Mobile First

Extracte 05MAR2012 from http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/02/pocket-gems-grows-fast-with-its-mobile-firs...

Pocket Gems was one of the early “mobile first” game companies that did nothing but make games for mobile devices. The company was founded by Stanford University students in 2009 and it has never stopped running...

A year ago, San Francisco-based Pocket Gems had around 10 people. Now it has more than 100. And the strategy of running fast, doing original games, and getting them out before rivals is paying off... The company’s games have been downloaded more than 60 million times...

Their first game was Tap Farm, an idea borrowed from Facebook farm games such as FarmVille, but executed in an original way for the iPhone’s touchscreen. The title was a big hit and it enabled Pocket Gems to get on the growth treadmill. In December 2010, the company raised $5 million from Sequoia Capital and others...

Pocket Gems still makes use of ad networks and promotional platforms such as Tapjoy. And Pocket Gems would like to take advantage of a mobile social network. Discovery is still a large industry problem. Liu looks forward to seeing new social layers from companies such as Gree, Facebook, Apple, Google, Tencent and DeNA/Ngmoco.