Frogster's Dirk Weyel

We believe that brand-building for our MMOs is a very important part of our marketing and long-term success. We try to build a brand and expand it within the community and within a larger crowd. I think if you look at Runes of Magic then you can say it's the first free-to-play MMO which has developed a brand awareness and a brand value within the MMO sphere.

So we try to build on that, to increase the stickiness of the community, and the credibility. We also have the specialist press behind it. It was difficult at the beginning because the opinion of many games journalists was that free-to-play means lower quality.

We tried to show them that it's just another business model. So we started to market the game with a premium branding approach. So we think that in order to be successful in the long run we need to build brands and have a clear positioning and a clear brand philosophy to build up the game.

It's a bit too early, I think. There are still some decisions to be made. I can say that we'll publish and operate it in Europe and North America at the same time. So the same territotries as Runes of Magic. It's a very important project for us, and we've already had some very positive feedback from the Chinese community.

But I can't disclose further details right now, it will take a few more weeks.

I think very much so, especially for the MMO market - because Korea is pretty much the mother country, but China has definitely picked up and there are definitely studios there that have the capacity to produce games of the same quality. It really makes sense to partner with the leading Chinese publisher and developer.

The right development partner is one of the key elements of the whole business. If you look at the new games you'll see that we always have a very detailed and intense look at the partner and developer and the relationship that we can build. These partnerships are intended to last for several years, so it's important to choose the right partner.

If we're working with such an ambitious and leading Chinese partner, that can only be a benefit for Frogster.

To be honest this is something I haven't really looked into, so I can't really give you an answer with any real depth. I've noticed it though, and it's on the list to have a look at it! [laughs]

We are looking at different opportunities to move to other platforms, yes. Which means that, firstly, I don't believe we should work on a handheld MMO, a standalone handheld MMO, but I definitely believe in the opportunities to go multiplatform in terms of adding applications for handhelds or mobiles which are directly connected to the MMO.

The core MMO is still played on the PC, but there are possibilities for the user to interact with the community or the item shop - certain features of the MMO, while in the road. I don't think we'd go for porting the whole MMO to handheld or tablet, or develop a standalone iPad MMO, but I think of we can expand the user experience to different platforms by giving him the chance to really get connected to the game and his friends and the community.