Halloween is the season of frights and scares. Unless you're a mobile gamer, in which case it's the season of jealousy. While console and PC gamers get to enjoy a glut of often excellent horror titles, we're left with a weak selection of also-rans. If you're a strategy gamer then it's a double whammy since horror tactics titles are almost non-existent.
Roll on Phoenix Point, hopefully with an iOS release.
In the meantime, all is not lost. There are actually some very good scary games to play on your mobile. Some of them are a little long in the tooth now. If you haven't played Year Walk or Papa Sangre or one of the Five Nights At Freddy's games then stop reading this and get to it right now.
There are also some lesser known games that are worth your time. While none of them are out and out strategy games, there are some with surprisingly cerebral components. Why these keep flying under the radar is anyone's guess, but it's high time we rectified that.
Tormentum: Dark Sorrow
After tactics, the next best thing for the brain are the puzzles of point and click adventures. Tormentum's background adds extra urgency to you clicking as you seek to escape a lifetime of torture for crimes unknown. And its actual backgrounds add terror. Each draws inspiration from surrealist artists such as HR Geiger and is rich with astonishing detail. Although some of it is ghastly detail you'd prefer to forget.
Read Pocket Tactic's Review here. Tormentum is available on iOS and Android.
Forgotten Memories: Alternate Realities
Less mentally stimulating than punishing, this slice of survival horror will tax all your gaming skills to beat. Both visually and plot-wise it owes a great deal to the Silent Hill series, no bad thing given the classic status of that franchise.
Forgotten Memories is available on iOS.
Last Door: Collector's Edition
Pixel art point and click might not seem the best place to look for bleak psychological horror. Yet Last Door manages to turn its chunky presentation into a chilling bonus, weaving a strange, otherworldly feel. And there's plenty of item-based conundrums to keep you busy for the journey.
You'll also note this is the third item in a row with a colon in the title, making it officially the scariest punctuation mark of all.
The Last Door: Collector's Edition is available on iOS and Android.
The School: White Day
This is a classic bit of Korean survival horror from 2001, remastered for mobile. Puzzle elements are standard for the genre, but White Day has more than usual. Plus you'll have to solve them while running and hiding from a psychopathic school janitor with a baseball bat.
Now I come to look at it, a colon does look at a lot like a vampire bite. The infection is spreading.
The School: White day is available on iOS and Android.
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Another remaster, this time of a 1993 adventure game, which seems to have passed gamers by. On release it's mature themes, anti-hero protagonist and voodoo-inspired plot earned it significant accolades. Even with tastes changing in the intervening years, it's still capable of exciting fear and revulsion in equal measure.
God. It's like two pales eyes, stacked in the face of a horrid mutant, peering at you out of the darkness...
Gabriel Knight is available on iOS and Android.
Forever Lost Complete
You might have thought that the thoughtlessly named "The Room" series stole room escape for horror. You'd be wrong. The Forever Lost series has the same mechanical foundations but builds an edifice of unsettling oddness atop them. Silent, empty spaces abound, littered with ever more bizarre and self-referential riddles to solve.
You might also think you've avoided the curse of the colon. Then you realise it's called "complete" because you can also buy this __game in episodes, as in Forever Lost: Episode 1. It's like the bad penny. There is no escape.
Forever Lost: Complete is available on iOS, and Android as separate episodes.
Kingturn Underworld
Don't be fooled by the cutesy retro graphics of skeletons and vampires. This __game isn't just scary in theme but in content too, because it demands actively engaging your brain to succeed. Plus it boasts a monstrous 74 missions to work through on your way to victory. And it's the only strategy RPG I know of where you can play classes called "Heretic" and "Murderer".
Kingturn is available on iOS and Android.
I can't see a colon in this one. It must be there. I'm seeing it there like a ghostly piece of phantom punctuation. I'm not sure I can trust my senses any more. If it isn't there then .... then where is it? It's behind me! Ah, I ...
Both Tencent CEO Ma Huateng and NetEase CEO William Ding have been listed in the top ten of Forbes' 2016 China Rich List.
Huateng is placed 3rd on the list, with a net worth of $24.5 billion. He is also ranked as the ninth richest person in tech, and is at #46 of the Forbes list of billionaires.
He was also previously listed on Forbes' Powerful People list in 2015, ranked at #48. He placed just two positions below North Korea's Kim Jong-un.
A little more than ten cents
Ding, meanwhile, ranks 5th on the list, with a net worth of $15.2 billion. He ranks as the 17th richest person in tech, and places at #141 on the worldwide billionaires list.
Further down the list, Tencent co-founder Zhang Zhidong is ranked at #11, despite having retired in September 2014. Smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi's CEO Lei Jun is ranked at #12.
Konami (LON:KNM) has released its financials for the first half of its FY17 for the six months ending September 30th 2016.
It posted sales of $962 million, a decrease of 5.9% year-on-year. However, it did posts profits of $115.8 million, a 55.7% increase year-on-year.
Its Digital Entertainment division also saw growth. It posted revenues of $415 million, a 2.7% increase year-on-year.
Home run
Konami didn't break out its mobile __game sales, but did state that baseball __gameJikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu (a.k.a Power Pro) surpassed 26 million downloads during the period.
In its last financials, Konami claimed that Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu had achieved 25 million downloads, suggesting it managed one million more in the three months of Q2.
Sales were also buoyed up by sports games Professional Baseball Spirits A and Winning Eleven Club Manager, as well as licensed IP Star Wars: Force Collection.
It's a similar story to its Q1 FY17 financials – growth in Digital Entertainment revenues but decreases elsewhere, increased profits, and a drop in revenue overall.
Mobile publisher King has closed its Singapore-based studio Nonstop Games.
As reported by Tech in Asia, King is being tight-lipped on the reasons for the studio’s closure.
Big money deal
The developer was acquired by King in August 2014 for around $32 million as part of the publisher’s attempts to move into core gaming. The deal could have been worth a further $68 million depending on its performance.
The studio had worked on Heroes of Honor, a title that was scrapped last year.
“After careful consideration, we have taken the difficult decision to close our Singapore studio,” said a King spokesperson.
“We have a fantastic team and world-class talent in the studio and will be working hard to ensure as many people as possible stay within King. For those leaving the company we are committed to ensuring the best possible transition and assistance.”
Flaregames' runaway success Nonstop Knight has surpassed seven million downloads worldwide.
In a video posted to developer Kopla Games' Facebook page, CEO Mika Kuusisto said that the __game had passed this milestone and that the studio was continuing to release more content.
Co-op tournaments are soon to be added to the __game to boost retention and engagement. The game is also expected to launch in China on Android soon with the help of publisher MyGamez.
Get involved
Nonstop Knight achieved two million downloads in its first four days of launch back in June 2016. It was publisher Flaregame's most successful launch in the studio's history.
The publisher subsequently acquired Kopla Games in August 2016 and has seen the game grow by more than one million downloads a month since its launch.
The studio is also looking to hire a new senior artist. Details of the role can be found on its website.
Seriously's latest __gameBest Fiends Forever has been downloaded over 3 million times in just 3 days since launching on October 20th.
According to Seriously's Twitter, the __game passed 3 million downloads on October 23rd, with a rate of 20 downloads every second.
The studio also tweeted that the game had 3.39 million DAUs and a single day download record of 1.09 million downloads earlier this morning.
Best gets better
The game has also reached the top of the App Store download charts in Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
It’s a strong start for the game which deviates heavily from its predecessor. While the original Best Fiends was a match-3 puzzler, Forever is a clicker/RPG hybrid title.
The original game has seen 50 million downloads since launching in October 2014 and currently has 2 million DAUs.
At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2016, Samir El Agili, Chief Product Officer at Tilting Point, gave a talk on how indies can thrive in the mobile free-to-play space.
He started by saying that "the barrier to entry is still very low, but the barrier to success is still very, very high" for indie developers.
Find your niche
To highlight this, he noted that while the number of games being released on mobile is increasing rapidly, the number of independent games in the top 100 grossing charts is decreasing.
To combat this, El Agili turned his attention to genres and themes that indies can take advantage of that have yet to be heavily saturated by the bigger developers in the free-to-play space.
You can see all our videos from Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2016 in this YouTube playlist.
Over the past four days - and with the top 10 still to follow on Monday - we've been counted down the companies we consider to be the best in the mobile gaming industry.
Of course, all such lists are - to a degree - subjective.
If we had the information, we could generate a top 50 in terms of total downloads, daily active users, or sales and profitability etc. Yet the comparative ease of ranking such information - if it were available - would make such a list lifeless and generic.
