London Inc. May/June 2021 - 24

Upfront TechAlliance

FROM PIXELS TO PIECES
By building community and crafting brand, Big Blue Bubble's My Singing
Monsters continues to attract attention and build audience

AS FAR BACK as Big Blue Bubble founder and CEO, Damir
Slogar, can remember, he wanted to create games. And for
nearly two decades now, he has done just that - and rather
successfully, too.
Founded in 2002 and incorporated in 2004, Big Blue
Bubble has grown from a four-person start-up to a thriving
gaming studio employing over 70 at offices in London and
San Francisco. (Swedish video game publisher Enad Global
7 AB acquired 100 per cent of the shares of Big Blue Bubble
in 2020.)
Over that time, the company has developed and produced
more than 100 titles for PC, gaming consoles and, most notably, mobile platforms.
In the early days, Big Blue Bubble established itself as an
industry leader in the mobile landscape, creating compelling
and award-winning titles that sought to inspire creativity and
encourage people of all ages to embrace their playful side.
And no title has come to represent this ideology quite like
the company's top-grossing My Singing Monsters.
In game development, there's no such thing as a guaranteed
hit - far from it, in fact. But with My Singing Monsters, there
was always a feeling that it would be something special.
24 | londonincmagazine.ca | MAY / JUNE 2021

Big Blue Bubble COO, Claudette Critchley, and founder and CEO,
Damir Slogar

Similar to a genre of popular games at the time, My Singing
Monsters featured a collection of creatures, in this case, cute
and cuddly monsters that players would work on multiplying
and collecting. However, My Singing Monsters worked to
differentiate itself through the art of music. Not only would
players collect a menagerie of quirky characters, but they'd
also work to create unique musical melodies. From booming percussion to cheerful vocals, each monster had its own
unique sound assembled to form a catchy tune.
Released worldwide in 2012, it didn't take long for word to
spread about My Singing Monsters, and for Big Blue Bubble to
realize they had a hit on their hands.
" You absolutely have to do something that no one has done
before, " says Slogar. " Sometimes you might be too early for
that, but every time we had a big hit, there was something that
hadn't been done before. "
With this success came the ability to expand production
and further explore the creative workings of the monster
world. First came new Islands for players to explore, and then

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