Pair set to launch world first in mobile phone gaming

http://www.business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=901982003

Sun 17 Aug 2003


Developing industry: Jim Woods, left, and Kevin Bradshaw say they are focusing on quality to set their games apart from the rest in a rapidly expanding market.
Picture: Jacky Ghossein

Pair set to launch world first in mobile phone gaming

DOUGLAS FRIEDLI
dfriedli@scotlandonsunday.com

TWO of Scotland’s top technology entrepreneurs will tomorrow launch the world’s first publishing house for mobile phone games. Rocket Dog was set up by Kevin Bradshaw, the founder and former chief executive of Digital Bridges, and Jim Woods, the former development director of DMA Design.

The Dundee company plans to release one mobile phone game every month. It will differentiate itself from other providers by guaranteeing the quality of its games. If successful, Rocket Dog will make Scotland a key player in the mobile gaming market, forecast to grow to £1bn a year by 2007 in Europe alone. Its first game, Go! Go! Digger - "a cross between a digging game and Minesweeper" - recently went on sale in Asia.

Bradshaw, Rocket Dog’s chief executive, helped Dunfermline-based Digital Bridges raise more than £20m in equity funding and become a leader in mobile games distribution. He said: "I feel the timing is just right. The mobile gaming market is at a point where original content is going to become valuable and profitable."

Woods, Rocket Dog’s chief operating officer, ran DMA Design’s development team when it created the blockbuster game Grand Theft Auto. Woods said: "Kevin and I have been discussing setting this up for the best part of a year. We are focusing on the quality end of the market - by doing that, it will set our games apart from the others."

Rocket Dog will also sell lower-priced games under the Cookie Jar brand, which Woods described as "the equivalent of everyone else’s games". The management team also includes Julian Jones, who set up Europe’s first mobile gaming television channel, TX1, as business development director. Two former Digital Bridges managers, Paul Comben and Brian Baglow, have joined as vice president of licensing and VP of marketing respectively. Baglow said: "What the mobile industry is suffering from is a flood of poor-quality games.


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