In the mobile gaming industry, hitting a ten-year anniversary isn’t just a milestone – it’s an anomaly. When Outfit7 first launched Talking Tom Gold Run, the endless runner landscape was already fiercely competitive, crowded with established giants. Yet, a decade and billions of downloads later, the game remains a global chart-topper and an evergreen pillar of the genre.
To celebrate this massive anniversary, we sat down with Rok Kernc, Head of Product at Outfit7 (Ekipa2 d.o.o. subsidiary), who has been steering the project since day one.
From the midnight oil burned by a small, ambitious team to the complex realities of managing a decade’s worth of product debt, Rok talks us through how a whiteboard brainstorm turned a company decision into a multi-billion-download reality.
Q: You were part of Talking Tom Gold Run from the very beginning. What do you remember most about those early days, and did you actually expect it to last a full decade?
Rok Kernc: The energy from those early days is what sticks with me the most. It was pure passion and drive, an incredible team spirit, and definitely a few sleepless nights trying to figure out what actually makes a runner great.
It was a massive bet for us at the time. We had a smaller team, and outside of managing updates for other projects, we were totally all-in on this. Honestly, nobody knew if it was going to work, and we certainly weren’t planning ten years into the future! We just wanted to build a genuinely great runner using Outfit7 IP.
Q: Outfit7 started out as pioneers of virtual pet games. What was the biggest cultural or technical hurdle in shifting gears to create an endless runner?
Rok Kernc: Honestly, the biggest hurdle was stepping into a genre that was completely new for us. At the time, endless runners were becoming one of the strongest genres in the casual mobile space. It felt like a natural evolution for the brand.
The mobile games market also looked very different back then. Developers didn’t have access to the level of player data, benchmarking, and analytics they rely on today, so a lot of decisions came down to experimentation and understanding what simply felt fun.
Technically and creatively, that meant learning an entirely different gameplay philosophy. Virtual pet games are more thoughtful and offer a lot of mini tasks, while runners are all about speed, reflexes, momentum, and instant gratification. We had to figure out how to merge those two worlds without losing the identity and charm that players already loved about Talking Tom & Friends.
Q: Was Talking Tom Gold Run an instant success right out of the gate, or did it require heavy post-launch intervention to become a multi-billion-download game?
Rok Kernc: We were incredibly fortunate, it really was an instant hit. We shot to the top of the charts and amassed millions of downloads very early on. But we also knew a strong launch wasn’t enough to sustain a game for ten years. Through constant updates, we kept expanding the game and giving players new reasons to come back. That continuous evolution is what gave the game its longevity.
Q: The endless runner space is notoriously crowded and constantly changing. What is the “secret sauce” that kept Talking Tom Gold Run relevant while other runners faded away?
Rok Kernc: It was really a perfect combination of factors. The game had an instant hook, tight controls, and level design that immediately clicked with players.
One of our secret sauces was also the progression system built around rebuilding and upgrading homes. That gave players a stronger sense of purpose beyond simply chasing a high score.
There are a lot of factors, to be fair, and good timing was definitely one of them.
Q: Over a decade of continuous operations, you must have accumulated some technical and product debt. What’s been the biggest headache to fix?
Rok Kernc: The biggest headache is usually untangling foundational systems we built years ago so they can support modern features. At the same time, you constantly want to add new worlds, customization options, events, and systems to keep things exciting, but you also can’t overwhelm players and lose the simplicity that made the game work in the first place.
On the business side, live operations aren’t free, and every update has to justify itself by bringing real value to players. Finding that balance between short term creativity and business, is something we think about constantly.
Q: How do you decide when to chase industry trends versus when to double down on the direction?
Rok Kernc: It always comes down to balancing several things at once; the needs of the business, the strength of the brand, creative vision, and the market signals you’re seeing. You can follow trends too closely and end up making something that feels late or generic, but ignoring player behaviour completely is just as risky. The important part is understanding why certain ideas resonate with players and deciding whether they genuinely fit the game, rather than copying them at surface level.
Q: Looking at milestones like billions of downloads and hundreds of billions of kilometers run-how do you reflect on that as a team?
Rok Kernc: It’s incredibly humbling, honestly. We’re very proud as a team, but we also know numbers like that don’t happen by accident. It takes years of constant iteration, learning, and adapting to keep that momentum alive. The mobile industry has changed a lot, so staying relevant for this long is something we never take for granted.
Q: When you personally open up the live app today, what is the one specific detail that still feels magical to you?
Rok Kernc: The second I hit that GO button and hear the familiar sound of the raccoon’s van crashing and Roy Rakoon’s surprised scream, it instantly takes me right back to the office the day we were working on the game.
We were sitting there asking ourselves, “Why am I running?” At the time, most endless runners started with you being chased by someone-which we honestly thought was a little anxiety-inducing. So, we flipped the script: what if you’re the one chasing someone? But who? And for what?
I remember someone from the art team jumping right on it and whipping up a quick mockup. Shortly after, it was confirmed: chase the raccoon and get your stolen gold back. It was instantly understandable. Seeing how massive the game’s footprint has become since then, while knowing its core and soul hasn’t changed a bit… That’s still a magical feeling to me.
The post Interview: Rok Kernc on Ten Years of Talking Tom Gold Run appeared first on Gamezebo.
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