Jim Darling joins Kwalee as Chairman

Kwalee ( http://kwalee.com/ ) are very fortunate indeed that Jim Darling has agreed to bring his considerable expertise to the company in the role of Company Chairman. This is a major boost to the management structure and a big step in getting the startup further along the road to being a thriving commercial organisation. Jim is no stranger to technology and to startups, with experience in the contact lens business in both the UK and Canada. Whilst working in his own business in Canada he designed and put into production the first disposable contact lenses. In the video game industry Jim was instrumental in running Galactic Software, set up in 1982, with his sons. A game development company which was a great success and which produced and sourced games, including the industry's first proper Games Designer. He then joined his sons in setting up Codemasters in 1986 so as to become a publisher in their own right. This rapidly grew to become a world class game publisher with Jim as its Chairman, a role he only relinquished on the successful sale of the company in 2007. Jim is widely known and highly respected throughout the game industry, at Kwalee he brings strategic vision and commercial guidance, both areas where he has vast and highly successful experience. Whist this is a non executive role, he will still be making a considerable commitment to the business and is very keen to act as the company ambassador to a wider world. David Darling, Kwalee founder and CEO, is obviously very pleased to have Jim on board: “Obviously I have worked with my father, Jim, all my life so I know just how good he is at what he does. When he agreed to join us as Chairman I knew that it would be a massive help to our commercial success. Many people do not realise what a huge role he played in our earlier businesses and at Kwalee I am sure that he will bring us skills and abilities that nobody else has.” Jim is looking forward to the new challenges: “So far this reminds me very much of the budget 8 bit computer game market, with the benefits of instant global online sales and distribution. There is a clear need to differentiate Kwalee and its products from the competition which is something that David and his team are well capable of doing.”

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The story of the Kwalee brand

When David Darling decided to set up a new smartphone app company he needed to name it. That name required several characteristics. It had to be personal to him, it should be unique and distinctive and it needed to have a broader meaning. David's mother, Marilyn, was Australian, descended from Captain Edward Primrose Tregurtha and David spent his early life growing up in the country, where the family had a long established interest in Aboriginal culture. David's grandfather was an electronics engineer who introduced David to this area of technology, creating a lifetime's enthusiasm. Kwalee was the name of David's grandfather's sailing boat on which David spent many happy days as a child. The boat was named after the Australian Aboriginal word for “wait for me”, a message David wants to convey to the millions of app users around the world. He hopes that it will be well worth the wait for the apps that the company promises to deliver. The use of a hand print for the icon works on so many levels. Smartphone apps use gesture interfaces controlled by the human hand so what could be more significant for an app company than a print of a human hand? It humanises the company and is friendly, which is indicative of Kwalee's key value of putting the customer experience first. Kwalee is made of individual people and its customers are individual people. It portrays the exact body language of “wait for me”. It is intended that later iterations of the icon are animated to further illustrate this. It pays homage to Aboriginal art and so to the origin of Kwalee's name and to David's Australian heritage.  Aboriginal rock art and cave paintings often depicted ‘hand’ symbols.  Their art had a   spiritual, magical meaning.  Arthur C. Clark said;  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. One of the aims of Kwalee is to encourage user-generated content. It is therefore fitting to portray a hand as we create, make and share things with our hands. The image is distinctive and unique and so will be instantly recognisable, at very small as well as very large sizes. Of course there is far more to a visual brand than just the name, icon and logo. To this end Kwalee have used the services of top visual brand experts David James Design Ltd, to advise and give their input into such matters as sub brand progression, colour palettes and fonts, as we. David James Design Ltd brand notes: The Aboriginal word Kwalee, means ‘wait for me’. It suggested to us, the idea of ‘waiting for a loved one’ and the visual of a waving hand. This led to the creation of a handprint as the brand symbol. A handprint retains the natural and organic essence of people rather than the stylized simplified icons of corporations. We think this is appropriate for Kwalee as smartphone apps are operated by hand on hand held devices.  The angle of the handprint proved critical, if it were if too vertical, it implies ‘stop’, so by gently angling the hand it suggests a friendly waving hand. Equally as important was to retain the natural human qualities of a handprint, whilst creating a flexible vector based symbol that could easily be implemented on both screen and print. The orientation of the handprint posed the question, should we use a left or right hand? We finally decided a left hand looked more natural. Subliminally, we think this is due to the fact that most people are right handed and wave with their right hands. Interestingly, however, when looking at a person waving their right hand, you actually view a left hand. The brand mark is based on the font Aller Bold. This modern sans serif was selected to complement the weight and curves of the handprint. The vibrant yellow colour was selected to clearly differentiate the Kwalee brand in a marketplace predominantly containing red brand marks. Kwalee is an original and pioneering App developer and publisher based in Leamington Spa, United Kingdom.

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Turn failed apps into commercial success

The facts cannot be argued with, there are nearly half a million iOS apps, yet only a relatively small number are commercial successes, the vast majority fail. Yet the ones that fail can be largely just as good as the ones that succeed and are only failing because one area of the product offering lets it down.

The reasons for failure are many and can include game tuning, price point, marketing, graphics quality, volume of content, lack of multiplayer or social features etc. Often it is just a matter of polishing.

Now Kwalee is very interested indeed in talking to the owners of failed apps. Using our many decades of highly successful game experience we would like to fix what is wrong with them and give them a new lease of life. 

Not only are we interested in the apps, we are also interested in their authors. People who may well deliver far better results when working with a multi skilled team who can ensure that their ideas achieve optimum realisation. So there could be a job at Kwalee waiting for the right person.

David Darling, Kwalee founder and CEO is excited at the idea: “It is fundamentally unfair for someone to put lots of work into creating a great app only for it to fail because just one area of the offering is deficient. With highly experienced publishing skills Kwalee is in a position to come up with a wide variety of different fixes and polishing.”

Bruce Everiss, Kwalee CMO, thinks that there are great possibilities: “Many people think that there is a low cost to entry to the app market, an individual can create one in their spare time at home and there is no significant charge for it to be published. However to do the job properly and get results in the market a wide range of skills and considerable investment are almost always required. Marketing has become perhaps the key differentiator between success and failure.”

The enclosed photograph shows Tanya Darling, wife of Kwalee CEO David Darling, having a go at polishing an app to help her husband’s business.

About. Kwalee is a startup company based in Leamington Spa to develop and publish apps for mobile devices. Founded by David Darling CBE who has many decades of experience at the top level of the video game industry with contributions to very many #1 games on many platforms in his CV.  Kwalee is different.  We seek to excite and entertain our customers with innovative new products that provide special experiences.  Our ethos is based around a set of core values that put the customer first and which harness the creative skills of our staff to the maximum in order to do so. Kwalee is still at its very beginning and so is very actively looking for those special people who want to join us in our exciting journey.