Instead, as we consider it, the strength of PocketGamer.biz's annual top 50 is the combination of hard and soft information.
What's next?
Even so, as the big corporations come into mobile games, the top 50 is becoming more centred around financial success.
So while there's always the opportunity for small indies to hit a home run - Imangi Studios being this year's great example (indeed it featured in 2012's 10 to Watch) - our rankings, as the App Store, will become less dynamic
And that's where our 10 To Watch list comes into play.
Not as rigorously compiled as the main list, it's a personal view of companies I've followed in the mobile gaming space - ones I think have the potential to make it big this year.
It's not meant to be exhaustive, companies can only appear on the list for one year, and it's not a comparative rank - merely alphabetic.
It's also worth pointing out there are plenty more companies who could fit into this definition. To that extent, this is a subset of developers, while the point of the top 50 is that it's the set.
Capcom (TYO:9697) has released its financials for the first half of its FY16 for the six months ending September 30th 2016.
It posted sales of $272 million, a decrease of 9.4% year-on-year. Profits also took a large hit dropping to $3.86 million, a decrease of 79.2% year-on-year.
It's Digital Contents division, which includes all its games on both console and mobile, saw some growth however. It posted sales of $156 million, an increase of 14.5% year-on-year.
Touching
While Capcom didn't break out its mobile sales, it did state that its recently launched dating sim Toraware no Paruma reached the top of the App Store paid apps rankings in Japan.
The publisher is also talking up the potential for VR as a new revenue stream the the company, stating that "signs of major changes to our industry became evident" during the first half of FY16.
It is currently developing Resident Evil 7 for PS4, Xbox One and PC, with VR support for the __game also in the works.
Capcom had likely hoped its __gameMonster Hunter Explore may boost its sales, after it reached three million downloads in Japan.
However, after just two months in soft launch in Canada, the global release of the game was cancelled.
Chinese online games publisher Changyou (NASDAQ:CYOU) suffered a year-on-year decline in revenues of 28% during the first financial quarter ending September 30th.
The company reported total revenues of $136 million for Q3. While down year-on-year this was up by 5% compared to the previous quarter and was $1 million more than forecasted.
The firm’s online games business suffered as revenues tumbled 35% year-on-year to $99 million. This was also a dip of 1% from the previous quarter.
Mobile grows as PC declines
The publisher’s PC business is in a period of decline, while its mobile business is on the up.
Monthly active users for Changyou’s PC games decreased by 34% year-on-year and 7% from the last quarter to 2.7 million. It claimed this represented natural declining life cycles for the company’s older PC games like TLBB and TLBB 3D – which it relies on for the majority of its revenues and has yet to effectively replace.
The number of paying users was also down by 23% to one million on PC.
MAUs for its mobile games meanwhile grew 17% year-on-year and quarter-over-quarter to 2.8 million. Paying players grew by 700,000, again up 17% year-on-year and from the prior quarter.
It put down the growth of its mobile games business to the launch of new games Da Da Da Luan Dou and Hortesia Saga during Q3 2016.
Revenues for Changyou’s online advertising business meanwhile decreased 36% from the same period last year to $12 million.
The publisher said the drop in revenue was down to fewr PC games marketed through its 17173 website.
QA and localisation company Keywords Studios has acquired Brighton-based user testing outfit Player Research in a deal worth up to £1.3 million ($1.6 million).
Keywords will pay for the company with £700,000 in cash and 65,000 Keywords shares. A bonus of £300,000 will be awarded to Player Research if certain targets are met within two years.
The acquisition will be used to add Player Research's user testing and UI expertise to Keyword's ever expanding list of services it offers.
Leveraging intellectual capital
"We believe that by integrating Player Research within the Group, and rolling out its services into our existing studios to provide reach into all major gaming regions, we will be able to leverage the intellectual capital, talent pool and execution capability of both organisations to significantly enhance the value we are able to bring to our clients," said Keywords COO Giacomo Duranti.
"We are delighted to be able to welcome Player Research's highly talented team to the Keywords family and we look forward to working closely together to build upon Player Research's excellent reputation and loyal client base."
This article was originally published on August 29th 2016. In light of the news that DeNA has closed its US subsidiary DeNA Global and ngmoco LLC, we have republished this article to provide an in-depth insight into the problems faced by companies like DeNA.
Five years ago, I was walking over the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne on my way to Gamescom when I received a phone call.
It was someone from Japanese mobile games platform GREE.
They were complaining about a story I had written about the company's recent quarterly financials.
Apparently, I had used an incorrect currency conversion between yen and dollars.
GREE announces its numbers in yen and I'd converted to dollars at the rate of the announcement day, not the rate at the end of the quarter.
My dollar revenue figure was, thus, too large.
'If you don't correct it, the percentage increase in sales you write next quarter won't be correct. It won't be big enough," I was told.
True story.
But that was then
The reason I recall this incident so strongly is nothing better demonstrates the crazy growth of the early 2010s.
The whole mobile games industry was growing double or triple digits, and with +30% margins Japanese platforms such as GREE and arch-rival DeNA (pronounced D-N-A) were some of the most profitable games companies in the world.
Apparently, they didn't care whether you got their revenue numbers correct, or not.
GREE and DeNA were prepared to spend big to get more growth.
But they certainly cared you got their growth numbers right.
And they were prepared to spend big to get more growth.
Between 2010 and 2012, DeNA announced a $400 million deal for US startup Ngmoco, GREE followed up with $100 million, $200 million and $170 million deals for OpenFeint (US), Funzio (US) and Pokelabo (Japan), respectively.
(In keeping with the times, Nexon bought Japanese mobile __game developer Gloops for $490 million in cash, but that's another cautionary tale.)
Fast forward half a decade and the mobile games industry has matured to single digit growth, and GREE and DeNA have long retreated from their plans of global domination.
Recent history is a downward spiral
The only numbers they care about are profits.
The quarter-on-quarter revenue percentages are all negative.
Licking their wounds in Tokyo, they are looking outside of games but within Japan for future growth.
DeNA now breaks down its financials into 'Sports' and 'Excluding Sports' categories.
Both have plans in healthcare and general online commerce, while DeNA is also doubling down on its baseball franchise, the perennially sixth-placed Yokohama DeNA BayStars.
Indeed, despite games being 68% of total revenues, it now breaks down its financials into Sports and Excluding Sports categories.
Heart of the matter
So what's this cautionary tale really about?
Fast-growing companies over-expanding, spending their cashflow imprudently, hiring badly and losing focus?
Yes, but the cautionary tale of GREE and DeNA is more.
It's about what happens when companies believe they are special; that they have cracked the market, when in actuality, they are riding the wave, not understanding how little they understand, and how quickly the market is changing.
At its heart, then, this is a cautionary tale about not understanding the fundamentals: about not understanding mobile games.
In the west, the fast-growing Chinese mobile games market is typically highlighted as the sector's biggest opportunity. Chinese developers and publishers know the hard reality of that situation, however.
Sure, there are hundreds of millions of potential mobile gamers, but there's also massive fragmentation across the ecosystem, ranging from handsets and app distribution, to promotion, billing, social networks, and even connectivity.
Another challenge arises from the legacy of China's online games sector. Financially, it's still the biggest part of the industry, with large publicly-owned publishers. Yet despite their size, many are struggling to make the transition to mobile games.
The result is smaller pure-play mobile __game developers are now highly valuable; something that's been reflected in some eye-watering prices during 12 months of overheated mergers and acquisition activity.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for Chinese developers, however, is quality of their content. Because of its legacy, the market remains dominated by poor mobile versions of existing browser MMOGs. Yet the most innovative companies are looking to combine the best aspects of the past with more enjoyable – and more mobile-centric – gameplay mechanics, as well as better graphics and streamlined user experience.
And it's such developers who are highlighted in our second listing of the best Chinese mobile developers. Only 17 companies from last year's list survive; demonstrating how quickly the market is developing. We expect 2014 to be nothing if not more extreme.
ESL owner Modern Times Group has acquired a 35% stake in German mobile and browser games developer InnoGames.
MTG will purchase 21% of the studio in Q4 2016 and the remaining 14% in Q1 2017.
MTG also has the option to acquire a further 16% of the studio to bring its stake up to a majority of 51%.
The deal values InnoGames at €260 million. This suggests that MTG have shelled out €91 million so far to buy a stake in the company. This could rise to €130 million in future.
From browser to mobile
InnoGames’ portfolio of games includes Elvenar, Tribal Wars I and II, Grepolis and Forge of Empires. To date the company has garnered over more than 150 million registered players across its titles.
