Dan Ferguson: The Escapist Interview
The Escapist magazine interviews Dan Ferguson of Blockdot.
Here’s the link to the interview.
And here’s the lead-in:
Office managers can thank Dan Ferguson for helping reduce their workers’ productivity. He pioneered the concept of the “advergame”: easy-to-play, casual videogames that pitch a product, service or company’s brand. Often played within a web browser and running in Flash, these innocuous looking games can suck up a lot of hours during one’s workday - and that’s how they are intentionally devised.
Ferguson began making such time-wasters when he, along with his business partner Mike Bielinski, created Elf Bowling as a promotional tool for their design company. Released in November 1999, it capitalized on the holiday season and served over 7 million downloads. Buoyed by this success, Ferguson and Bielinski sold their company and formed a new one in 2001, which would marry their ad design experience and newfound game design skills: Blockdot.
Since then, Blockdot has made over 800 games hawking its clients’ wares and names. Blockdot cranks out one to two games per week. This modest-sized company (they employ just over 50 employees at their Dallas office) could likely be considered the most prolific game developer in history.
