Bubble Gum Interactive on Digital Games Growth Path

Deputy Premier and Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Stoner has congratulated Sydney company Bubble Gum Interactive on its success with its online children’s game Little Space Heroes.

Little Space Heroes was only launched in December 2011 but Bubble Gum Interactive reports it is now being played by tens of thousands of children from over 50 countries. NSW Trade & Investment supported development of Little Space Heroes through the Interactive Media Fund.

“It’s great to see Bubble Gum Interactive gaining good traction in the market with its Little Space Heroes virtual universe online game,” Mr Stoner said.

“Little Space Heroes is a safe multiplayer virtual world for children played over the internet that allows players to create their own Space Hero and embark on an intergalactic adventure.

“The game has received positive reviews and endorsements, and is proving to be very popular.

“Bubble Gum Interactive is exploring further transmedia storytelling, marketing and sales opportunities around Little Space Heroes, with plans for mobile game development in2012.”

Based at Milsons Point, Bubble Gum Interactive’s Sydney employees have grown from five in January 2011 to 15 currently and the company is anticipating four to five more full-time positions by June 2012 contingent on a successful second round of capital raising to scale operations and continue to commercialise in various global markets.

“I congratulate the company for creating nine new jobs since June 2011,” Mr Stoner said.

“Bubble Gum Interactive is also engaging with education and industry, including working with the NSW Department of Education and Macquarie University to teach young people about game design.”

Bubble Gum Interactive Executive Producer and Founder Phil Mason said, “The NSW Government’s Interactive Media Initiative was a critical funding component in helping us build the foundations for Bubble Gum Interactive. Through their ongoing support we’re confident that we’ll take Little Space Heroes into a full, global entertainment service across multiple platforms.”

Media Contacts

Office of the Deputy Premier 9228 5209

Bubble Gum Interactive: info [at] bubbleguminteractive.com

Download .pdf version: http://www.bubbleguminteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NSW-Deputy-Premier-Release-Bubble-Gum-Interactive.pdf

Of course it’s important to assemble a great team. As you grow you’ll need to find talented, passionate and enthusiastic individuals to join you and you’ll certainly have a lot of fun working together.

To create Little Space Heroes, we have worked very hard to find and get to know smart people who can help us in our journey. Most of the key Bubble Gum team (who are some of the smartest people we know!) have worked together for many years on different projects, Phil and Paul worked together at Disney for example. Phil, Ant and Martina helped lead the development of the Coinland virtual world. While Garth and Phil worked together on a Nintendo 64 project almost 10 years ago! And for the new team members joining BGI, we look for really smart, energetic people, who are equally as passionate, fit with the team’s culture, and we provide mentoring and coaching to help them grow. Importantly they also help us grow, with new and fresh ideas and input!

What’s important however is to recognise that there are lots of other smart people who can give you advice. It’s important for an indie games company – or any startup for that matter – to surround themselves with smart people.

Obviously investors have play a critical role in providing the initial support a startup needs to get started. But beyond this contribution, investors can be some of your greatest sources of ideas, feedback and advice. Investors come with different backgrounds and experiences. Many will have experienced the same or similar issues that you face in your startup. Even if the product or industry is different, the learnings can be transferrable.

Investors also tend to have large and well established networks. Quite often they can make a simple phone call or flick an email to help secure an important meeting that would otherwise take you weeks or months to arrange.

You can also learn a lot from other people who work in your games space. Here at Bubble Gum Interactive we’ve worked very hard to develop relationships with other games developers, publishers, games journalists and bloggers and also with educational institutions and university faculties that focus on games design. As passionate and focused participants in our industry we get lots of ideas, inspiration and friendly support from our peers. We also make sure that we offer to help them too – a good relationship goes two ways.