The developer is expected to generate revenues of €125 million for 2016. Its revenues are increasingly coming from its mobile operations, with more than half of all new user registrations on mobile platforms.
The studio plans to release several new mobile games during the next 12 months.
“We have scored major success with our live games and are now focusing on the development of several new mobile first titles, while maintaining our high quality operation of all live games,” said InnoGames CEO Hendrik Klindworth.
“MTG’s international presence, understanding of storytelling entertainment, and commitment to IP development and building engaged user communities will bring our games to even larger audiences around the world. MTG’s culture of empowering entrepreneurial spirit is exactly what we were looking for as we move into the next chapter of our story. The team could not be more excited about further boosting our future potential and performance.”
It wasn't so many years ago that soft launching a mobile __game consisted of a couple of weeks live in Canada to bug fix.
Fast-forward to mid-2016, however, and the complexity of the experience has changed immeasurably.
Sort of...
Our favourite testbed
One thing that hasn't changed is the dominance of Canada as the #1 soft launch country.
According to our research, it was used as a test territory in 72% of the games we studied.
Why? Because Canada provides the best small market with which to test against US players - the most accessible and most lucrative market for most developers.
And this is one thing to get clear about soft launch.
It's all about testing, in particular, testing in a restricted market that has similar characteristics to the big, key markets you want your __game to be successful in.
In that respect, then, some of the changes to soft launch strategy merely reflect the increasingly global nature of the mobile games industry.
Some are driven by other trends, however.
Reader beware
As for the caveats of our research (there are always caveats), it's not designed to be comprehensive.
Canada was used as a test territory in 72% of the games we studied.
We looked at 36 games in soft launch, chosen because they were prominent enough to be listed on our weekly updated Soft Launch list.
Because of this, the sample is skewed towards western developers, looking for test markets that will match the key western markets; US, UK, Australia, Germany, France etc.
Nevertheless, we uncovered some surprising conclusions.
Tung Nguyen-Khac holds a Master in Political Science with a Major in International Relations from the University of Munich. He has been a frequent speaker and author of academic papers on the media, gaming and finance.
Until his appointment at Spil Games, he was CEO of the games subsidiary of German media giant ProSiebenSat.1
From 2004 to 2010 he was a managing partner and CEO advisor at web games company Bigpoint. He also has been a business angel and advisor to private equity companies.
Dutch mobile __game developer and publisher Spil Games is developing the official mobile __game of the upcoming sci-fi movie Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
The movie, which is in post-production and due to be released in July 2017, is written and directed by Luc Besson - the French director best known for The Fifth Element.
Spil Games' tie-in will be a strategy game for mobile and web that is developed in parallel with the film and launched a few weeks before it hits cinemas.
Silver screen to touchscreen
“People are talking about this film as the spiritual successor to [The] Fifth Element. It’s going to be huge,” said Spil CEO Tung Nguyen-Khac.
"We’re excited and honored to be making the game for Luc and I believe we can really intensify the audience experience around the themes and ideas within the movie.
“It’s no longer enough to make a game that just mimics the movie. Yes, players want to dig further into the story but the game also has to be cool and fun to play in its own right.
"The producers of the New Hollywood understand that a game which captivates its audience can massively amplify a movie brand.”
Choosing the right keywords is a critical pillar of your free user acquisition plan.
When you first release your app, unless you have already made a concerted marketing push and/or paid for user acquisition, using the correct keywords for your tags can help app store users find you when they are searching for apps.
Finding the right words
There are near unlimited options for keywords, but you can only select a set amount, so you need to be certain that the words you choose are likely search terms users will type.
You can get an idea of the keywords being used through tools and services such as Sensor Tower and App Annie (See our tools and services list for more).
Below we’ve collated a number of handy resources to guide you through the processing of choosing and successfully implementing app keywords.
Figuring out the best keywords for your app App Annie explains why keywords are the driving force behind app store optimization, and how to create the best keywords for your own app.
6 ways to optimize your App Store keywords Chartboost speaks with The ASO Project’s Blake Pollack offers advice on ‘golden keywords’ and sticking out on the App Store.
The complete guide to choosing Google Play ASO keywords Apptamin details three steps to selecting the right keywords for your app on Google Play, as well as more useful links to learn about the process of keyword optimisation.
How to brainstorm keywords for your app WordData’s Evaldo Rossi provides some methods on how you could create keywords.
7 quick tips to optimize your app store keywords WordData founder Evaldo Rossi offers some tricks to get the most out of your App Name and Keywords fields.
Help us improve this course with new links or suggest a new course you'd like to see to mgu@pocketgamer.biz.
This was part of the MGU course Mobile Games University: App Store Optimization 101. For more articles in this course click here.
Back in March, Berlin-based casual __game developer Wooga took a step into the unknown by spinning off its own midcore studio Black Anvil Games.
“Casual games and midcore games are very, very different,” Wooga CEO Jens Begemann explained to PocketGamer.biz at the time.
“If you run it as one unit and one company culture, it's very difficult to become the best in both at the same time because they have different requirements.”
The studio's first project was Warlords, a turn-based strategy game. After a year-long testing period - boasting the best metrics of any Wooga soft launch to date - it launched at the end of September.
But shortly after, it was revealed to PocketGamer.biz that Black Anvil Games had been affected by the cuts and restructuring that saw Wooga direct its attention to casual.
The studio was unfortunately shut down, with Wooga and former Head of Studio Wilhelm Oesterberg parting company.
This is no reflection on the quality of the game, however, which remains live and is a polished, enjoyable strategy experience.
As such, PocketGamer.biz reached out to the game's Producer Kaspar Hübener to go behind the scenes on the game's development.
PocketGamer.biz: Tell us a little about the origins of the Warlords project. What were your inspirations?
When the project was initially pitched, the vision was to take the tactical depth and longevity from Heroes of Might and Magic and bring that to mobile.
The vision was to take the depth and longevity from Heroes of Might and Magic and bring it to mobile.
Kaspar Hübener
What we envisioned was taking the goal of growing your army, a key part of Heroes of Might and Magic, and combining that with the dynamic world and player vs player focus of Boom Beach.
We wanted the end result to be deep, but still easily accessible, so we also spent a lot of time and effort on session structure and usability.
Was Warlords in development internally at Wooga before Black Anvil Games was established?
It was, for quite some time actually.
But as we were getting closer to got closer to launch we realised we needed to create something new, something that would reflect the team and the players we wanted to attract.
Wooga has made titles that aren’t arcade games but I think it would be fair to say they’re known as a creator of arcade, hidden object or simulation games.
So Black Anvil was a chance for us to establish our own identity and create something that would be appealing to players who grew up on games like Heroes of Might and Magic, or currently play titles like X-COM.
How experienced was the development team in midcore/strategy prior to this project? Coming from Wooga, was this new territory?
Wooga had actually produced a midcore title before, a __game called Kingsbridge on Facebook, which unfortunately didn’t quite take off when it was released.
But there was certainly a level of experience gained from that project which paid off for Warlords.
Wooga's midcore Facebook game Kingsbridge
And then there was experience gained outside of Wooga which certain members of the team brought to the team which really helped.
The team lead, Wilhelm, sums up this balance. He worked at Wooga on games like Monster World, which was a successful Facebook and mobile simulation game, but had also worked at DICE on the Battlefield franchise.
And then there were other team members who had worked at developers like Crytek, Telltale Games and Yager.
How large was the Warlords team, and how long did the entire development take?
At its peak, the Warlords team comprised around 30 people.
We hosted lunch time PvP sessions once a week in Wooga’s auditorium.
Kaspar Hübener
Although, at the start of the project, we had a much, much smaller team who were focused on creating a playable, and fun, prototype that solely comprised the core turn-based hex-grid gameplay.
We hosted lunch time sessions once a week in Wooga’s auditorium where players faced off against each other in PvP battles over slices of pizza.
Even with the occasional dropout, the core game was a lot of fun and eventually the project became quite a bit bigger as we entered full production.
Wilhelm has said before that "something has gone wrong somehow" with games that feature autoplay. Why do you think this, and do you consider it a risk to develop a mobile strategy game without it in 2016?
It’s always a risk to break with current convention! But we felt it necessary with Warlords.
We see autoplay as an evolutionary, in-between, step that comes from an attempt to deal with old-school grinding in the relatively new environment of mobile free-to-play.
In traditional games, forcing players to grind was a way to stretch out the available content and to pace the progress of the most loyal and engaged players.
