Meet Colin Rowe, Co-Founder of Stick Sports and pioneer of the free-to-play mobile game mechanic.

Now turning his sights on the revolutionary power of blockchain and the potential to radically transform gameplay, starting with a title from the popular Stick Cricket franchise.

Mobile Games Expertise

Q: You’re known as a free-to-play pioneer. What are the three most important lessons you learned in those early years of game development?
C.R: 1.Gameplay is king! Your game can look great but if it’s not fun to play it will most likely fail. 2. Find your niche. Find a place in the market that differentiates you from the pack and dominate that space. 3. Organic growth. Your players are the best marketers for your game. Find ways for them to share your game. Let them become evangelists for your game.

Q: What makes a great free-to-play mobile game great?
C.R: Addictive gameplay in frequent short sessions. Having a really addictive game loop wrapped up in a compelling meta-game is ideal. Being able to play very short games many times per day. Mobile games are time fillers.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge for games publishers today?
‘Discovery’ has got to be the biggest challenge. Marketing your game to potential gamers is getting more difficult as the mobile game market matures and the big publishers dominate the headlines with their large budgets. Being discovered is hard!

Q: What games do you think are paving the way in the mobile games world?
It’s really hard to go past Clash Royale and even Fortnite’s dominance on all platforms. We see 8 Ball Pool and Golf Clash doing really great things in the competitive sports category. Multiplayer games are certainly at the forefront at the moment. That said, ‘Hyper Casual’ games have been flooding the market providing really addictive short-term single player experiences ever since Flappy Bird exploded onto the scene.

Blockchain, the Next Big Thing

Q: There’s lots of utopian talk around what blockchain could achieve for society. What do you see as its greatest potential?
Trust. If Blockchain is to achieve its potential in society I hope that it’s decentralised and immutable ledger provides trust in ownership and transactions.

Blockchain-Enabled Stick Cricket

Q: As a doyen of free-to-play you have spent so much time finessing the user journey of your games. How will you apply this to the blockchain (element)?
This will be a great challenge. We have always strived to achieve sharp and snappy gameplay in all of our titles. We seek short loading times, use minimal cut scenes, have no unnecessary screen taps to navigate through screens. We will seek to integrate the blockchain elements only where they are absolutely necessary and strive to do this in the most frictionless manner possible.

An Indian Innings

Q: You’re releasing your game to coincide with the Indian Premier League. What’s great about the IPL?
When Stick Cricket was launched in 2004 nobody had heard about T20 cricket. The Stick Cricket game introduced users to slogging sixes with unrealistic frequency. When professional T20 matches gained popularity a few years later life began to imitate art and ‘Stick Cricket’ became a verb to describe big-hitting batting performances in real life. The T20 format of cricket best aligns with Stick Cricket and the IPL is the world’s richest, most prestigious, most supported T20 tournament.

Q: Why are you focussing on an Indian market?
Over the past decade, we have achieved unimaginable levels of success in Australia, United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand with our free cricket games. We feel that it’s the right time to focus on India. We love the passion for cricket in India. India is the biggest cricket market and fastest growing mobile phone market in the world.

Q: Who’s your standout Indian player?
Sachin Tendulkar with always be the ‘Little Master’ but Virat Kohli is far and away the best Indian player of this generation. Rohit Sharma is the most explosive batsman in India in my opinion. Both of these players have lent their name to Stick Cricket in the past. I really like Hardik Pandya. He’s a cool dude with a great future.

Q: Do you think he’d enjoy the game?

I think Hardik Pandya would love Stick Cricket. It’s fun, sensational and quite skilful — just like him.

Getting to Know You

Q: What gets you out of bed in the morning?
C.R: Making games for a living is a dream job — it gets me going. Being able to support my family by doing something that I love is a privilege that I don’t take for granted. When I’m not working it’s cricket, cycling and golf.

Q: What book are you reading right now? Any good?
C.R: I’m not much of a reader but the last book I read was ‘Tea and no Sympathy’. It’s written by a Twitter parody account called The Grade Cricketer. It’s very funny, even ridiculous, and relatable to an amateur cricketer like myself.

Q: Which three people are around your dream dinner table?
C.R: I’m not much of a storyteller myself but do I like to listen, learn and have a laugh. It would be entertaining to bring together some strong-minded individuals who have each achieved enormous success but who can have a laugh. Successful people who’ve come from humble beginnings with rich personal stories and some controversy to spice things up. My three: Ricky Gervais, Lance Armstrong and Dwayne Johnson.

Q: Proudest career achievement?
C.R: Changing my career midway. Becoming a self-taught game developer and partnering in a successful business venture on the back of that for more than a decade now.

Quick-fire Cricket Qs

Q: Silly-mid-on or sweeper?
C.R: Sweeper. Stand back and take in the whole picture from a distant perspective and be able to protect the team from a defensive position. I’m not aggressive nor am I a risk taker but I’ll happily take that spectacular outfield catch that makes the highlights reel.

Q: Best cricket sledge of all time?
C.R: While playing cricket myself I was fielding in the ‘Slips’ near our wily old wicketkeeper. A young guy was batting. He tried to belt the ball out of the park with a hefty swing of the willow but missed completely and the ball sailed past him and into the gloves of our wicketkeeper who remarked, “that shot is a lot easier to play on the Xbox isn’t it mate!”

Q: All time favourite cricketer?
C.R: So many heroes! It’s difficult to choose just one but it would have to be a big-hitting batsman. Any player that makes you stop what you’re doing and watch is a favourite. For me, the entertainers were Adam Gilchrist, Sanath Jayasuriya, AB de Villiers, Virender Sehwag and Chris Gayle.

If Stick Sports were a cricketer who would it be and why?

Chris Gayle, the Universe Boss! Strong and focused with sublime timing. A crowd pleaser who entertains. An elite player who knows when to get serious and also knows how to enjoy himself…but we could never match his dance moves!

To learn more about Stick Sports’ upcoming blockchain-enabled game visit cricket.sticksports.io

#BringYourOwnBat

Chat with us!

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/stickcricket/

Telegram: https://t.me/sticksportsofficial