Another very important group to engage with regularly is your fans and customers. Be they beta testers, early adopters or your full customer base, you need to regularly reach out to your fans to let them know that you’re listening and you’re interested in what they have to say. We’ve involved kids and parents from our earliest days through focus groups and user testing. We’ve made sure that we’re always contactable by customers and we provide lots of ways for them to give us their feedback. We respond to every single piece of customer feedback we receive – this is very important. And boy is it great to hear ideas from our fans, kids have such awesome imaginations, and you’d be surprised at some of the feedback we receive, from game ideas to marketing! Take a look at some of the ideas and suggestions our fans have sent in:

• “Hi Little Space Heroes, I finally became a member! I’ve now got some cool Kritterz and have been exploring the whole galaxy! I really like the band game, you should have more songs!” Alice
• “You should make toys! And sell ‘em at target” Josh
• “It would be nice to be able to send gifts to friends in the game.” Kara
• “You guys should make cartoons cause that would be awesome and I would tell everyone I know!” Caleb

Lastly its family and friends who can help give you perspective from an outside point of view. They’re the ones that you – as a busy startup founder – may not have as much time for as you should. They’re almost always very patient and because they see how hard you’re working from a distance they can give you some very interesting feedback and perspectives. Sometimes in the rush of the hard work it can be tough to see the forest for the trees. Talking to friends and family can help you refocus and re-energise.

In summary, it’s one thing to be smart yourself and another to have a great team. But you need to work hard to surround yourself with smart people who believe in what you’re doing and who can give you great insights, advice, counsel and understanding.

Who are your advisors and listeners? How do you reach out to them and involve then in your work? It’s worth trying because great ideas, feedback or help can often be just around the corner…

We have three game concepts, with the first being prototyped literally as I write this post! Tentatively titled Jetpack Explorer, the game sees the player take control of an intrepid Space Hero who travels through increasingly challenging levels in a mysterious subterranean cavern system.

Our brave space hero must search for lost Glows, the magical creatures that managed to escape from the dastardly Lord Shadowbot. The Glows are hidden throughout level-after-level of puzzling cave systems. Our hero can use a jetpack to travel through these caverns but it’s no easy mission. There are various obstacles to get past, traps and dead-ends to deal with, the ever present issue of a fuel canister (why can’t there by unlimited fuel in games!?!?) and of course having to get past Lord Shadowbot’s minions – the robot Nauts!

As you can tell, we’re extremely excited about our first foray together into the mobile gaming space, with the key team having previously worked on mobile and Nintendo DS titles in past lives. In creating the Little Space Heroes virtual universe, we’ve crafted a virtual world for kids under 12 that’s not only a safe, fun and inclusive online game for kids – it’s also a story driven experience filled with fun and adventure. We’ve sought to differentiate our games through investing in story – something we’re all passionate about. Little Space Heroes has all the makings of a classic space opera tale – brave heroes, maniacal villains, curious aliens, exotic planets, incredible starjets and a roller coaster ride of high-stakes adventure!

Thanks to our incredibly talented development team, we’ve been able to create what we think is a pretty awesome prototype game experience. We’re very excited about this new game – not only will it be a lot of fun to play, it will also provide a new way for our growing base of Little Space Heroes fans to enjoy the story, with some of our more excited fans having already written in asking for mobile games, toys and other Little Space Heroes merchandise and goodies!

We’ll be sharing more news about our mobile games… and some other exciting stuff very soon!

Our first mobile game prototype in development!

Ethan working on the game

Our new Space Hero Code reflects our continual focus to make our galaxy safe, fun and inclusive for everyone. We believe that gaming experiences can be positive experiences. Bubble Gum Interactive has always taken a proactive focus when it comes to making sure Little Space Heroes is secure and exciting for everyone. Right from our earliest days we involved kids, parents and teachers in the design of Little Space Heroes.

We know that parents want their kids to play in safe, positive and inclusive environments, and that kids want to have fun. We also know that kids like to test boundaries – it’s a natural part of growing up.