On mobile, though, long grind sessions don’t work well and from a developer’s perspective aren’t really necessary because we can use timers.
So that’s where autoplay comes in, allowing players to engage less with the more routine encounters in favour of spending their focus on the more challenging ones. For us, though, it never quite felt right playing this kind of game with autoplay.
In Warlords, we attempted to negate the need for autoplay by making your typical battle more playable - making it faster than autoplay - and more interesting by introducing several in-battle layers that make the battle result non-binary - such as changing victory conditions, persistent losses, in-battle loot and more.
The player decides if they spends 30 seconds in a battle or five minutes, optimising the outcome.
Kaspar Hübener
The player decides if they spends 30 seconds in a battle or five minutes, optimising the outcome.
We hoped that this would shift the purpose of battles away from the “grind” bracket to the “challenging” bracket in the player’s mind.
Did the lack of autoplay create any extra challenges in terms of accessibility? How did you handle this?
In other games, autoplay is predominantly made available only once you’ve completed a level flawlessly.
Since players still need to beat every difficult level manually, autoplay doesn’t save them from having to understand the mechanics and acquire a certain amount of skill.
When it comes to micro-sessions and the ability to get some loot without having to commit to the dozens of inputs needed to complete a battle, we’ve relied on the simpler metagame features, such as free chests and Expeditions.
These allow the player to send off regiments for a certain time and then get loot back based on their power and the time they spent away.
Compared to many games labelling themselves 'midcore', Warlords errs much more on the core side. Was this your intention?
This is something we’ve learned from games in the past.
When going more for the core end of the spectrum, your audience shrinks, but those that remain are likely to have found something to be extremely excited about.
The risk of going too far in the “casual” direction is that you may end up with a game that just doesn’t come together and doesn’t really appeal to anyone.
You get either a very core-looking game that lacks the depth to retain the core users, or a too casual-looking game that then ambushes the audience with mechanics and depth that they weren’t looking for.
So, while trying to find that perfect balance, we made an active choice to come at it from the core direction.
Warlords was in soft launch for a year prior to its launch. What did you learn during this period, and what were the biggest changes you made as a result?
We really learned a lot during this long soft launch.
We felt it was a better game without the timers and the audience was sticking around longer.
Kaspar Hübener
We also developed a lot of features and content during this period and ended up with a game probably twice the size in scope compared to the first soft launch version (not only in MB!).
Our small group of super-engaged players on our Warlords forum were hugely helpful in spotting problems and helping with fixes while giving feedback on our systems and feature designs.
One major change implemented based on the soft launch feedback was to remove all timers from regiment upgrades.
This was initially intended to provide a large part of the game’s timer squeezes and speed-up monetisation, something which was reflected in our data.
In the end though, we felt the game would be better without them. Once we made the change we were really happy with the results.
We felt it was a better game without the timers, and from our data, the audience was sticking around longer too.
How much iteration was there around the game's combat system? Was hex-based, turn-based strategy always the plan?
During the development of the game almost every system was revamped multiple times, or even replaced altogether.
The exception to this was the combat system, which remained intact all through production.
We iterated a lot on details of the combat such as the regiments’ special abilities, damage calculation, impact of terrain choices etc, but for the most part it stayed the same.
What was the biggest challenge you overcame during development?
It took us many iterations on the regiment progression in the meta-game until we reached the current system.
One thing that never changed was the initial vision of the game, which we always stuck to.
Kaspar Hübener
We wanted to provide enough freedom for meaningful choices but still guarantee the characteristics of a regiment throughout the player’s progression.
Something else that was crucial over the course of the game’s development was building and maintaining the right team structure - finding the right specialties at the right time to help with development.
I think that’s key. One thing that never changed was the initial vision of the game, which we always stuck to.
How did the monetisation evolve throughout development? Why did you decide to keep the implementation of in-game ads so limited?
We focused first on creating a solid foundation of interlinked systems that was not only fun but also sustained strong monetisation for a long time.
Our intention from the start was to get this right and then build further monetisation mechanics on top of this foundation.
We applied a similar thought process to in-game ads. Introduce them at the most helpful and least obtrusive place first, and then, based on player reaction, expand on them from there.
Our expressed goal there was to make sure that ads would never come between an engaged player and their enjoyment of the game.
Traditionally, more core experiences enjoy higher conversion rates for paying users than their casual counterparts. Compared to Wooga games, have you found this to be the case so far?
Yes, we’re seeing that and also a higher ARPDAU - which was to be expected from a core game.
More generally, how happy have you been with the launch? Any surprises?
We were lucky to get good featuring from Apple and Google and are very happy with the amount of new players.
With Wooga’s current focus on more casual genres, we see Warlords as effectively feature complete.
Kaspar Hübener
The game has received positive reviews from all over the world, but is especially well received in China and other Asian countries.
While core games do well there historically, and that’s not a huge surprise, we were very happy to see the same for Warlords.
What's next for Warlords?
The team is really proud that we were able to ship a polished game with most of the features we had envisioned in the early days of development, like PvP and PvE modes.
With Wooga’s current focus on more casual genres in mind, we see Warlords as effectively feature complete.
We’ll ensure that any bugs that pop up will be fixed, and we think that PvP seasons will keep players engaged for a long time to come.
A big shout out to the team for their hard work and of course to Warlords fans old and new who have given us a great response since we launched.
Plants vs. Zombies was one of the first major mobile hits.
Launched in 2010, the light-hearted tower defence title launched just not a successful series of games, but a popular brand.
2013 follow-up Plants vs. Zombies 2 went free-to-play and bagged 25 million downloads in its first month.
And more recently the franchise has turned to console with the 2014 multiplayer shooter Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare and its 2016 sequel.
But in its return to mobile, PopCap has opted not to make Plants vs. Zombies 3, but rather to create the collectible card __game spin-off Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes.
Leading design on the title is Creative Director Devin Low, whose track record makes this an ideal project.
No newcomer to the CCG genre, he spent five years as Head Developer of Magic: The Gathering. He was also Lead Designer on Legendary: a Marvel Deck-Building Game and its 12 expansions.
PopCap, however, is new to the genre. So what's inspired this move and what's the process been like? To find out, we reached out to Devin Low following the launch of Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes.
PocketGamer.biz: Why did you decide that the next step for Plants vs. Zombies on mobile should be in the CCG genre?
Devin Low: I’ve always loved playing and creating collectible card games.
In all the CCGs I’ve worked on, the biggest challenge is that the genre is sometimes considered intimidating, hard to learn or for a niche audience.
The mission of Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes is to solve that challenge head-on.
CCGs are considered intimidating, hard to learn, or for a niche audience.
Devin Low
Specifically, we created an awesome collectible card __game that is accessible and easy to learn for a mass audience, while still retaining the strategy and depth that CCG fans love.
Three years ago, I was working on another of PopCap’s games: Solitaire Blitz. I started tinkering on the side with what a Plants vs. Zombies CCG could look like.
I made a small paper prototype, played it with a few people and got feedback. Then I made a better prototype, showed it to a wider circle of people and got more feedback.
I kept expanding the circle and improving the game until PopCap agreed to let me spend a fraction of my work hours on the project and collaborate with two exceptional engineers, Rain Zhang and Shane Steward, to make a digital prototype.
We got some momentum and buzz in the company, and soon we had half a dozen people working on it.
Then we formally pitched PopCap and EA a couple of times, got their approval and funding and eventually went into full production and made the game real.
PopCap has amazing talent and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with so many great people.
It's been a few years since the last PvZ release on mobile. What do you think has been the biggest change in the market in the meantime, and how have you adapted to this with Heroes?
Two big changes in the mobile marketplace come to mind.
First: there is more competition than ever before. There are far more mobile games out this year than a few years ago. That makes it hard to stand out and get noticed.
Fortunately, we have some powerful strengths there: Plants vs. Zombies is a beloved franchise with tonnes of fans. EA is a powerful, prominent publisher. And the game’s visuals and quality sell themselves.
We’re grateful to be getting so many positive reviews and so much word-of-mouth buzz.
A second big change in the mobile marketplace is that consumers are showing they want short session times that fit easily into their lifestyle.
Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes intentionally uses fast, exciting games with short session times, so players can get some CCG in when they’re waiting for the bus, getting ready for bed, and so on.
With Garden Warfare, Plants vs Zombies has found console success with a very different kind of experience. Is there anything from that success to learn from and apply to your mobile strategy?
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare has become a runaway success by taking a genre that is normally serious and a bit intimidating - shooters - and making it accessible, visual and hilarious, while keeping great gameplay.
