An Edina-based video game design and development company has experienced a hefty increase in revenue in the past few years due to demand growth for its games by Japanese gamers.
Since 2013, revenue for Digital Content, an eight-employee company operating under the name Big John Games, has increased 500 percent, driven by the success of its two most popular Nintendo games. Annual revenue has neared the $3 million mark in each of the past three years, said Ken Patterson, founder and president of Big John Games. In 2015, exports totaled $2.2 million, which accounted for 80 percent of the company’s total sales.
Four years ago, Big John Games released Coaster Creator 3D for the Nintendo 3DS console, which allowed users to create their own roller coasters in 3-D. Seeing the sales potential of the game, Arc Systems Works, a Yokohama, Japan-based video game developer and publisher, partnered with Big John Games to distribute the game in Japan.
Given the first game's success, Big John Games and Arc Systems followed up with Cube Creator 3D in 2015. Cube Creator — a Minecraft-like game that lets players build their own virtual worlds and interact with them — is now one of the most downloaded games of all-time for Nintendo 3DS systems on Nintendo eShop, the digital store for Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo Co. (TYO: NTDOY), Patterson said. Cube Creator 3D has sold more than 500,000 units worldwide while Coaster Creator has sold more than 100,000 units worldwide.
“Building your own world and interacting in your own world is the thing,” said Patterson, whose company recently received a Governor's International Trade Award from the Minnesota Trade Office for its recent success exporting goods. Earlier this year, Big John Games and Arc Systems released Cube Creator DX, a sequel to Cube Creator. It already has surpassed $600,000 in sales in Japan, Patterson said.
Big John Games has sold more than a million units on Nintendo, Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation game consoles in the past decade, but the bulk of those units were sold in Japan for Nintendo users, Patterson said.
RELATED: See more Minnesota Makers
Patterson started the company 1991 in Bloomington. Originally called Window Painters Limited, it specialized as a graphic designer for computer companies, but earned a contract with Disney Interactive Studios to design the Disney's Print Studio computer game. That game allowed users to construct scenes, posters or greeting cards with various Disney characters. Patterson later sold the rights of the product to Disney.
Patterson changed the company name to Digital Content, but decided to use the moniker Big John Games, named after his father.
In 2004, the company began developing video games for the original Xbox system and designed Trophy Bass for Vivendi Universal Games. Four years later, the company released its first Nintendo game — Spitfire Heroes: Tales of the Royal Air Force, a fighter pilot game set during World War II, which was developed for Nintendo DS, a handheld console. In 2011, they released another high-selling Nintendo game, Big Bass Arcade, another fishing game, for Nintendo DS and Nintendo’s Wii system.
Patterson and his team now are developing an action game for Nintendo, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 game systems. The game will be available in 2018.
Big John Games also will venture into sports games, but gamers are demanding a certain type of game in today's market, Patterson said. "They either want retro games that are easy to play and understand or real deep creative games."
Big John Games
Founder and president: Ken Patterson
Business: Video game design and development
Year founded: 1991
Headquarters: Edina
Employees: Eight
2015 revenue: $2.75 million
Web: bigjohngames.com