We’ve worked very hard to build in multiple safety features, tools and have a team of specialist in-house moderators to ensure the game is always safe and suitable. We’ve listened to players and parents to understand more of their thoughts and ideas on how best to encourage good behaviour in virtual worlds for kids. We think that empowering kids to learn how to be true heroes through positive behaviour can make the game experience that much better for everyone.

Our new Hero Code has been distilled into two main focal points: player safety and player behaviour. The new Code reflects our commitment to adventure and enthusiastic behaviour, focusing on bravery, loyalty, and helpfulness, as well as adventure and courage, honesty and a lack of cheating.

Little Space Heroes is all about cultivating creativity and fun through a culture of respect and acceptance. As always safety is our foremost concern and we’ve encouraged our young heroes to never share their personal information and to help stop others from doing so. After all, a true hero never reveals their true identity!

We also use the Hero Code to point out what behaviour is not cool – that is, actions that can have a negative effect on others. Just like in the real world, kids sometimes need to be reminded on how to play fair, take turns, treat others with respect, never bully or be mean to others and to work together to have fun. We hope that this helps to reinforce real-life skills they’re learning at home and at school.

We really enjoy seeing our players when they’re upholding the principles of the Space Hero Code. They might be helping a new player start out, working collaboratively on quests, taking turns in awesome minigames and exploring the galaxy together. It’s a massive universe for our intrepid Space Heroes to discover together. We hope that the Space Hero Code helps make the experience even more fun and awesome for all our players!

The Space Hero Code

A great hero is all of the following:

• A peace keeper and friend to all, always ready to help others!
• Never forgets it’s our differences that make us fantastic.
• Is adventurous, courageous and stands up to bullies like Lord Shadowbot
• A great hero is honest, plays fair and always does the right thing.
• A great hero respects the universe and would never try to steal or cheat.
• And, like all super heroes, a great hero never reveals their true identity!

Parents – you can learn more about the Space Hero Code, our Safety features and more at our Parents page.

We’ve decided to pull together some of the wonderful things that people have said about Little Space Heroes. There’s comments from parents, journalists, bloggers, researchers, educators and of course kids! You can download our media coverage report or read on below to see what’s been said. You can also keep up with the latest coverage at our Kudos page! http://www.littlespaceheroes.com/kudos.do

Got something you’d like to add? Please share it in our comments, we love to hear your thoughts!

What journalist and bloggers say about Little Space Heroes

”Playing in its world provides you with that child-like wonder reserved for Christmas Days and surprises and get-togethers with people you care about. The game has that ‘feel’ to it – about being somewhere that’s positive and magical. The vibrancy of the setting combines with the magic of a world crafted for younger minds to create an experience that is extremely memorable, and hard to replicate anywhere else” Save Game Online

“Little Space Heroes is not just another online virtual world – it’s an online virtual universe. With multiple planets and a fun mode of travel between them, it’s bigger, better and promises more fun than most other virtual worlds out there today!” Family Friendly Video Games

“Don’t wait another second, Little Space Heroes is a free online game that any kid simply must try.” MMO Games

“The colors and character models are eye candy for kids and will definitely make them feel as if they’ve stepped into the Sunday comics section of the newspaper. Even the animations like waving are adorably cute and liberally used… Little Space Heroes is definitely for kids and a game that the littlest astronauts will enjoy playing while sharing a keyboard with Mom or Dad.” MMORPG.com

“Little Space Heroes is ambitious, however it seems that Bubble Gum Interactive is more than capable of creating a deep and fun experience for a market that is often bombarded with educational puzzle games. Offering younger players a vast and exciting galaxy to explore with their friends in real-time is a novel idea, and one that we think is really going to take off!” MMGN

Little Space Heroes was featured on Good Game Spawn Point, Australia’s most popular gaming show for kids. Watch the Little Space Heroes preview on ABC TV. ABC Good Game Spawn Point

