“It’s really overwhelming to be on the top charts and to have thousands and thousands of downloads so I advise everyone that can develop a game to go ahead and start directly right away” – Lebnan Nader
A few weeks ago, a huge buzz about one great Lebanese game was created. ArabCrunch, TheNextWeb and MobileEntertainment were some of the media who spread the buzz around. So what actually happened? Well a cool game, Birdy Nam Nam, managed to achieve almost half million of downloads in a week which is definitely something that it’s not happening every day. Moreover the people behind the project are developing a game for the first time, did not use a lot of advertising and did not invest anything but some pocket money and their time and efforts.
Early last week we had a great opportunity to interview one of Birdy Nam Nam’s team members, Lebnan Nader. First, he shared with us the beginnings of the project, how the whole idea was born, and when the major project’s milestones occurred. Next, he told us what the team is currently working on as well as what their future plans are. Further, Nader was talking about the biggest challenges their team faced and what their greatest motivation was while working on the project and facing those challenges. He also explained the whole concept of the game, and their greatest success and mistakes related to this game. In the end he shared with us his opinion about startup accelerators’ role in the future of mobile gaming. “This is the future, this is a trend this is what we should do because we have 0.5% of the content of worldwide Internet that is in Arabic whereas more than 9 % are Arab users so we need to shrink this gap. And I really advise everyone that knows how to develop games to go ahead and do it because we really need Arabic games”, was his final advise for Arab mobile developers. You can find the transcription of the interview below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Seeqnce: You are part of the developing team of Birdy Nam NamI, the game that rapidly created a huge buzz. Is this your first startup project?
Lebnan Nader: Yes. this is our first game actually.
Seeqnce: Can you please share with us how did the whole idea about Birdy Nam Nam start?
Lebnan Nader: Actually I am a big fun of gaming. So it was obvious that we want to develop a game just for fun, to have fun with our friends and family and what was obvious is that we will develop a game on mobile because me and my brother and our friend, are all from mobile background. So the first point in this game was that we wanted to develop a game on mobile. Then when we started the thinking I actually came up with an idea to do something in Arabic but everyone laughed at the beginning because it was like: why to do something in Arabic? But I thought doing something in Arabic is really hilarious and can be really fun. For us, for the Arabs, when you see something in Arabic on the Internet you just laugh I don’t know why, it’s just like that. We started and we developed each level as per a different Arabic country like Dubai, Qatar. So this was done and the idea was pretty simple. We wanted something that does not reflect any politics, or religion. And we thought about birds. Then the idea just came. I don’t know exactly how it came.
Seeqnce: Could you put your startup’s history on a timeline? When did you exactly start, when were the major milestones, and when do you foresee major milestones in the future?
Lebnan Nader: I decided to do the game in Arabic and I figured out everything in my head. Then I talked to my brother who is a game designer and I told him “I want to do this this and that but I don’t have any cash to pay you” so he said let’s partner on that. Then we needed technical back up. We found someone and we offered to pay him in order to do the game but he refused, he said “no, i want to partner with you on the game”. He just thought that it will bring some good added value on his profile. This was back in February, so we started to have some meetings in March, we started the work and we used t work after hours because each one of us has a day time job. We put the plan, we began, we had the first prototype by end of March, we changed couple of things and then we put it on the App store and we asked all of our friends to download it and give us feedback about it. We collected feedback up until end of June or something so we did 2-3 months of beta testing then we took all the feedback, we shuffled down we changed what we thought we can change and what we thought was relevant to change then we launched officially couple of weeks back and I don’t know what happened to be very honest. I really don’t know what happened. I was at work here on my day time job, we had like 2000 downloads, I went home, I woke up, we had like 150 000 downloads. I don’t know what happened. I just want to know who is this blogger who wrote about it because something really happened. You don’t just have 150k downloads like that. The game got really good vibe. It’s a very simple game. When we did it we didn’t think about making money out of it because it’s a simple game. If you are waiting for someone in the car you just play it. if you are waiting for a meeting you play it. It’s this kind of game. And we didn’t want to do a game that is long. For example when you play a football game it will take half an hour to finish, you cannot do this in 5 minutes. Now we are working on an update, add more levels, I would say critical levels, countries like Syria, Libya and I think the update will be ready in 2-3 weeks from now. For the future we are thinking about many things. We are still very young and small team of motivated people, we didn’t figure out a way to monetize it. Now what we did actually, we rolled out an update to in- app purchase. For a level you cannot pass you can buy some sort of a special weapon and basically use the weapon to pass the level. We thought about doing a European version for it and a US version. So these are the future plans but I have no clue which one to rollout first: the Arabic levels, or US or European levels. And we have too many downloads from China, Russia, Poland, form the US, from Saudi Arabia. We thought about adding all these levels.
