Article: Foster Business School
A throwback from the early days of Boomzap – the Foster Business school wanted to see how I was doing. Fun fact: I actually ran Boomzap through the UW Business Plan competition. Twice. We lost. To my knowledge we’re the only company from either year’s competition still alive. So… that’s worth something, I guess…
Boomzap’s “Awakening” is a casual gaming hit
Christopher Natsuume has skin in the game. Literally. To raise cash for his nascent casual game company, a semi-finalist team in the 2007 Business Plan Competition, he once sacrificed several swatches on the back of his neck to a trial for an experimental cancer treatment.
Today Boomzap generates sufficient revenue to keep Natsuume (MBA 2007)—and his 29 employees—living comfortably without forfeiting so much as an ounce of flesh. It’s the largest casual game developer in Southeast Asia, influential enough to draw top talent and the attention of major game distributors but just small and funky enough to call itself an independent.
After a string of solid downloadable games fueling slow, but steady growth, Boomzap created a blockbuster this past February in Awakening: The Dreamless Castle. “That changed everything,” Natsuume says. “Publishers suddenly wanted to do business with us, our asking price went up, our catalog of existing games spiked.”
A bona fide industry player, Boomzap leaves the distribution and marketing to the big game publishers such as Seattle’s Big Fish Games. And Natsuume’s team focuses on game development—which is important, since success in the industry is ephemeral. Boomzap has already launched the sequel to Awakening, plus a promising new adventure called Pirates Plundarrr for the Nintendo Wii.
But Natsuume’s most innovative contribution may be Boomzap itself, a cohesive but completely virtual operation. With nowhere to call headquarters, Natsuume splits time between Seattle and Yokohama, employing developers in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Siberia who collaborate via Skype, MSN and Basecamp. He pays well (a “Singapore wage”—best in the region), offers advancement, and builds deep loyalty.
“We make some good products,” Natsuume says. “But what I’m really proud of is that we’ve created this enormous opportunity for people in Southeast Asia that just didn’t exist before.”
Check it out: www.boomzap.com