“Little Space Heroes is an awesome online virtual universe. It lets you and your mates create your own characters and set off on an epic adventure to defeat the evil space pirate, Lord Shadowbot. It’s an amazing new universe to explore – rated MEGA!” HedzUp Magazine Issue 3

“Create your own Space Hero! Your children can enjoy a fun and safe online game full of fun and adventure. Kids get to personalise their hero, make new friends, adopt a pet Glow, fly around in their jetpacks and explore a universe full of amazing planets.” KidSpot

What parents and educators say about Little Space Heroes

“The whole concept of being a space hero in a vast universe is incredibly well done and will appeal to kids ages 5-12.” Dan Nessel from the Dad Does Blog

“Both of my kids thoroughly enjoyed the game! They loved the fun, colorful graphics and getting to create their own characters. They really liked learning how to use their jet packs so they could zip around through the galaxy. Little Space Heroes kept them both entertained for an afternoon so that I could get some much needed rest!” Jennifer from the Experimental Mommy Blog

In Little Space Heroes, you get to create your own hero and blast off on an intergalactic adventure. This online, interactive multiplayer game features character personalisation, pets, quests and missions and the opportunity to play with kids from all around the world.” Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

“My daughter loves Little Space Heroes. The characters and story are great fun and she really enjoys playing all the games with her friends.” Jordan

“It’s refreshing to see a game age appropriate and fun. The graphics are great and the concept is fantastic. Both my son and daughter really like it.” Belinda

“My 8 year old son really enjoys the game. I think it is ideal for young kids who like to explore and like to play games without it being too difficult for them!!” Julia

“It’s nice to see Little Space Heroes providing a place for kids online that is both safe and fun!” Bec

What kids say about Little Space Heroes

“I like how you can do anything you want and use your imagination.” Mitchell, 9

“It’s a fun game. You make your own hero and go on adventures!” Zara, 6

“It’s fantastic! You go to different worlds and explore!” Jessica, 9

“You guys are awesome! I think Little Space Heroes is really sweet!” Alex, 10

“You get a jetpack and a space ship and you go to different planets.” Nick, 7

“I really like it. You create a hero, get a jet pack, fly into space… how many favourite things can I have?” Ryan, 11

As part of our partnership with Telstra, Australian kids can score exclusive in-game virtual items and go into the draw to win an iPod Touch and other awesome prizes.

The takeover is live all day today Sunday 15^th January but here’s a screenshot below in case you miss it. You can learn more about the exclusive offers for Telstra BigPond users here: http://www.gamearena.com.au/shop/games/promotions/little-space-heroes.php

With the takeover concluding on the 15th, BigPond has now added a button to their home page for today – Monday 16th January. Check it out!

We are thrilled to announce that Little Space Heroes has been awarded with a ‘Best in Class’ Interactive Media Award.

In order to achieve an award at this level, the Little Space Heroes web site had to meet a number of strict criteria in areas of design, content, feature functionality and cross-browser usability. With a near perfect score of 488 out of 500 we are absolutely stoked! – Such an achievement is only awarded to a small fraction of sites in the IMA competition.

It’s truly fantastic to be awarded with an achievement of this calibre and we can tell you there were more than a few high fives in the office when we heard the news!

The team at Bubble Gum is committed to delivering an outstanding customer experience and we have designed our website to be fun and visually appealing but also practical, easy-to-navigate and accessible. We like to think we’ve covered all bases, from well categorised and searchable Frequently Asked Questions to concise and clear writing that works for kids and parents as well as lots of engaging art and illustrations. This award is a huge credit to the Bubble Gum team and its commitment to creating a safe and fun virtual space for kids and families worldwide.

About the Interactive Media Awards

The Interactive Media Awards recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honour individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. Created by the Interactive Media Council, Inc., a non-profit organization of leading web designers, developers, programmers, advertisers and other web-related professionals, the competition seeks to elevate the standards of excellence on the Internet.

