My two partners and I decided to close down Blenure, the company we set up to create Playrock, our mobile, social and local gaming network and infrastructure. Our failure to execute taught me a lot, so while it’s a shame it didn’t work out for us, I’m happy that we gave it a shot, and I enjoyed working with quite a lot of people like contractors and developers that saw the potential in our idea and invested time in integrating Playrock’s SDK into their games.
We all still think it’s a good idea. Seems like some other people think so too, as Google is rumored to start its own Playrock clone :)
In the meantime I found a new job here in Israel, for a promising startup that I can’t say much about. The people there are great and the work is challenging and therefore a lot of fun.
Sad :(. What would you do differently next time?
That’s a good question. Definitely build something simpler and show it to people earlier. Maybe look for an integration opportunity with other services (e.g. go to someone like WhatsApp and see if they want a gaming infrastructure).
For example, Playrock could have been a simple “play with people around you” type of service in the beginning. No groups, no sign in, nothing else.
From a technical point of view, I could have built a simpler server-side. Writing it in a more forgiving language (Java or C#) would have probably made life easier and allowed for faster development. And later it could still be replaced with a C++ alternative later, if needed (the protocol was protobuf).
I am sure that the experience you got – will always be there for you. Your talents will lead you also in your new job.
Good Luck!
Thanks a lot :)