Fishing Planet: the path from a social game to a niche F2P simulator

What the talk is about

Yurii Darytskyi tells how the Fishing Planet team moved from a social game to a niche F2P fishing simulator. The studio first built a higher-quality clone of a popular social-network fishing game, and it paid back the investor quickly. The team then spent about half a year researching the market and audience: American anglers, neighbouring genres and realistic simulation games. They found an empty niche between arcade titles and hardcore simulators. That led to requirements: photorealistic graphics, realistic environment, weather, and tackle and fish behaviour. He covers the technical challenges (memory, photographing real objects, physics, water) and concludes that understanding the audience helps weigh features. Useful for game designers and producers working on niche projects.