Seeqnce: Could you briefly explain the whole concept of the game for our Seeqnce readers?
Lebnan Nader: It all started in Dubai where Arab scientists were doing experiments on chickens. They wanted to transform these chickens into man’s best friend. They wanted basically to have chickens that can cook, clean, change the DVD, do the laundry. They wanted to do that for humanity because we all know how Dubai is really good in technology. They always have some sort of experiment there. But something happens and the drug has some side effects so the chickens mutated and became really evil chickens: they fled the labs, killed all the scientists and they started invading Dubai. So basically those chickens were throwing deadly eggs all over the town and they sort of destroyed this town. And they started in Dubai, then Qatar, Saudi, to the deserts, to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and so on. And basically the role of the player here is the hero who comes to fight them, save humanity and save Arabic countries. The player has different weapons. So each level he’s given a certain kind of a weapon from a gun to a shotgun to a rifle to some mines, bombs and so on that he can use at each level to kill those chickens.
Seeqnce: Some gamers compare Birdy Nam Nam to Angry Birds? What is your reaction to this?
Lebnan Nader: I am flattered. Well Angry Birds is the only game in the region that has a lot of PR around it. Angry Birds became something that every iPhone in the region has it. So when they saw that there is a new game in Arabic and talks about birds, chicken or whatever they exactly compared to it, some were positive like “beware Angry Birds” and some were like “you are just imitating Angry Birds’. If you go to the Saudi App store, we have like 150 reviews and you have some of them that are really bad and others that are excellent. I don’t know how I feel. When they compare our game to Angry Birds I am somehow flattered but from the other side I say well these people didn’t really feel the game.
Seeqnce: What do you think: why are most Arab mobile apps clones of existing Western apps?
Lebnan Nader: To be honest in terms of games there are no clones. We are one of the first games that are introduced on the iOS. There is couple of games but not really large. In terms of apps, there are a lot iOS apps and yes there are some imitating the West but not that much because the region here, we are focused a lot on sports, politics, and religion. So you can find for example thousands of apps about the Koran, or the Islamic religion, or the Christian religion, or any other religion and you will find a lot of Arabic apps that were done for revolution and so on but you cannot really find an app that imitates a chatting platform, or sports for example. But this is a really good point because in my opinion to be very honest if I had a big team of developers I would just imitate everything the West do and transform it to Arabic and launch it. Because lot of the people here do not read other than Arabic or let me put it that way: a lot of people prefer to read Arabic over any other language specifically in Saudi, Kuwait and UAE . So by doing applications that do exist and are already successful in English and transforming it in Arabic, I think this is a good point.
Seeqnce: What was your greatest motivation while working on the project?
Lebnan Nader: I never did a game before and I was really happy to do something to play on and to enjoy. And one of the biggest motivations was when we started doing the beta testing, our friends who tested, were really impressed and happy with the game and this was a very big motivation. And then again when we put it on the App store for the first time, to collect feedback, we didn’t advertise it and we put it on a high price because we didn’t want people to download it, we just wanted our friends to download it. Then I was in a mall here in Beirut and I saw someone on the iPad playing the game and I didn’t know this person so I was really happy. I introduced myself and talk with them. The examples of cases like this were a really good motivation too. Because when we first did it we didn’t have any idea how to monetize it and we still don’t have it but it’s not the money, it’s not the fame, it’s just to do something to be able to play with.
Seeqnce: What were the greatest challenges you faced while working on the project?
Lebnan Nader: We were really tired because we used to finish our day time job and then get together around 7 – 8 pm and just work untill midnight or 1-2 am and that was killing us because you have to focus on your day job during the day and my brother, my partner and myself are working hectic jobs. It really requires a lot of thinking. Working on the game in the evening, it was something that was killing us and then the Internet connection and all the things that come with it in Lebanon. That was it basically. The idea of the game came, we worked on it, thought about something, tried it, if we didn’t like something we changed it so that was fine. And we were doing something for our own. We didn’t care if we finish it now or next year. But the challenge was things that come around the technical development which means the Internet connection, a really good device to work on, a comfortable atmosphere.
Seeqnce: At first the game was available in a paid version only. But quickly you offered a free version too. What was the idea behind?
