Wooga’s Jens Begemann on making the transition from social to mobile games (interview)

Berlin-based Wooga made a big splash in social games with casual hits like Bubble Island, Monster World, and Diamond Dash. But making the switch from Facebook games to mobile wasn’t easy for the 5-year-old company. It had a false start with a game in the HTML5 format, the lingua franca of the web, and shifted gears.

But Jens Begemann, the chief executive of Wooga, kept at it. Last fall, the company launched Jelly Splash, which became a monster hit, as did Pearl’s Peril. Now 70 percent of the company’s revenues come from mobile, and revenues are double what they were a year ago. With a refined process for making games, Begemann believes the company can keep growing with about two hits a year.