Digital Chocolate Makes The Move To The PC

In March of 2008, mobile gaming publisher Digital Chocolate made four of its games available for download on the PC. The games–each of which is available for $9.99–include Pyramid Bloxx, Rollercoaster Rush, WordKing Spelltris and Diamond Islands. With these releases, users can now play these mobile gaming titles on the computer with enhanced graphics and sound.

This move by Digital Chocolate seems fairly logical, and echoes the actions of a few other games developers and publishers that have begun to explore the possibilities offered by multi-platform casual gaming. Among these other companies are PopCap Games who has recently expanded their operations to the mobile gaming platform, and I-play, who recently introduced their new ‘triple-play’ strategy. The common thread behind all of these developments seems to be: why restrict truly great original games to one platform when they can be released on the mobile gaming, web, PC, and Live Arcade platforms as well?

Digital Chocolate’s company founder Trip Hawkins, recently explained that as far as his company is concerned, it is as much about boosting sales of their mobile gaming titles as anything else. Hawkins said that the key to continued growth in the mobile gaming industry is new marketing methods and content that attracts new users into the fold. He also said that the marketing opportunities provided by the web, along with classic Internet methods to pull in new customers, are the perfect ways to do just that.

Along with other mobile gaming developers, Digital Chocolate has been figuring out ways to attract new gamers over the past few years. In 2007 for example, the company launched Tower Bloxx as a Facebook application. Since then, Tower Bloxx has been installed by almost 800,000 users.

Hawkins said that Digital Chocolate has invested considerable resources into finding ways to create mobile gaming content with social value and viral spread in the industry. Besides the aforementioned tie up with Facebook, the company has also been involved with WAP sites, and text and MMS campaigns, as well as offering “Get More Games” links from within its mobile gaming releases.

Hawkins goes on to say that while it took some time for Digital Chocolate to figure out effective ways to generate promotion through the PC and the web, the company is now well on its way to making this a reality. Indeed, the PC version of Pyramid Bloxx seems to have made the transition to the big-screen format quite well, and with the link to the mobile gaming version included, it is very likely that stronger sales of the mobile gaming version will result.
One of the things that these PC games have in its favor is that they are available as free trials. This is one of the main reasons why games such as Bejeweled have been such a big hit on the mobile gaming platform. Hawkins feels that this approach will allow them to develop more original titles that have a fair shot of becoming mobile gaming hits, in essence making them an effective tool into bringing more people over into the mobile gaming world.