See what all the fuss is about at www.littlespaceheroes.com and sign up for excitement, adventure, and most of all, fun, today!

It was 10th January 2010 and as we stepped in to the hot and echoey office I’m sure each of us wondered just what on earth we were doing. We’d all quit full-time regular jobs to take a chance to pursue a dream – to create an incredible new virtual universe for kids and families worldwide. We had ideas, we had concepts, we had a clunky prototpye but there is a big gap between that and a fully functional game!

Today marks one year since we started and what a crazy adventure it’s been! We were able to cap off 2011 by globally launching Little Space Heroes and we’re pleased to say we now have tens of thousands of kids from over 100 countries playing the game. In addition we’ve secured glowing reviews from game journalists, parenting sites and parent bloggers. We’ve validated our efforts to make sure that the game is not only fun but also safe and inclusive – in 2011 we secured an E for Everyone ESRB rating and a PEGI-OK rating. We also received a Family Friendly Video Games Seal of Approval which is nice and shiny and golden…

From those first days of just a handful of people sitting on the floor and working on our own laptops with dodgy 3G wireless internet we’ve grown to a studio with a team of 20 people – game designers and developers, programmers and artists, business-folk and a team of community moderators. Oh, and we have proper internet now!

Here’s what some of our founding team have to say as we celebrate our birthday and journey to date and we look forward to an incredible year ahead:

“The journey has been a really interesting one, and I guess one of the most inspirational things for me (apart from all the great feedback from kids and parents) has been building and mentoring our awesome team… we’ve got a great company culture and a world class team… and it’s the collaboration and positive attitude from everyone that’s really made this happen… I’m super proud of our collective achievements and we’ve really hit all our milestones to create an amazing virtual universe experience… go team!” Phil Mason, Executive Producer and Technology Director

“The most challenging for me obviously was formulating the admin side of the business from transfer pricing to share issue and capital raising. The most interesting part has been working with so many talented people from artists to biz dev and marketing, tech developers and our moderators. Personally, the most fun thing for me was the focus groups and game testing we ran in Tassie – mixing with kids and parents at the grass roots level was fantastic” Leigh Harrison, CEO

“The most rewarding for me has been the whole development experience – from brainstorming together with a whiteboard, planning through ideas, frantically working away like mad and then seeing kids have fun as they play.”  - Martina Kainberger, Server Side Development Lead

“What excites me most is hearing kids talk about Little Space Heroes – in person, in-game and via messages to our team, kids are telling us just how much fun they’re having in creating their hero and exploring the galaxy with new friends. Its’ very inspiring to know that kids are enjoying the game and we love to hear their ideas. I love seeing the creativity of our fans and am currently enjoying seeing all fan sites and pages that are springing up online!” - Paul Alex Gray, Director of Community

“After a marathon year I’m looking forward to finally locking down the framework! More importantly I want to introduce even more fun interactive multiplayer games into the virtual universe for the kids to enjoy!” – Anthony Tambrin, Client Side Development Lead

Here’s to another fantastic year in 2012!

First day in the empty office – casual dress code always applies here!

Another busy day developing, designing, moderating and working!

Members of the moderator team with Little Space Heroes wall graphics

We know that kids love creative activities too and we’re excited to announce a whole bunch of cool new Little Space Heroes papercraft activities. All of these are FREE to download from our website at http://www.littlespaceheroes.com/freeStuff.do

Here’s what’s available:

• Papercraft Heroes: Print out these craft sheets and you can create your own 3D Space Hero! There’s the Boy hero, Girl Hero and Alien Hero as well as some of our most famous heroes – Ace, Kira and Professor Q. These full-color designs just need to be cut out and fastened together with glue or tape. Print them on thicker paper to make them truly awesome!
• Coloring Sheets: Four different designs featuring scenes from the game. Just print out and get coloring!
• Hanging Mobiles: We’ve made a hanging mobile that’s truly out of this world! With the major planets from the Little Space Heroes galaxy as well as moons, shooting stars, heroes and starjets, you can create a mobile to hang in your bedroom!

