Super Monkey Ball Producer Outlines 10 Rules for Success

As many of you should know, Super Monkey Ball has been a runaway hit on the iPhone and iPod touch, setting standards for handset owners and developers alike. However, as SEGA producer (and former EGM writer) Ethan Einhorn explained during a Game Developers Conference session yesterday, Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone was quite a tough nut to crack.

SEGA's producer went to outline ten lessons the company learned throughout the game's development. Courtesy of 1UP's gaming blog focusing on Apple platforms, we took the liberty of posting some of those highlights ourselves (after the break).


Listen to feedback, respond quickly
"Getting that user feedback is tremendously helpful from the standpoint of giving the people exactly the kind of gameplay experience that they want."

Don't play price wars
"It was a little tough to see our ranking go down and down. You always want to be number one, but we resisted the temptation to drop price prematurely. For us, that was a huge benefit down the road because when we suddenly hit the holidays, we saw a significant boost in where we were sitting in the top 50."

Consider the pros / cons of "Lite" versions
"If you're in a position where you've been fortunate enough to get a lot of very positive reviews and you have a concept that's easy for people to understand in the description and some screen shots, I'd say you may want to think twice before putting a lite version up."

User reviews are king
"So many of the consumers are looking straight at what the user reviews are to determine whether they should buy a game."

Keep things simple
"We chose not to go that direction [the more complicated Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz onWii] when we chose what to do with Monkey Ball on iPhone. Quite the opposite - no bosses, no jumping, just tilting."

Consider the play environment
"Bite sized gameplay is obviously a major thing to think about when you're working on the iPhone but something as simple as save and when you can do it is really, really key to work out in advance. We made a critical mistake at the launch of the game by making players have to complete 10 before they could save."