We’re doing the same PopCap magic trick by making an accessible, hilarious, strategic CCG.
Devin Low
The original Plants vs. Zombies game did the same thing by taking the niche genre of tower defence and turning it into an accessible, hilarious flower defence.
So now we’re doing the same PopCap magic trick by making an accessible, hilarious, strategically-compelling CCG with Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes.
Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes spent a few months in soft launch prior to its launch. How useful was this process, and what were the most important things you learned from it?
One key tenet across all the Plants vs. Zombies teams is getting feedback from our fans and using it to make the games even better.
We did the same thing with PvZ: Heroes, using soft launches in a growing list of countries before going worldwide.
One thing we heard early on is that players wanted more ways to connect with their favorite Heroes and learn how to use them at peak power.
We reacted by adding a totally new feature: Hero Quests. Whenever you unlock a Hero, you also unlock a chain of 10 specific Hero Quests that give you rewards for exploring that Hero’s specific combinations and abilities.
For example, the fiery Torchwood Hero “Captain Combustible” is especially good at making powerful combos with bonus attacks.
So when you unlock him, you can earn rewards by completing his 10 specific Hero Quests that encourage you to master some insane bonus attack combos.
The original Plants vs. Zombies games carefully balanced accessibility and genuinely strategic play. How have you endeavoured to maintain this in Heroes?
One key point that makes PvZ: Heroes especially accessible is that our characters look like what they do.
Their appearance signals their function. For example, when a player sees a big blocky living Walnut named “Wall-Nut,” what do they think he does?
A lot of players correctly guess “okay, he’s a wall. He blocks things. He’s tough and stands in the way”.
Likewise, “Shellery” and “Carrotillery” are new to PvZ, and their names and appearance signal what they do: artillery that can sit behind other Plants and shell the zombies with high strength and low health.
Strategic depth is also a huge emphasis in PvZ: Heroes. It’s important to us that our CCG gameplay, deckbuilding and interesting tactical decisions are as good or better than any other CCG out there.
As one example, since the name of the brand is Plants vs. Zombies, we deeply emphasise that asymmetry in the gameplay.
Plants and Zombies fight in very different ways. The difference between them is woven into the very turn structure itself.
Zombies get played to the board first. Then the plant player plays all their plants and one-time-effects, aka 'tricks'.
The two sides use different tools and feel very different to play.
Devin Low
Finally, the zombie player gets one final chance to play zombie tricks before they fight. So there is some tactical advantage in playing Plants after the Zombies.
But the zombies also have their own unique tactical advantage, through getting the last chance to play something before the fighting happens.
Many abilities on the plant side have no equivalent on the zombie side - the two sides use different tools and feel very different to play.
What's been your approach to implementing PvP and how important do you consider this to be for the game's long-term retention?
When we interviewed players of previous Plants vs. Zombies games, they had two top requests that bubbled to the top of the list.
First, they wanted to play as zombies on mobile. Second, they wanted to play multiplayer PvZ with their friends. With Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes, we’re excited to finally grant both those wishes.
For long-term retention, one great aspect of PvP is that a person’s biggest challenge can be defeating other players.
There’s an endless array of other players with their own unique strategies to battle, so players never run out of content to fight against.
Our design team has worked on a tonne of other CCGs and we’ve drawn on that experience to set up a deeply-textured multiplayer metagame.
Just as “strategies A, B, C, and D” start to become popular in multiplayer, we have tools seeded into the card sets that empower players to react and build decks that are really good against those strategies.
So perhaps then the most popular decks start to be “strategies E, F, G, and H”. Players can then find new tools in the card sets that help them succeed against those strategies.
So now a new crop of strategies is powerful. And when the time comes, we add brand new cards that shake things up again. That’s the essence of a thriving, healthy CCG metagame.
Since PvZ1 and 2 are completely single-player experiences, we know some fans are looking for that too.
The designers on our team have worked on many CCGs before, but this is indeed PopCap’s first CCG.
Devin Low
So we also built a massive single-player campaign in PvZ: Heroes, with 400 handcrafted single-player levels at launch, split into a plant campaign and a zombie campaign.
Lots of the levels have special rules and gameplay twists, so it’s fun to explore and see what’s next.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in your first foray into the CCG genre?
The designers on our team have worked on many CCGs before, but this is indeed PopCap’s first CCG.
That meant making lots of new technology like card packs with rarities, PvP matchmaking, empowering players to earn packs for free through play.
You can earn any card in the game for free if you play enough and/or get lucky when opening the packs you earn.
Players who love the game and want to get specific, high-rarity cards more quickly can choose to buy in to get to extra packs faster.
To what extent is Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes considered a spin-off from the main series and are there plans for a numbered sequel at any point?
We’re psyched that PvZ and PvZ 2 are both big hits that are still going strong years after release.
Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes is a spin-off, like the shooter Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.
Garden Warfare is so popular that it eventually got a numbered sequel of its own: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2.
For PvZ: Heroes, we have a lot of plans for expanding the game over time, especially as we collect feedback from our players.
Because CCGs have a history of releasing new content through new card sets, we’re more likely to go that route instead of a numbered sequel like Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes 2.
Nintendo’s first ever smartphone __game was released in March 2016, and to much fanfare at the time.
Miitomo, a social app where users can interact with each other through their Mii avatars by answering questions, was a quirky and unexpected foray into the mobile market for Nintendo in its partnership with DeNA.
It didn't use any of Nintendo’s instantly recognisable mascots/IP like Mario or Link, and it was built from the ground up with mobile in mind.
Mii-who?
Yet such a momentous occasion wasn’t mentioned in the company’s latest financial report.
In fact, it was only in Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima’s presentation recapping the first half of the fiscal year ending March 2017 that Miitomo was referenced.
He said the app “will soon reach” 15 million unique users. But for all of its users, the title “has not been impactful from a profit perspective”.
Indeed, its positioning on the Top Grossing app charts, according to App Annie stats, is as surprising as it is disappointing. It made an okay start, reaching 76th in the charts in April 2016. But since then, it has been on a steady decline.
A look at the US App Store Top Grossing charts on App Annie from March 2016 to October 2016.
In terms of in-game revenues, in the last month the app has often fallen out of the Top Grossing rankings completely, with just the occasional spike back into the charts. The same is happening in other countries like the UK, Germany and Canada too.
It hasn't been in the US Google Play top Top Grossing chart since June 28th.
It's fairing a little better in Nintendo's homeland of Japan, though.
A look at the US App Store Top Grossing charts on App Annie from March 2016 to October 2016.
It’s difficult to know exactly how many people are playing the __game on an active basis and are just not paying - particularly given its apparent reluctance to disclose the game’s daily and monthly active users.
It’s also impossible to see whether Miitomo is having an effect on how users interact with the Nintendo brand in general.
Who's playing?
The only glimpse into active users is from third-party market intelligence firms. Survey Monkey Intelligence, if accurate, doesn’t paint a particularly good picture on this front.
Weekly active users for Miitomo between April and May, according to Survey Monkey Intelligence.
Back in May, it claimed there had been a sharp drop off in weekly active users in mid-April, leading to a more gradual decline through the first half of May. This seemed to put WAUs at less than one million.
Updates do have the power to get users downloading and paying money in the game again to some degree. The release of a set of updates on September 16th, including the Kirby Miitomo Drop, saw a spike in paying users, for instance. But this quickly fell away in the following days.
The updates can bring a spike in downloads. But again, this rise tends to quickly fall away.
A look at the US App Store Top Downloads charts on App Annie from March 2016 to October 2016.
During Kimishima’s presentation discussing Nintendo’s last six months, he claimed that the trends in Miitomo “have been largely according to our expectations”.
It’s a statement that's difficult to take at face value in light of the stats and negligible direct impact on Nintendo's revenues.
I certainly wouldn’t go as far to say that Miitomo has been some secret success and that it’s doing what it was supposed to do. And perhaps, for all the learnings it may have provided Nintendo, it was released too early.
But it seems Nintendo’s key strategy for Miitomo is to get mobile users interacting with its IP, like a Trojan Horse to get these consumers into its own hardware and other upcoming mobile games.
On that basis, Miitomo is likely to stick around for the foreseeable future with plenty more updates to come. Particularly as Nintendo ramps up for the launch of the Nintendo Switch and a stronger line-up of games - including its mobile titles like Super Mario Run coming in December.
Full disclosure: I worked for Nintendo between January 2016 and May 2016.
Johannes Heinze is Managing Director for EMEA at AppLovin, a marketing platform that provides marketing automation and analytics for brands that want to reach new consumers on mobile and Apple TV apps.
