But a new IP in the league of Subway Surfers it is not.Īfter that, Kiloo seems to have reverted somewhat to their old model of co-development. Not that that equates a financial flop - probably not. That didn't seem to help though, and after the first month on the market, the game had disappeared from most of the top lists on the App Store. Their first release was the Kung Fu Panda-inspired Smash Champs, which boasted impressive production values and was the result of the hard work of one of Kiloo's in-house teams, with some freelance help in some specific areas. Surprisingly enough, both major Kiloo releases since Subway Surfers have been more feature-heavy games, which lack some of the charm of the endless runner. In the post- Subway Surfers-world, Kiloo have been trying out a couple of different tactics for their latest games. "We are a studio of game craftsmen, whose goal is to come with a limited number of high-quality titles that have tremendous long life-cycles, just as we are doing with Subway Surfers." But rather to increase the quality of individual titles. The new hires are not leading up to a rush of new releases, however, according to SYBO. "We are structuring ourselves to publish our titles, but first and foremost to raise the bar on our developments," they tell Nordic Game Bits. SYBO has, again, been more discrete about it, but they have also been staffing up.Īnd when you notice listings for Backend Engineers, Business Intelligence Analyst, and Client Systems Engineer, there can be little doubt left that they plan to run things alone in the future, as these are the very aspects that Kiloo is taking care of in the co-produced Subway Surfers.Ī strategic decision that they are also confirming themselves. In a small games industry like the Danish, the recruitment efforts of especially Kiloo have been noticed as the studio has also opened up an entire new office in Copenhagen. One thing they do have in common, though, is the massive hiring spree both studios have been on lately. But some of that is probably also attributed to the fact that the normal Danish ethic only allows showing off in moderation, whereas Kiloo's style is more in line with how you present your success in America. Kiloo is known to have ruffled some feathers by their approach. Where SYBO does not flaunt their success, and adhere to a more indie-styled mindset, Kiloo are not shy to talk about their success, even if it happens on social media rather than in press interviews. However, there does seem to be a clash of styles between the two developers.
It's not a hard break though, as both Kiloo and SYBO are committed to continue the development of Subway Surfers, which SYBO also confirms. Especially since Kiloo has effectively closed down all contact with the press after a couple of incidents where they felt misrepresented. Whether the decision to not continue the partnership is SYBO's alone, or if Kiloo had some part of it, is hard to decipher.
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The natural next step for us is to embrace the full spectrum from idea through launch to long-lasting franchises." "SYBO's focus will continue to be on developing unique, character-driven IPs and redefining genres. "As a successful studio, we want to be able to publish our own productions," they said. SYBO founders Bodie Jahn-Mulliner and Sylvester Rishøj Jensen were gracious enough to find time during GDC to give some input as to why they are going solo in the future. In fact, the revenue from Subway Surfers helped catapult Kiloo to the position of Growth Company of the Year - an award handed out by the county's biggest financial newspaper Børsen.īut despite the success they found together with Subway Surfers, it seems both companies are now looking in opposite directions for their next hit. With the success of Subway Surfers, neither developers are short on money. SYBO games (named after the founders Sylvester and Bodie), developed the original game concept based on an animated short they had produced at the Animation Workshop in DenmarkĪfter that, they teamed up with Kiloo who then took on the publishing duties as well as integration of monetization into the game, servers, backend, etc. The game itself is a curious collaboration between two different developers. With approximating 700 million downloads since its launch in May 2012, it's far above and beyond any other mobile title ever produced by the Danish games industry - rivaling the performance of some of the best Finnish and Swedish mobile titles. Subway Surfers is undoubtedly the biggest mobile-hit game ever to come out of Denmark. Jesper Krogh Kristiansen is its Editor-in-Chief.
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This is an article in a regular series of guest columns from Nordic Game Bits.
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