Competitive
• London is expensive
• We cannot compete on price
• We compete on Creativity.
Build a Creative Business
Game Jams
Game Nights Game nights
Awesome environment
Writers as Producers
Tax Breaks
seedCamp
Paul Croft, Director of Games [email protected] Mediatonic Ltd, 4 Flitcroft Street London WC2H 8DJ