It’s no secret that Tango has been on a roll as of late, especially since opening up its platform to game developers wanting to release content for Tango’s more than 140 million users. The company also won bragging rights recently with one of these games, Blackjack Live, hitting the top spot on the iOS casino category.
We had the opportunity to ask a few questions of Tango Head of Platform Richard Rabbat to discuss Tango’s transition into gaming and some of the challenges and successes they’ve experienced. We wanted to see first what the company had planned for the rest of the year.
“We have between 20-40 games planned to launch on the Tango platform for the rest of the year”
“We have between 20-40 games planned to launch on the Tango platform for the rest of the year,” Rabbat told us. “We continue to bring different game genres to Tango to appeal to our over 140M members around the world. These are exciting titles spanning casino, casual, invest/express and midcore categories. We’re also excited about new games that have just been released on the platform, such as Bazinga for Tango.”
When asked what Tango had planned beyond gaming, Rabbat made it clear that the company was “very focused on games” right now as a “key part” of its entertainment plaform, but offered some hints at expansion into other territory in the future:
“…we are looking at broadening our entertainment offerings to continue to bring new ways for friends and families to connect with our messaging platform. We’re always happy to hear what our members want, and we encourage the feedback on our social media pages. There will be much more to talk about in the coming months.”
“There will be much more to talk about in the coming months.”
There was a bit of bad news in the mix of good news, specifically if you’re a fan of Windows Phone. When asked what the company had planned for Microsoft’s OS, Rabbat said that Tango was “always evaluating the various platforms,” and would continue to support Windows Phone 7, but was “prioritizing Apple’s App Store and Google Play” to enable third-party developers to reach a larger audience. Rabbat also confirmed that there were no dates to announce regarding Windows Phone 8 availability.
Lastly, if you’re a big fan of the just-released Road Riot for Tango that was unleashed on Android earlier this month, Richard tells us that the iOS version has been submitted to the iTunes App Store and should see the light of day within the “next few days” so you won’t have to wait too much longer to join your Android friends in play.
Update: It seems the “few days” statement earlier was a tactful estimate to give Apple enough time to approve Road Riot for Tango; the game has just launched in the App Store. You can find it here. Happy racing!