With more than 60 million downloads to date across all platforms, Cut The Rope is one the biggest international successes in mobile games. In March of 2011, Cut The Rope was lauded at the 7th British Academy Video Games Awards in the Hand-held game category. In June, it won an Apple Design Award for the iPhone platform at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference.
The game was created in 2010 by a small team of developers from Moscow, led by Efim Voinov and his twin brother Semyon. Efim spoke with East-West Digital News about the creative process in writing code and his plans for his company.
When and how did you come up with the idea of the game Cut the Rope? Was it inspired by some existing game or concept?
Cut the Rope actually grew out of the concept of ZeptoLab’s first iOS game, Parachute Ninja. We had ropes in Parachute Ninja, so we developed the rope engine, and spent a lot of time tweaking the way the ropes look and behave. Though excited about the design, our friends and family were confused by the controls. We came to the conclusion that it wasn’t visual enough, so we dropped the rope and replaced it with a parachute. Parachute Ninja was released in February 2010, and was a success, with the free version reaching the top 10 on the iTunes chart, and the paid version top 20.
We spent a long time working on the ropes’ physics however, and decided not to trash the rope engine. Instead, we made a game based around rope physics. As such, Cut the Rope was born.
How long did it take to develop it? How many resources have been required?
My brother, Semyon, and I developed Cut the Rope with very little money and even fewer resources. We’re very lucky to have a lot more people helping us now.
What are your success indicators (number of downloads, players or revenues generated?
The game has been downloaded more than 60 million times (across all versions and platforms). An average gameplay session lasts 3 minutes. Om Nom [the candy-obsessed monster] eats an average of 24 million candies per day.
That’s a lot of candy. What do you think the reasons are for this success?
While developing Cut the Rope, we knew we had something worthy, but of course we never expected this kind of enormous success. But now that we’ve seen it, we are working constantly! Our goal is not just to put out a lot of new titles and updates – we want to provide our users with quality updates, increasingly more strategic gameplay, and cute, fun new adventures for Om Nom or new characters. Our fans have been very loyal to us, and we work hard to continue to provide them with the same great quality gaming experience that they have grown accustomed to.
We also know our fans want to see something new. Our product calendar is loaded with updates for Cut the Rope and new game titles we’re experimenting with for 2012!
Have you developed, or do you intend to develop ancillary products?
Our goal is to extend Om Nom and Cut the Rope to as many places as possible. We are working on bringing the game to other platforms, including smart TVs, as well as mobile platforms such as RIM and Symbian.
We are also partnering with OEMs to bundle trial versions of the game on new tablets and devices. Some of our OEM partners include Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Amazon for the Kindle Fire.
We are also partnering with APE Entertainment to bring Om Nom’s story to life via a digital comic book that will be available as an iOS app. The first issue will be available soon.
On the merchandising side, we see tremendous opportunities to bring Om Nom into homes around the world. A limited number of plush toys were just recently released in about 30 U.S. retail outlets and we are expanding that presence with more retailers leading into the holiday shopping season. A variety of T-shirts are also available, and new items will be rolling out over the next several months.
2012 will be a huge year for Om Nom and you should expect to see him in many shapes, forms and sizes on a global scale!
How did your company growfrom almost nothing to where it is now?
ZeptoLab was created in 2009 by Semyon and me, and we currently have 12 full time employees plus contractors for development, marketing and merchandising. When we were 8, we received a British-made ZX Spectrum personal computer from our parents. We put the Spectrum to good use! We picked up programming and quickly graduated from playing games to designing our own.
While studying in university, we developed games in our spare time. We published some of our creations on a site called PalmGear.com. After we graduated in 2005, Misha Lyalin hired us to work at a gaming company he owned, Reaxion, where we gained experience developing for different mobile platforms. Later, we left Reaxion to form ZeptoLab.
At ZeptoLab, we created Parachute Ninja and then Cut the Rope, which gained immediate popularity and explosive growth. Nearly two years later, our little gaming company has grown six times over and we’re working nonstop to put the best games on the market.
Do you have investors? Can you disclose financial aspects?
That’s not something we’ll share, but we will say we’ve made enough money to happily continue making great games!
How many products are in your portfolio? Did you have any failures?
We’ve got Parachute Ninja, Cut the Rope, and Cut the Rope Experiments. We happily consider each of our games to be a great success! We continue to introduce new features and content to our existing games, as well as producing new ones. Stay tuned for more news coming soon!
• Efim Voinov is a mobile game developer with 9 years of experience. Born in Moscow, he started writing games at the age of 8, when his parents bought him at ZX Spectrum computer. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics, with a Master’s degree in Computer Science. While still a student, Efim had his own PalmOS development company, MuddyGlass, where he developed games and applications together with his brother Semyon. In 2009, the brothers founded ZeptoLab, where they developed the hit games Parachute Ninja and Cut the Rope. When not writing code, Efim enjoys driving motorbikes, snowboarding, and training in martial arts.
Mobile developers and publishers as well as many of their partners and clients are expected to attend the Moscow Mobile Developer Day, a major industry event held on Dec. 7 in Digital October.