He has been deeply involved in shaping the app economy since 2009. At AppLovin, he oversees the company’s international sales growth - a significant responsibility as the company processes over 50 billion ad requests from around the world every day, and is on track to achieve a $200MM+ revenue run rate this year.
Johannes was previously a founder of the European ad network Moboqo, which was acquired by AppLovin in 2014.
Prior to launching Moboqo, he was VP for Mobile at Fyber/SponsorPay, where he was integral to the development of the company’s innovative and highly successful ad monetisation solutions and was responsible for the company’s successful pivot toward mobile.
Johannes Heinze is Managing Director for EMEA at AppLovin.
For a lot of indie devs out there with limited acquisition budgets, cross-promotion is a great tool for getting organic downloads.
It only costs you your time and some inventory, yet through cross-promotion, you can turn your DAUs into loyal consumers for your entire suite of mobile games. There are a ton of benefits to having multiple SKUs in various app stores, and the ability to cross-promote is one of them.
For deeper reading on cross-promotion and the benefits of employing an app portfolio, read this excellent post by Eric Seufert at Mobile Dev Memo.
Here are some tips for how to cross-promote:
1) Cross-promote where it makes sense Run cross-promotions on unprofitable placements where you wouldn’t normally show ads.
For example, if there’s a placement after the user returns from reviewing your game, that could be a good place to show an acknowledgment such as: “Glad you’re enjoying our games! Here are some more!"
Just because a spot in the __game isn’t always appropriate for ads, it could still be appropriate for a cross-promotion.
Just because a spot in the __game isn’t always appropriate for ads, it could still be appropriate for a cross-promotion, which are generally seen as less intrusive by players. If players are enjoying your game, they won’t mind seeing something similar by you, a developer they trust.
2) Create a brand around your games Players should be able to see one of your other games and recognise it as yours - in marketing parlance, all of your games should be identifiable as a single brand. This way, whether it’s through cross-promotion or just seeing your game’s icon in the app store, players will be more inclined to download.
To build a strong brand, make sure your apps use similar colour palettes and a consistent design language throughout. Make sure your app icons have the same “watermark” a la King and other large studios. You’re not just building disjointed singular apps, you are building a studio, a business, and even a whole ecosystem of branded games.
If your games don’t share a common thread because they’re in different categories or have different target demographics, then this particular branding tip is less relevant.
It’s always a good idea to have your consistent logo and brand for your games, but it’ll be less effective to cross-promote across core demographics and categories. For example, getting a casino game player to download your mid-core game is probably not worthwhile.
3) Prioritise profits over promotion If you cross-promote with an interstitial, put it lower in the waterfall. Cross-promoting higher in your waterfall is likely to degrade eCPMs and hurt your ARPDAU. Cross-promotion can be a great way to grow your audience, but don’t prioritise it over placing ads in a way that brings in actual revenue.
4) Extra space is extra opportunity to cross-promote Cross-promotions can make sense in a format or placement where ads don’t.
As an indie, you have to be protective of your UA budget. Cross-promotion is a great way to grow your user base without spending additional budget.
For example, a button in your settings or an “About” page with a link to more games is a good way to show your users your full portfolio of games. Or try a “FREE” button in the lobby of your game which links to your other games. This way, players get to see your other games before the settings.
If there’s a spot in your app that you know gets a lot of views but doesn’t get clicks or attention, insert a button or graphic badge there that links to your other games.
5) Focus on providing the biggest return Remember you have a finite amount of time to spend on cross-promotion, which is why I always recommend that devs use this time on strategies that will provide the biggest return.
For example, I believe that incentivised downloads (when devs reward players for installing another of their games), while common, have small returns compared with how much effort they take. You have to set up the install to reward feature and then build a way to track it.
Plus, historically incentivised installs are low quality because players are taking “payment” to download them. Creating a simple cross-promotion tool and allowing users to decide if they want to see more of your apps often leads to more engaged users and is easy to build and track.
6) Try an array of strategies to cross-promote, but choose wisely Cross-promotion is essentially free, and as we’ve covered here, there are many ways to do it. But you want to pick your spots and be moderate with your cross-promotion, so you don’t overwhelm the player.
Since you still want to retain them and keep them playing your game, remember to find a few good places to cross-promote and test which are the most effective at converting without affecting player retention.
When you’re an indie dev, you have to be protective of your user acquisition budget. Cross-promotion is a great way to grow your user base without spending additional budget.
But you have to do it strategically: choose the right spot in your game to cross-promote and don’t overdo it; create and maintain a cohesive brand image across your games; never cross-promote at the expense of placing ads that generate revenue and focus on the biggest return.
Follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to acquiring new users in all your games without breaking the bank.
Torulf Jernström is CEO of Finnish developer Tribeflame.
His blog is Pocket Philosopher.
You can read all his weekly PocketGamer.biz columns here.
This time, it’s about why casino games work, and what __game developers for other genres can learn from them.
The casino category on the App Store was frankly puzzling to me for a long time. Why on earth would anyone spend real money to buy online credits in pointless games with no way to win any real money back?
In addition to this, the games often have quite confusing UIs where it is hard to tell what is going on.
Lately, we've done some work for a casino company. Up here in the Nordic countries, they are state run monopolies giving their profits to charities.
To deliver on their mission, they tasked us with the aim of broadening the player base - rather than getting more from the “whales”.
As part of it, I did some research into the psychology of slot machines. I highly recommend the book Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll as a resource for understanding these machines.
Let’s dig into how and why slot machines work and how that is relevant for other mobile games.
The first thing to realise is that the possibility of winning real money is only the hook that leads to the initial interest for these machines.
Once the players get into the habit of playing, it’s not really about winning anymore. It’s about staying in the zone - in this case it’s actually called the “Machine Zone”. (That might have been the inspiration for naming a well known game developer).
3-Reel Slots Deluxe is just one of numerous examples of casino slot machine games in mobile.
It might come as a surprise to some people considering themselves “real gamers”, that the “zone” of flow that you can reach in some core games can also be reached with casino games. Exactly that, however, is the reason slot machines work for their target players. Here’s why.
The very simplest slot machines are quite easy to understand. There are three spinning wheels and a line across them. If the same symbol appears on all three wheels, you win. Otherwise, you lose. This can be exciting for a while, but will most likely become boring as you play it longer.
To reach a state of flow, there has to be some challenge to master. At first, it does not have to be that much of a challenge, but at least something.
When the core player base spends time on a slot machine, they get into a state of flow where the surrounding world disappears.
Video poker (i.e. betting on poker hands on a machine similar to a slot machine), fits the bill for casino games. It’s pretty straightforward to see what’s a good hand and what’s a bad hand, but it does involve some skill.
State of flow
As people play these machines more, they start playing faster and faster. To rack up the challenge, you can play multiple poker hands at once - or multiple lines on a slot machine. Eventually, you have the 50-line slot machines where it’s actually very hard to tell what’s going on.
When the core player base spends time on one of these machines, they get into a state of flow where the surrounding world disappears. They know they are going to lose money, but play for “time-on-machine”. The goal is to stay in the zone for as long as possible.
Even the machines’ designers do not seem to have understood that early on. In Addiction by Design, Gardner Grout stated:
“What we did not get at the beginning is that people don’t really want to be entertained. Our best customers are not interested in entertainment - they want to be totally absorbed, they want to get into a rhythm.”
Anyone interrupting these players would be thought of as annoying. Including if it was to offer the players a gift card - as even that would interrupt the flow of the zone.
As the players go faster and faster, eventually they basically let the game play itself, with minimal player interaction. In an interview, a player stated:
“I wouldn’t even look at the cards. I’d just put bills in, get my credits, and press the buttons in rapid succession: DEAL, DRAW, BET MAX - DEAL, DRAW, BET MAX. I’d just watch the credit meter go up and down. If I were dealt a winner and it would go up, I’d think, how many times can I press this before all my money gets consumed? All that stuff that draws you in the beginning - the screen, the choice, the decisions, the skill - is stripped away.“
Autoplay
Game professionals will likely see the links to autoplay features in new games. Some of the slot machine players even used toothpicks to physically jam down the buttons to make a version of autoplay themselves.
Note that at this point, winning money is not the point. Rather, the point is to stay in the zone until the credits run out, which becomes a form of closure for the player. It can even be a nuisance to win, as this quote shows:
“Every now and then, I was so exhausted that I actually wanted to lose, so that I could go home. If I’d get close to losing and win again, I’d think Oh great, now I’ve got to sit here until it’s gone.”
