"Howrse" is a horse racing simulation with several million monthly players. It's published by Owlient - recently acquired by Ubisoft.

Owlient teamed-up with C4M to produce the mobile version of its game, beginning with the iPhone release. C4M was chosen thanks to its rich skillset and appropriate experience, not often present in the same company: a proven history of complex app production, a design team honed on immersive interfaces and a team of dedicated game designers. Add to that C4M's experience with its own social game playtomo, now live for 3 years with over half a million active players.

The app represents a major production innovation: As it stands, 80% of the app delivered by C4M is managed by Owlient servers directly. This is thanks to display components being built directly from light-weight Json feeds. C4M proposed this solution from the outset, since it best suits an agile team, used to instantly updating their product - without the frustrations of Appstore product validation delays. Thus, Owlient has already been able to modify screens and componentry, with instantaneous results for the end-user - not needing any further development or Appstore sign-off.

Monetisation is through the sale of game elements that the player-trainers can use to speed up their progress.

Releasing a well-loved game such as Howrse to a new platform, when players are used to the keyboard and mouse, is always a challenge. Existing players are used to a certain way of playing and will always have strong ideas about gameplay features a mobile version should provide. For now, at least, C4M appears to have got it spot on: Focus groups run by Owlient have report 85% player satisfaction! Given this feedback, next game instalments are already under development.