With 20 years of experience, Stanislas Dewavrin, founder of Oh Bibi, is a seasoned expert in the game development industry. Before launching their start-up Oh BiBi in 2012, he headed the Creation team at Gameloft for eleven years, working on hugely successful games like the Asphalt Series and Minion Rush. During this time, Stanislas had the opportunity to create some of the first mobile game successes, seeing the user base grow from a few thousand to more than a billion users. Having experienced the massive growth of the app economy first-hand, Stanislas set up Oh BiBi, his own game development studio based in Paris, France. In 2014, fellow Gameloft alum Martial Valery joined Stanislas as a co-founder.
Driven by the shift to “free-to-play” in mobile gaming, Stanislas and Martial raised money for their studio, built a bigger team, and released their first games in 2016. For those who don’t know, “free-to-play” means a game is free to install and play, but players can purchase content, like starter packs or more lives, once they enter the game. Unfortunately, the first Oh BiBi games brought in low revenues and had limited success. Stanislas and Martial did not let this setback discourage them. Their resilient team of five developed a new hugely successful game in only six months, and in June 2017, they launched the multiplayer racing game SUP was launched globally. Despite a small marketing budget, it quickly reached between 30,000 and 70,000 downloads per day, helping the studio to turn a profit and grow again. To date, SUP Multiplayer Racing has been downloaded almost 45 million times on Google Play and the Apple App Store. It set the tone for Oh BiBi’s future development strategy, which would center on multiplayer games and the user community.
What makes Oh BiBi’s games unique are the colourful characters and thoughtful design one usually associates with PC and console gaming. Oh BiBi is branching out into genres associated with computers and consoles, such as racing, sports, sandbox-type, and shooter games. These categories are the most successful in console-centric games but, for some reason, have not seen huge successes in mobile gaming. FRAG Pro Shooter, a game released in 2018, is one example of how Oh BiBi is successfully adopting and optimising PC and console centric games to mobile platforms. Along with the real-time multiplayer shooter game FRAG, Oh BiBi created a social platform integrating communication and video sharing between players called Fan Base. Stanislas and Martial are dedicated to designing PC and console-style games for mobile. Their goal is to make games accessible quickly and easily, without draining the battery and processing power of a mobile device. They focus on developing engaging games that users truly love to play and that create a long-lasting community.
Today, Oh BiBi has three games available on most app stores. SUP Multiplayer Racing, FRAG Pro Shooter, and Motor World Car Factory combined have been downloaded more than 100 million times. Stanislas and Martial have now grown Oh BiBi into a medium-sized development studio with 35 employees. They are on a mission to “make free-to-play fun to play” by creating engaging and memorable games that bring people together. The App Association is excited to support Oh BiBi as they work toward becoming a European digital champion. You can hear more from Stanislas in this Tech Swamp episode and read some of his thoughts on platform regulation here.