• Cut-out Masks: Just cut these out and attach with string. Voila! You’re a real-life Space Hero! Choose a Boy hero, Girl hero, Alien hero or our super-star pilot Kira!
• Printout stickers: Create your own Little Space Heroes stickers! All you need is a sheet of sticker paper! Get printing and start sticking!
• Desktop wallpapers: After all that creative fun if you just want to sit back and soak in some awesomeness you can download one of four computer desktop wallpaper designs!

Remember, all of these crafty activities are completely free! They feature lots of characters, creatures, planets and starjets from our free virtual world for kids. Get creative http://www.littlespaceheroes.com/freeStuff.do

If you create some cool colorings, awesome papercraft heroes or deck out your room with a galactic hanging mobile then we’d love to see it! Parents can send in pictures to us via our Help Page.

Have fun!

SYDNEY, Australia – 21^st December 2011 – Bubble Gum Interactive and WALLS 360 today launched an exclusive collection of Little Space Heroes Wall Graphics, featuring characters, planets, starjets and creatures from the highly anticipated new virtual universe for kids.

“Bubble Gum Interactive has created a visually stunning new online game for kids with Little Space Heroes,” according to Yiying Lu, Co-Founder and Creative Director at WALLS 360, the on-demand wall graphics company. “And the characters and graphics look absolutely AMAZING on real-world walls!  Little Space Heroes uniquely and wonderfully immerses kids in a virtual world of intergalactic adventures, and WALLS 360 is excited to help bring these new stories to life!”

“Kids and families worldwide are embracing the fun and adventure of Little Space Heroes” said Paul Gray, Community Director at Bubble Gum Interactive. “These awesome new high-tech wall graphics from WALLS 360 give kids a creative and engaging way to tell their own space-age stories – right on their own bedroom walls!”

Little Space Heroes is a free-to-play online game for kids and families available at www.LittleSpaceHeroes.com. Players create their own hero, strap on their jetpacks, fire up their starjets and blast off on an intergalactic adventure. Featuring character personalisation, solo and team gameplay, pets, quests, player homes and community activities, Little Space Heroes offers an immersive and ever-evolving gaming experience. Rated E for Everyone and PEGI Ok, Little Space Heroes has multiple safety features built-in to the experience and it has secured the Family Friendly Videogames Seal of Approval.

Little Space Heroes Wall Graphics from Walls 360 are available worldwide via http://www.walls360.com/little-space-heroes-wall-graphics-s/2292.htm.

About Bubble Gum Interactive
http://www.bubbleguminteractive.com

Bubble Gum Interactive is an independent game development studio headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Our mission is to create compelling and engaging gaming experiences with a focus on creativity, quality and entertainment value that help kids discover every day. Our first game, Little Space Heroes is a virtual universe in which players create their own hero and explore a galaxy full of fun and adventure.

About Walls 360

http://www.walls360.com

WALLS 360 creates amazing wall graphics for artists, designers, photographers, and brands from around the world.

• WALLS 360 wall graphics are printed on-demand at high-resolution with premium 8-color UltraChrome® GS digital inks, for stunning color gamut and accuracy.
• WALLS 360 wall graphics are created using a premium re-positionable fabric material that will stick to almost any surface – from walls and windows to ceilings and around corners.
• WALLS 360 wall graphics are self-adhesive, easy to install, and can be removed and re-hung hundreds of times without losing adhesion, leaving a mark, or damaging surfaces.
• WALLS 360 wall graphics are created in the United States, and shipped globally from our (new!) state-of-the-art on-demand wall graphics production facility in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Download .pdf version: http://www.bubbleguminteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/LSH_Walls360_Launch_FINAL.pdf