Just returned from Seattle. Casual Connect is a conference we go to every year to meet and greet all the major publishers. It was great seeing the team from Big Fish as we wrap up development on Curse of the Pharaoh III. It’s a great looking game – expect to see it released some time in Q4 of 2009!

As usual, the parties were great. Below are some pics:

The view from Paul Thelen's (Founder of BFG) place is awesome!

Playing craps in the Seattle Aquarium

Dan Kratt is quite the rockstar in the industry now, having designed the #1 game on Realarcade for 2007 (Sally’s Salon), 2008 (Sally’s Spa), and a #1 iPhone app (Sally’s Spa). In fact, Spa was mentioned in numerous panels (including being noted as the game that knocked EA’s Sims3 off the top spot on the iPhone). Without going into too much, we generated a ton of interest in PNM this year!!

Dan and Sarah from JollyBear at the BFG party

Dan Kratt is the designer behind the hit casual franchise Sally’s Salon/Spa. Sally’s Spa recently hit the #1 spot in the iPh0ne App Store!

How did you get involved in gaming?

After high school, I was always interested in games. Actually, probably since I was 7 years old. I remember going to CA to go to Disney land. My parents promised to buy an NES when we were in the US. I remember being more excited about that than Disneyland!

When it came down to thinking about careers, was really interested in sculpting and math. Initially, I thought I would pursue computer animation. I went to ACAD (Alberta College of Art and Design), and joined the new faculty MADT (Media Arts & Digital Technologies). At the time, the program was still evolving as I was there, but I ended up learning more about the critical thinking behind fine arts.

Then I applied for a job at Orbital Media. They turned me down, but I offered to work for free for 3 months. After the volunteer stint, I was brought in full time. There, I worked my way up from odd jobs to designer. I was a project lead within a year or so.

It was my fine art training that taught me the skills to be a critical thinker/designer. Had I gone with computer animation, I don’t think I would have the skills to be in the design role. It all worked out in the end.

What’s the best part about working at Ph03nix?

Still pretty new here, but everyone is really driven, constantly moving forward. There is a lot of potential in the different avenues Ph03nix is exploring. On a personal note, it seems like I will be able to spend less time in the “guts” of games, building them, and more time actually designing. The pipeline is great, and I don’t feel like I can bring ideas forward and they would be totally out of the question. So it’s a more free atmosphere creatively.

What’s the worst part about working at Ph03nix?

My makeshift plastic desk.

You designed Sally’s Salon/Spa. Real arcade’s best selling games of 2007 and 2008. Also Spa recently hit #1 in the US not only for iPhone games, but iPhone apps overall. How does it feel to be a big part of bringing those games to market?

With Salon, it felt really great because we managed to achieve the seemingly impossible goal we set for ourselves, which was to create a franchise that could stand with the biggest names in the casual industry. With Spa, it was daunting to have to try to do it again. So we were happy to have it hit #1 again, and be the best selling game on Real for 2008.

The App store was the cherry on top! Now at the tender age of 28, I was partially responsible for that mega hit. That creates pressure to make our next game even better. And that pressure is what drives me to succeed.

What’s next for you?

Games, games & more games. Hopefully my input will help TRZZonline be a place people love to go to. We will continue to make casual games, where I can help bring Ph03nix to the next level. The iPhone is exciting to me as well. The frictionless distribution is really appealing. Also, with shorter dev times, ideas can get to market more quickly, and the install base is something you can’t ignore. Also, it’s a great chance to get into a target demographic that is more in line with ourselves!

Been thinking a lot about why Lean Startup Methodologies are revolutionary lately. The concept of gaining competitive advantage by moving through an iteration cycle faster (and thereby more often) than anyone else, makes so much sense. Beyond the fighter pilot analogy used by Eric Ries, there are 2 more examples of technology impacting an industry by allowing for the faster movement through the OODA loop.

Poker – this might as well be the age of the 20 something millionaire poker player. Part of the reason for this is the advent of online poker. Online poker trashed numerous barriers to entry into the poker world. “Non-cash” sites like ultimatebet.NET allow players to play against real people regardless of age. You also don’t have to go to a seedy poker room anymore – just play from the comfort of your own home. But the real advantage is the speed at which new players experience the game. Live poker is almost painfully slow after playing online. Online, the action moves much faster, and players can play multiple tables at a time. This means that new players can see as many hands and situations in a year than some live poker players would see in a lifetime! I would argue that this has produced higher quality poker players in shorter periods of time – an example of competitive advantage through more OODA iterations.

The second industry is photography. With my DSLR, I can not only take thousands of pictures at a time, I can see if they suck right away. This wasn’t the case back in the film days. Shooting with film posed a financial limitation on how many pictures you could take – developing the film was expensive! On top of that, there was a lag of hours, if not days and weeks before you could see whether your shot was over/underexposed, or not in focus! Good luck remembering what you did in that particular situation! With digital cameras, the feedback is instant, and thus, the learning is instant as well. Again, amateur photographers can potentially, in several months, gain the experience that used to take years out in the field.

This has ramifications for our business. The classic game development model – take 3-5 years to build a product, do a huge launch, and potentially find out the product sucks – is going to go the way of the film camera. I don’t want to take a picture that takes 5 years to get developed. I want my digital camera! That’s why our TRZZonline product is live ALL THE TIME. We know it sucks right now, but every day, we’re getting hundreds of little pictures that tell us why and how it sucks. And that’s what’s going to make us better over time!