Acton Stations
Mind Candy's Michael Acton Smith on Gaga drama, consoles and the future of Moshi
When GamesIndustry.biz last spoke to Michael Acton Smith, creator and CEO of Mind Candy, it seemed as if nothing could stop the entrepreneur or his wildly successful creation, the children friendly MMO Moshi Monsters.
When we caught up with him last week the game was still boasting an impressive 50 million registered users, and he was still keen to talk about his plans for the future, which are centred around turning his gang of monsters into an entertainment brand. But we also had to discuss the recent court battle between Mind Candy and the outrageous pop star Lady Gaga. A battle over the musical performances of Moshi Monsters parody character Lady GooGoo. A battle that Mind Candy lost.
It's been busy! The DS game has been incredible, we're releasing it next month, and the pre-order sales are just bonkers. It's the number one DS pre-order and on Amazon four of the top ten products for pre-order on video games are Moshi related. The styluses, there's a little pop-it carry case and whatnot, I can't quite believe what's going on there. So hopefully that will be a big seller this Christmas.
We're thinking about what console platforms to go on to next, and whether to do another DS game and what time scale. Mobile is really important for us, so we're building that team at the moment, Moshi TV is coming together very nicely, should hopefully launch that this year. We've got the drama with Lady Gaga which has been quite entertaining. Big story, gone all the way round the world, so we are in discussions there.
We're still going to release an album, probably early next year now, featuring music from some of our other characters in the world. I think that will be massive. And we're working on a live tour for next year to bring the musical characters into the real world.
And we've got a few completely new projects bubbling away at an early stage. We love Moshi, we think it has massive massive potential but we want to, over time, diversify Mind Candy and this is such an amazing moment to build huge new brands. In the future it won't necessarily be starting with TV show or film it'll start online. And we've got this incredible infrastructure, all these amazing people, all these relationships with partners, and it makes sense to spin up new properties.
I feel so much confidence building properties in the digital space, because even if you get it wrong the first time, it's like moulding clay, you can tweak it
A little, you never know what will happen. Again, I just feel so much confidence building properties in the digital space, because even if you get it wrong the first time, it's like moulding clay, you can tweak it and iterate and as long as your money doesn't run out and you still have faith you can get to that hook point where it suddenly clicks so much more easily than in the world of TV or film, or even traditional video games where it really is cross your fingers and hope it takes off.
Yes, I think it will be an amazing platform going forward. Because how frustrating it is if you've got an amazing idea, to try and get it on to traditional TV. The broadcasters want to take a huge chunk, that is even if you can get it on a platform, they control when it gets shown, you have to do this incredible delicate balancing act with the licensees and the broadcasters to make sure you're all synced up, and now just put it straight onto YouTube. Build an audience that way, and people are starting to do that. Or on a platform like iOS. I think it's a whole new exciting world out there.
We knew it was a little bit risky, but we took legal advice, and we were more confident that we'd win than not. I think a lot of people have been surprised by the judgement. I personally think the law in this area is too strict and there are people looking at it for review at the moment. I think it would have been fine in the US where parody is much more acceptable. I have a huge amount of respect for IP owners and Lady Gaga and other musicians and what they've done, but something that is an obvious parody and that's creative and enriches and delights a whole new audience I think is more positive. And it's not detracting from her sales or damaging her in my opinion, and so I think it was a bit frustrating. We shall see, who knows where it will all end up?