At GDC 2012 this year, I had the opportunity to present a session on some of the things we learned during Vector Unit's transition from mobile to console development.

Originally the speech was meant to cover a whole range of topics, from development to marketing, but the GDC organizers asked me to focus specifically on production learnings, and to see if I could fit it all into a 25 minute session. I did, but it was a little tight -- my biggest concern during the presentation (other than the general concern about not totally choking :-) ) was making sure I didn't go over my time limit.

I've been happy to see a little coverage about the presentation in the press. I think this article by Dennis Scimeca in Pocket Gamer in particular sums up the main points pretty well:

GDC 2012: Vector Unit's Matt Small on what console devs need to know about mobile gaming

You can download the full powerpoint of the presentation here: GDC 2012: Stranger in a Strange Land. I don't normally put down much in terms of speaker notes, but this time around there was a translator providing simulcast Japanese translation and I had to detail out a little more of what I planned to say in the notes for her reference. The upside to this is you can pretty much read through most of the content of the speech alongside the slides in the downloaded file.

Here's a link to a copy of the SCRUM spreadsheet I mentioned. No warranties on its formulas or effectiveness, of course -- please feel free to use it or modify it for your own purposes as you see fit.

Example SCRUM

Finally, I wanted to share a couple of links to articles that I referenced or that inspired parts of this session.

First off, the survey by Owen Goss that I got my sales figures from. As Owen himself points out, these numbers are not necessarily reflective of the market as a whole, but from what we've seen at Vector Unit they seem to be at least somewhat on the mark:

Results: iOS Game Revenue

And finally, a great article by Emeric Thoa of the Game Bakers that dovetails with many of the things I talked about and also talks about Owen's article:

Money and the App Store