Some slot machine players even used toothpicks to physically jam down the buttons to make a version of autoplay themselves.
For these gamblers, the slot machines are an asocial thing. An escape from unpredictable human relationships to predictable machines. For a fee, they provide access to the zone for some time. And every time, the money eventually runs out, and the experience ends.
Mobile casino made for the people is already at this point. I could not understand these, because I did not slowly progress into a core slot machine player. They’re not for me, just like a core strategy game on a PC is not (usually) for a 60 year old woman. Both are an acquired taste.
Positive and negative
So what are the learnings we can have for non-casino game developers?
I would split it into two parts: the positive learnings we can use to make better games, and the negative of problems evident in gambling games that we want to avoid in our entertainment games.
Machine gamblers can become really, really addicted. Addiction by Design profiles some of these people. They usually have some heartbreaking life stories involving personal tragedies and tumultuous relationships to other people.
To escape from it all, they turn to gambling and enter the zone where they can turn off all of that. Of course, this can make matters much worse, with ruined finances and neglected families as a result.
What I find very hopeful for our own mobile gaming industry is the pacing of the games that differ completely from machine gambling.
Whereas a “whale” in machine gambling will play 14 hour sessions, neglecting absolutely everything else, a successful mobile game is designed for short sessions to be played in-between daily work and family duties.
I have previously described this as the 666 rule of six minutes a session, six sessions a day, every day for six months. With such sessioning, it seems reasonable that the player will not set his or her relationships in danger because of playing.
We should also make sure that the superfans we hope will pay a lot in our games are individuals wealthy enough to afford it, rather than individuals with in tragic circumstances that spend more than they can afford.
We should make sure that the superfans we hope will pay a lot are individuals wealthy enough to afford it.
I would have a problem building a game that bankrupts someone, but do not have a problem with convincing a wealthy player to spend $200 in my game instead of buying a luxury dinner and champagne for it.
At least anecdotal evidence points to superfans being people who can both afford it and keep the time spent reasonable.
The grind
Over to the more positive side.
Obviously, the variable reward schedule is a central thing for casino games. That’s basically all of their game, and it works well on its own for this category - just like it did in a Skinner Box
These variable rewards can be used in lots of places in mobile F2P games. They are what underlies the gachas that are now in almost every successful new mobile F2P game.
Another learning is, to paraphrase Gordon Gecko, that Grind, for lack of a better word, is good. Grind is right, grind works.
The gamer in me believes in Sid Meier when he said that “a game is a series of interesting choices”. But, really, that is not how I behave.
In reality, I will stick with a progression that feels good, even if there are no interesting choices to make. I previously wrote about idle games, and I still enjoy playing several of them.
Even a lot of the top core games like Game of War and Mobile Strike have very few interesting choices to make during the first month(s) of play.
Torulf Jernström says even core titles like Game of War don't offer wide-ranging interesting choices for players to make during the first few months of play.
I have to admit that it took me quite long to realise this, but I often enjoy the mindless grind. It gives a relaxing feeling that does not require me to activate my slow, analytical part of the brain.
Quite honestly, if, a few years back, I had been in charge of several of the top grossing games, I would likely have killed them as uninteresting.
In a way, they promise you the core game with interesting choices only as a carrot dangling in front of you.
Then you are really left with a long mindless grind - but that can feel really good!
As part of Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2016, Martine Spaans, owner of Tamalaki, gave a talk on best practices for mobile ad monetisation based on lessons learned from publishing mobile games.
She started by talking about the typical casual gamer on mobile, saying that it can take two weeks for a player to convert to buying an IAP.
Ads for everyone
However, Spaans pointed out that "there's more people who watch rewarded videos than people who actually buy something in the game."
She then spoke about the different types of players, from those who won't watch any kind of ad to those who only want to see a few ads, and how to engage these users.
You can see all our videos from Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2016 in this YouTube playlist.
It's often said in the world of free-to-play development that launching a __game is the beginning, not the end.
These aren't boxed products released onto shop shelves, never to be worked on again. These are games-as-a-service that require constant operation and updating, often over a period of several years.
PocketGamer.biz has long been investigating the Making Of notable games soon after their launch, but what happens long after a __game is released?
In an attempt to find out, this new regular feature will talk to the developers behind maturing live games about their experience so far.
For this entry, we chat to Royal Revolt 2 and Flaregames Producer Gavin Lammin about the 2014 strategy sequel more than two and a half years after its launch.
With Royal Revolt 2 a few months off its third birthday, how do you reflect on its performance - from launch to the mature title it is now?
It’s been incredible how the game has evolved and developed such an active and passionate community.
After all, not many mobile games have such a long lifespan in terms of live ops and even now we’re planning content updates for the foreseeable future.
It’s naturally a very important title for Flaregames, and alongside more recent releases like Nonstop Knight and Olympus Rising, it’s been a real driving force for the company.
It’s also fantastic to work with the team at Keen Flare in Frankfurt, a truly world-class group of developers.
How big is the team currently handling live ops on Royal Revolt 2?
It’s a split between our team here at Flaregames and the developers at Keen Flare, but in total it's around 40 people.
Royal Revolt 2 is a very important title for Flaregames, and it’s been a real driving force.
Gavin Lammin
Due to how Flaregames is structured, those on live ops are typically not 100% allocated to a single project, but instead bring their expertise when an issue that requires their attention arises.
Naturally the team at Keen Flare are delivering the client and server updates and we work closely together particularly when key milestones approach.
How important do you consider customer support to be? What's been the approach to game updates?
While we work with a traditional update roadmap, we have - on many occasions - altered those plans after receiving particularly valuable community feedback.
That’s why building player trust and creating a dialogue with our players is vitally important to us, especially given the age of the game.
With such a mature player base, the bonds formed in-game are what keep many players coming back.
If we dropped the ball when it comes to community management, it would have a severe impact on the game as a whole.
Our customer support, community management and social media teams work as one to continually engage with the community, extracting valuable feedback, filtering relevant comments so they can be reviewed for our roadmap, and of course immediate escalation of critical issues.
When you have a game that is beloved and cared for by so many within the community, accurate and timely responses to questions is crucial.
Since the game's launch, Flaregames has transitioned from internal development to a publishing focus. As a Flare-developed game, how is Royal Revolt 2 handled differently to the rest of your portfolio?
In principle, Royal Revolt 2 is not handled any differently from other games in our portfolio. From a publishing perspective, we treat Keen Flare the same way as any of our external studios.
We treat Keen Flare the same way as any of our external studios.
Gavin Lammin
But it’s important to note that we are not the developer - it’s our role as Flaregames to empower the development team to make the right decisions and provide our support and expertise to enhance the game’s success.
What steps have you taken to ensure that Royal Revolt 2 maintains a sizeable and active player base years after its launch?
Delivering new and exciting content, for one. We work on a cadence of at least one major update every three months, at the same time assessing if this content might have a shot at getting featured by the platform holders.
We also place a big emphasis on regular in-game events and rewards. For example, we recently added a “PvE events system” whereby players face off against a Villain and his army of Ninjas.
Mixing up the different challenges and even customising the seasonal theme of this system has been a great supplement to the wider gameplay experience.
What lessons have you/are you still learning from Royal Revolt 2? Is there anything about the game that, in hindsight, you'd now handle differently?
When the game was first created, I don’t think anyone thought it would reach this milestone, although of course everyone had hoped and worked hard to achieve it.
By that I mean, with the many elements that are now in the game it has become harder to integrate them from a UX perspective.
The game has become more complex from a live ops perspective, making it more challenging.
Gavin Lammin
On top of this, the game has become more complex from a live ops perspective and this makes it more challenging when making large changes to the game.
These are quite typical challenges to overcome in a game that has evolved over many years, and if it was known that we’d have so many systems/events in the game three years ago, we likely would have structured both elements in-game as well as in our back-end tools differently.
That aside, it is something which is difficult to foresee, and in a way this issue is great because it boils down to being victims of our own success.
Finally, how has your experience with Royal Revolt 2 informed where you are/what you're working on now?
As mentioned earlier, Royal Revolt 2 has been a real benchmark for the company and shaped many aspects of our publishing philosophy.
Our learnings have even influenced our work on Nonstop Knight with the guys at Kopla Games.
We’re already working with Keen Flare on plans for their next hit game, so naturally what we have experienced together will carry over into this next project.
Four years ago, we launched our first annual rundown of the best mobile __game developers in the world, and this year's selection is more vibrant, exciting and global than ever.
