Our Parenting World Interview Series: Exclusive Interview with Peter Vesterbacka, Brand Breaker and Co-Founder of Lightneer Inc
Peter Vesterbacka is the Brand Breaker and Co-Founder of Lightneer Inc, the game studio focused on creating the world’s best learning games. Before Lightneer, Peter was the Mighty Eagle, Special Projects and the grandest brand ambassador of Rovio Entertainment, the creator of the wildly successful Angry Birds franchise and over 50 other games.
Prior to Rovio, Peter worked for HP in several communications-industry related roles. While at HP, Peter founded the HP Mobile E-Services Bazaar, a global innovation and corporate partnership program that Booz Allen Hamilton declared an industry benchmark.
Peter is also Co-Founder of Slush, the largest tech event in Northern Europe, the original initiator of MobileMonday as well as the Founder of Some Bazaar, a new approach to building and growing new businesses.
In 2011 Time Magazine recognized Peter as one of the most influential people in the World in their TIME 100 Listing.
Our Parenting World (OPW) team is pleased to be able to interview Peter Vesterbacka (PV) where he shared more with us on the launch of Big Bang Legends and more.
1) OPW: Big Bang Legends, the coolest science learning game on planet was successfully launched in Singapore recently. Please share with us more about this game and how can children benefit from playing the game?
PV: The game is first and foremost a fantastic game that is fun for all ages. Besides being a fun game, it also features unique characters, characters that are some of the best known characters on the planet as they happen to be the basic elements, the atoms. By playing the game you will have fun, but you will also learn particle physics.
2) OPW: What are some of your favourite atom heroes in Big Bang Legends?
PV: Helium is our Pikachu or Red Bird, the lead character if you will, so Helium is definitely one of my favorites. I also like Neon, the cute little puppy that really shines.
3) OPW: What is the ideal age group of players and who are the target players?
PV: We wanted to create a game that is fun for anybody that enjoys playing games, so it really is for all ages. And I think it’s great for parents and children to play games together, so Big Bang Legends works great that way too. In our play testing we’ve seen 3 year olds and 15 years olds really get into the game.
4) OPW: Please share with us more on your background and how did you cultivate the passion to develop this game, amidst the widespread competition in the increasing number of games being created?
PV: Everybody at Lightneer loves playing games and loves making games. Of course the competition is intense, many games coming out every single day. This is also why we didn’t want to create just another learning game, as many learning games use learning as an excuse for not making a great game. Big Bang Legends is our first game, we hope to make many more with the same characters, so we are taking a very long term perspective here. Making great games is always a team effort and we have a fantastic team at Lightneer, so easy to keep the passion going.
5) OPW: How has your passion/interest in developing games contributed to your personal development, to what you are today?
PV: I’m learning new things everyday and I think that’s what makes all of this so exciting.
6) OPW: What type of skills and specialized knowledge are required, to be able to follow your footsteps and what can parents do to help their kids showing such interests?
PV: There are many different skills needed in making games, so I think it’s important that parents let their kids follow their passion. Quite likely that that passion will fit into some part of making games too.
7) OPW: Please share with us some of the challenges you have faced while developing games and how did you overcome them?
PV: There are always challenges, sometimes smaller, sometimes bigger. I think the most important thing is to believe in yourself and know that given a bit of time you can get through pretty much any challenge.
8) OPW: We are super excited that Big Bang Legends is launched in Singapore. What makes you decide to launch the game in Singapore after Finland?
PV: Singapore was actually the first proper launch that we did, Finland has the game in what we call soft launch. We picked Singapore because it’s very well known for having very good education and taking education seriously. We thought that it would be an ideal place to mix our approach of adding a bit of fun to learning through our game and the Singaporean approach. At first the teachers at schools we visited during our launch were a bit worried when we told the kids it’s good to play games in class 
But after playing our game for just 15 minutes the kids knew the basics of particle physics. The teachers told us they’ve never seen the kids learn so much so fast, but maybe most importantly, learning while having fun.
9) OPW: What are your future plans following the success of Big Bang Legends?
PV: More Big Bang Legends games, animated series, a card game and many more things Big Bang Legends.
10) OPW: Lastly, do you have anything to add on and share with our readers about Big Bang Legends?
PV: Keep playing games, it’s good for you
Thank you Peter Vesterbacka for taking our interview!
Try out Big Bang Legends today and is now available from App Store in Singapore. Details as follows:
LINK TO GAME: http://m.onelink.me/a600d14d
GAME VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrKq638IVc
WEBSITE: www.bigbanglegends.com
TWITTER: www.twitter.com/BigBangLegends
HASHTAGS: #madeofatoms #bigbanglegends
