Paul Gouge has seen some remarkable success in the mobile game sector over the past couple of decades. After founding the email game company BattleMail with Alex Rigby in 1999, the pair set up the studio Rockpool Games in 2002, which created mobile versions of games such as Worms and was acquired by Eidos in 2007. Then Gouge and Rigby founded Playdemic in Manchester in 2010, which would go on to make its name with mobile and casual games such as Gourmet Ranch, Village Life and particularly the mega hit Golf Clash. Playdemic was acquired by Warner Bros in 2017 and then sold to Electronic Arts in 2021 for $1.4 billion, soon after which Gouge decided to leave. He’s now back with a new Manchester-based mobile game company, ForthStar, once again founded with Rigby. We catch up with him to ask how the mobile market has changed over his career, and what the future might hold in the face of market saturation and ever-fiercer competition.
You’ve been in mobile for over 20 years now. What are the big changes you’ve seen during that time?