But, of course, that's only to be expected given the industry itself is more vibrant, exciting and global that ever before.
As for the unveiling, we'll be kicking off the countdown tomorrow with numbers 50 to 41: presented thanks to our sponsors 'Math Behind the App Stores' data experts App Annie, and the largest Chinese mobile __game developer platform CocoaChina.
The countdown will continue daily, and include our special 10 To Watch list of the upcoming studios we think could be challenging for 2014's list.
The top 10 will be revealed at an exclusive event in San Francisco next Sunday evening prior to the start of GDC.
A who's who?
Of course, we're not going to reveal any of the winners yet, but we can divulge some information.
There are 19 new entries in the 2013 list, compared to 23 new entries in 2012, with four new entries appearing in the top 10.
And looking at geographical breakdown, the US is best represented with 17 entries, followed by Europe at 15 and Japan with seven.
Four are UK developers (the best represented European country), four from Korea, and three each from Russia and China.
Lasse Seppänen is the CEO & Co-Founder of PlayRaven, a Helsinki-based studio specialized in fresh new strategy games for touch screens.
Lasse has worked in several development and executive roles since 1998 and is best known for his role as Remedy’s Executive Producer for the XBox 360 cult hit Alan Wake.
In a games industry career spanning 20 years so far, Lasse Seppanen reckons he's experienced three distinct waves of mobile gaming.
The first was at the turn of the millennium when he was working on WAP and text message games for very early handsets, pre-dating even the halcyon days of Java.
“Most people don't even remember what WAP means,” he laughs.
Seppanen identifies the second as occurring “around 2003 to 2005”, at which point he was Head of Studio at Sumea.
Here he worked alongside four of Supercell's five co-founders, developing games for early feature phones.
“Ilkka [Paananen] was my boss, who later founded Supercell as the CEO, and the three others were working for me in the studio,” he recalls.
“I know them very well and we share a lot of thinking and DNA. I'm really happy about their success.”
Pastures new
Sumea was subsequently acquired by mobile gaming's then-dominant company Digital Chocolate in 2004, rebranding as the US firm's Helsinki arm.
The following year, Seppanen left the company - and mobile gaming - to work on a secretive new Xbox 360 IP at Max Payne developer Remedy.
I realised that with F2P, strategy was the genre that would be big.
Lasse Seppanen
This turned out to be Alan Wake, a critically-acclaimed psychological thriller on which he was Executive Producer. Seppanen remained at the Espoo-based firm for six years.
The third wave of mobile gaming to which Seppanen refers is the modern era, which offered him the incentive to return to mobile and found PlayRaven in 2013.
“I always wanted to make strategy games,” he explains. “I realised that with the free-to-play model, strategy was really the genre that would be big.
“If you sell one box with one price tag, you don't want people to play it for 10 years.
“That's great for action adventures and shooters, but not great for strategy games. That's one of the reasons strategy never took off in the premium world.”
Unique vision
Some might argue that Seppanen's absence from the mobile games industry was badly timed.
Spending 2005-2013 in console meant that he missed the launch of the App Store and the early hits that came with it, such as Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, returning when the market was arguably already saturated.
Supercell set the formula before PlayRaven was established
But being a new mobile strategy developer in 2013, after Supercell had established an oft-imitated formula with Clash of Clans, gave PlayRaven something to stand in opposition to.
We don't do re-skins, or copies, or clones.
Lasse Seppanen
Seppanen has always been very clear that PlayRaven is only interested in developing “games that bring something fresh and new to the genre and to the platform”.
“We don't do re-skins or copies or clones,” he asserts. And indeed, the studio's three launched games to date - Spymaster, Robocide, and Winterstate - are all very different experiences.
Small teams, big ambition
From a five-person startup in 2013 to 22 employees at the time of writing, PlayRaven has grown steadily but not explosively.
“We haven't gone for hyper-growth,” says Seppanen.
“Think of us like a laboratory. If you're solving a very hard problem - and making a new IP is always a very hard problem - you just need a very limited amount of people who have the passion and experience.”
The core team on Robocide was a mere four people strong. Winterstate's team wasn't much bigger. And yet, PlayRaven still managed to launch the pair within a month of one another to relative success.
Everything in Finland is built with a less is more approach.
Lasse Seppanen
For Seppanen, this is evidence that you don't need a big team to make free-to-play work.
“Clash Royale was made by six or seven people - less than 10, for sure - so I think that's the best example that can be provided,” he enthuses.
Made in Finland
Compared to what he describes as the “brute force approach” of some of the bigger F2P developers, Seppanen goes on to praise the simplicity and elegance of Clash Royale's presentation and feature set.
“You only have the minimum of what you need,” he says.
“That is how Nordic design in general works. It's not just games, it's furniture and buildings - everything here is built with a less is more approach.”
The PlayRaven studio
It's an interesting point, especially given the unique togetherness of the Finnish games industry in which PlayRaven is deeply embedded.
I wouldn't say IGDA created the culture, but it's definitely been there to accelerate it.
Lasse Seppanen
Finland's connection with and dominance in mobile gaming is well-documented and Seppanen attributes it to a perfect storm of Nokia's Finnish roots, the dark winter nights, and the sharing culture that exists between __game developers there.
Seppanen has had a hand in the latter, helping to establish the IGDA in Finland in 2012 and acting as its lead coordinator for the first two years.
“I wouldn't say IGDA created the culture, but it's definitely been there to accelerate and enhance it,” he says.
No contest
Sharing projects early and gathering feedback from peers is a key part of the PlayRaven strategy, with regular meet-ups in the region and plenty of like-minded developers willing to take part.
“There's not much to lose by sharing,” Seppanen states. “We decided, even within the open Finnish culture, to be even more open.”
An IGDA Finland meet
He says the benefit of this approach is “maximum feedback at maximum speed” - a scenario that is much more helpful to PlayRaven than the long and isolating process of keeping its cards close to its chest.
We decided, even within the open Finnish culture, to be even more open.
Lasse Seppanen
This is the norm in Finland, with IGDA gatherings recently hitting a record 700 attendees - most of whom were industry professionals. However, it's not like this everywhere.
“In some places the IGDA chapters have unfortunately become relatively academic, so it's mostly students and the professionals might even avoid the meets,” explains Seppanen.
“That's very regrettable and we have the opposite situation.”
Feedback is key
This “maximum feedback at maximum speed” philosophy can be clearly seen in the firm's approach to soft-launching its latest project - a reimagining of 2014's Spymaster.
The game, which takes the original concept in a different direction, was soft-launched after only five months of development.
Prior to this, PlayRaven has never soft-launched earlier than a year into development. For Seppanen this new approach has been a revelation, leading to useful ideas that wouldn't have arisen otherwise.
We want both the metrics and the opinions of the players.
Lasse Seppanen
“We want both the metrics and the opinions of the players,” he says. “We're actively talking to them and hearing their ideas about the latest update, what went well, what went wrong and so on.”
As for the new Spymaster experience, those who played the original might not recognise it.
There's a new art style, an increased focus on social features and a new card-based design that emphasises the player's empowered position as the tactical force behind these individual agents.
The right team for the job
To a large extent, this is due to the fact that the new Spymaster is being developed by an almost entirely new-look team that features only one individual who was at the company before.
A sustained hiring drive that began in 2015 made it clear that PlayRaven was building a team for a spy game, ensuring that it attracted only those who were equipped and excited to take up the challenge.
And it's resulted in an eclectic and international bunch, including a British lead who relocated to Helsinki from China, a Russian backend programmer, an American client programmer who moved his family from San Francisco, a Canadian designer and only two Finns.
The PlayRaven team
He explains that for the first six months, he had to emphasise to the new international team members that showing their work to other companies is to be encouraged - and not in fact fraternising with the enemy or exposing it too early.
A long way to go
But although this new-look team has been quick to soft launch Spymaster, it has no intentions of rushing it to a full release.
It's currently toying with ideas internally, moving away from the traditional structure and presentation of mobile strategy games that we've come to expect.
One of these ideas is to move the emphasis away from the game's map and into the guild chat, making logging in feel like something more akin to a messaging app.
“You would see a bunch of missions in the chat stream,” envisions Seppanen.
“Make it a social stream where you can participate in stuff with others, rather than have this very archaic and maybe old-fashioned way of separating single player and multiplayer.”
PlayRaven Marketing Director Robin Squire sums it up pithily: “like Messenger with backstabbing.”
For a company that's consistently defined itself with creativity in arguably the most homogeneous sector in gaming, you certainly wouldn't bet against it pulling this off.
