Winner Best New Business 2010
While studying at university together Simon Joslin, Tom Killen and Matt Clark dreamed that one day they would start an independent studio to allow them to design computer games and applications for mobile phones that would be both fun and addictive. After two years at separate companies and winning the 48-hour game making competition for two years consecutively, they knew it was time to make the move. On relocation to Melbourne, they found themselves part of the NEIS Program at RMIT.These three are talented programmers and designers, who set out to make games that execute a simple idea really well so that players can get the most out of the game almost instantly. They discovered, however, that being in business is not quite the same!
"Before we studied the NEIS course, we paid little attention to the marketing side of our business, and the consequences of that ignorance became immediately obvious," said Simon. "Fortunately, the NEIS course was able to drive home the importance of marketing and how critical it is - right from day one, all the way to post launch."
"We now spend about 40% of our time and money on marketing, and we use our slowly growing marketing experience to hone our releases, one at a time, always doing better than the last," added Tom.
"The mentoring has also been extremely helpful," said Matt. "Having a mentor with marketing experience especially has helped us get that extra 5%. And in the highly competitive mobile-games industry, that edge makes all the difference."
The Voxel Agents have hit the ground running, and their hard work and passion has been rewarded with numerous titles such as the designers of the iPhone Game of the Year 2009, and having had the top selling iPad application at various times in 2010. They admit when starting out they had hoped to be overnight millionaires, but NEIS prepared them for the sheer amount of work involved with running a company.
Now they still plan to be millionaires, but can see the long path that will get them there thanks to NEIS!