Lebnan Nader: When we finished doing the game and we collected the feedback and we wanted to launch the game we thought: let’s put the HD version on $1.99 and the normal version $0.99 and let’s have a free version. So we sort of launched those versions and put available on the App store . They didn’t really generate a lot of income and we thought like we are doing something for fun and let’s put it for free, we can monetize it later let’s just make the people test it. And there is something else really important. In the region really few people use credit cards and in order to buy a game or an application for the iPhone you have to have a credit card so we were like missing out more than 60% – 70% from the iPhone users in the region. So we just wanted to give the chance to everyone to download it. We want to make money out of it but we just focus now on doing some good data base, large number of people to download it and then we’ll find a way to monetize it like with in-app purchase or maybe adding new levels.
Seeqnce: So far Birdy Nam Nam is an iOS game only. Do you have any other future plans?
Lebnan Nader: We are doing this for Nokia now, for Symbian. By end of September it will be launched.
Seeqnce: How is the project financed?
Lebnan Nader: None. We just paid a little bit from our pockets for the music which was little. All the development, design, PR is done by us. The investment put in the game was really our time and efforts and not any penny.
Seeqnce: What is your biggest success in this project, and what is your biggest failure?
Lebnan Nader: The mistake was that we launched for paid first, then we put it for free and now we are rolling out the in – app purchase. If I can get a couple of days back I would have waited a little bit, then launch it for free from the beginning and include the in – app purchases in it. So the number we got now we could have got the same or even more but with in – app purchase so if people wanted to buy this new extra weapon they would have been able to. I would have launched everything one time. The biggest success: the game is a little bit known now especially in Saudi and we got many phone calls from mobile operators that wanted to do branded Arabic games for the users so this is a really good success. When we approach people now for business we kind of have a mini success story. So definitely the number of downloads was a great success. And we really never imagined we will do that. I never imagined that it will have around half million downloads, not in my wildest dreams. We did it for fun. If we have done it for money we would have done it differently. It was really for fun and you can find that in the levels, in three of the levels you can find my voice, my brother’s and my friend’s voice. The Lebanese level has my voice, and the Egyptian level has a voice of a friend of mine.
Seeqnce: Do you currently work on other projects too?
Lebnan Nader: I have my day job currently. In terms of my own personal projects, for now I am thinking to really take Birdy Nam Nam to its limits, add a lot of levels, add European, US levels, more Arabic levels and then see what happens. And in the future I imagine I will not stop developing games. I will continue to work with my brother and our partner to develop something else maybe. Now what we think actually, and its nothing formal because we didn’t really discuss this yet but from what I think we will add a lot more levels to the game and probably we will do this for Android as well and we’ll see what happens.
Seeqnce: Seeqnce is one of the first of just a handful of Arab world startup accelerators. It advises and facilitates the funding of internet entrepreneurs across the Arab world and features state-of-the-art Coworking & community spaces for web & mobile professionals & students. Do you believe that startup accelerators, like Seeqnce, have a role in the success of future mobile games, and if yes, how?
Lebnan Nader: Yes, and I am not talking about me personally. I am talking in general about developers. Developers, when they work on games are one step away from success but 90% of them do not have the success because they didn’t know how to take the step. They can create an amazing game but they don’t have the tools to market it or they can create an amazing game but they don’t have the know how to push it or to deploy it and this is where people like you guys come across: to help individuals by giving them some sort of a mentorship and initial financing just to be present. And I think it’s really important for all. For example for us, we are a small team and we didn’t do much of advertising but let’s imagine the game didn’t do a lot of downloads. We would not have the budget to market the game and myself, I work for a long time in communications telecom so I knew which blogs to write , i knew which people to contact but imagine I didn’t know that. How would the game be known? How would people know about the game and download it? That’s why we need people like you .
Seeqnce: What is your final advice for Arab mobile game developers?
Lebnan Nader: I had an overwhelming experience with Birdy Nam Nam and I really advise everyone that knows how to develop games to go ahead and do it because we don’t have Arabic games yet and we really need Arabic games. Arabic people really appreciate Arabic culture and by doing anything related to Arabic content they will have direct PR , direct visibility and a good number of downloads. I am not saying people will get rich from mobile games but I am saying that this is the future, this is a trend this is what we should do because we have 0.5% of the content of worldwide Internet that is in Arabic whereas more than 9 % are Arab users so we need to shrink this gap. And from personal experience it’s really overwhelming to be on the top charts and to have thousands and thousands of downloads so I advise everyone that can develop a game to go ahead and start directly right away.