Oz Developer Watch: 3RD Sense

Oz Developer Watch is back this month with Sydney-based studio 3RD Sense. Founded in London in 2002, 3RD Sense opened up a local branch in July 2003, and now employs 18 staff locally. It’s dedicated to making casual market PC games, which it sells on a "try before you buy" basis. We had a chat with 3RD Sense CEO Colin Cardwell about the studio’s selling strategies and its past games.

3RD Sense began as a niche advertising agency developing video games for brands to use as promotional tools. After developing a few titles this way, the company then set up Fizzy.com, a platform for distributing titles from both 3RD Sense and other developers. With over 1 million visitors a month, Fizzy.com has a growing member base--its appeal is in allowing other developers a simple solution for publishing their titles.

To date, 3RD Sense has developed around 16 downloadable casual PC titles, all sold on a "try before you buy" basis from Fizzy.com. Each game sells for around AU$15-20. The studio has also developed more than 60 free-to-play Flash games.

“We were tiny, and now we are just small,” 3RD Sense CEO Colin Cardwell said. “However, we are slowly growing--the company more than doubled in revenue last year, with similar growth levels expected this year. Casual games are a good place to be.”

One of the most popular 3RD Sense game series is the Swords & Sandals series--a 2D turn-based combat game with role-playing game elements that puts you in the shoes of a customisable gladiator who must fight other gladiators to win skill points and currency. There’s also Pirate Cove, a 30-level platformer; Hawaiian Runner, a 2D racer; and Exmortis, a three-part point-and-click horror adventure series set in a postapocalyptic world. The studio’s most popular territories are the US, followed by the UK and across Western Europe. Cardwell says that a developer cannot afford to limit itself to just one market.

“There is money to be made, and you can’t limit yourself to a single market. Australia is just too small a market, and the Web allows us to be fully global. Australia has a great future, as long as developers don’t think they should be developing just for Australia. You have to develop games that will have worldwide appeal. It sounds like a good idea to make an NRL game, but you’ll be more successful making a soccer game every time.”

For Cardwell and his studio, the casual market has been a great place to strike it rich.

“You have to be creative and think in business terms. Casual games are a great space to get into; they cost far less to develop and can appeal to a wider market. My team loves doing what they do, and it shows in the games they make.”

On the horizon, 3RD Sense is going to continue investing time and money into Fizzy.com and the Fizzy Games Developers Network, which allows Flash developers to self-publish their titles.

“If they have a great idea and can make the game, this is a way of getting it to market and making some serious cash while cutting out the middle man.”