Matt Emery "The Mobile Games Consultant" shares his secrets to driving meaningful improvements in F2P liveops Back in November of 2010, during the early days of F2P gaming, Zynga sued Playdom for stealing its trade secrets, specifically Zynga’s Liveops “playbook.” Last fall Zynga sued rival gaming developer Playdom (recently acquired by Disney) for an array of … [Read more...] about Building a F2P Liveops “Playbook” ft. Matt Emery
Product Management
LiveOps – F2P Sales Best Practices 2020
One of the biggest drivers for increasing existing player monetization and LTV is through F2P Sales. In this talk, I discuss a framework for Sales and Offers that has increased player LTV by 40%+ (and in some cases over 100%). As mobile game studios (and others), increasingly shift to a free to play and live operations model, sales can be your biggest driver of alpha and … [Read more...] about LiveOps – F2P Sales Best Practices 2020
Data Science at Games Studios
What do data science teams at games studios do anyway? Today we speak to Andre Cohen, Head of Data Science, at games publisher Tilting Point to find out. Specifically we talk: #1. what is the role of data science within a games studio? #2. What are the primary applications data science is being used for? #3. What does a data science team look like in terms … [Read more...] about Data Science at Games Studios
F2P Sales Best Practices
To be successful with F2P games, it's important to have fairly deep technical infrastructure with a number of capabilities: sales & merchandising in particular being a key component. At the GPM (Games Product Managers) Forum event in Vancouver earlier this year, I spoke about my thoughts in terms of best practices. I talk about the techniques and approach I'll be taking … [Read more...] about F2P Sales Best Practices
Product Management at Riot Games
What a journey! Paul Bellezza responded to a Craigslist ad for a humble games start-up called Riot Games in Los Angeles as Employee #6 in 2006. Since then, he's lived through the meteoric rise of Riot Games and the massive growth of the company from the game League of Legends. Paul serves as Product Manager: R&D working on new game concepts at Riot and he talks about his … [Read more...] about Product Management at Riot Games
Mobile Game Product Manager Victor Wang of NBCUniversal | Jurassic World Alive F2P PM Interview
Learn more about Mobile Games F2P Product Management from Victor Wang who is a PM on the hit F2P game Jurassic World Alive. Content Outline: 1:18 What Does a F2P Product Manager Do? 2:48 Day to Day Activities 6:08 PMs vs. Producers 8:57 KPI Analysis 10:50 Role of PM at Different Companies 13:34 PM Role by Game Dev Phase 16:48 How to Analyze Revenue Decline 20:16 Most … [Read more...] about Mobile Game Product Manager Victor Wang of NBCUniversal | Jurassic World Alive F2P PM Interview
“Key Risks” Based Game Pre-production
Context: Mobile game pre-production teams often focus on the wrong activities. An early focus on playables in software or building a game's core loop may be useful but not the best approach. Any team with limited resources should prioritize what's most critical to maximizing the success of a game. Unfortunately, the most common approach I encounter … [Read more...] about “Key Risks” Based Game Pre-production
Destructive Executives and the “Giant Spider” Problem
Introduction Steve Jobs was famous for creating some of the most successful products ever built. He made significant, positive impacts on the the product teams and with product decisions. However, with many executives we find the opposite phenomenon happening where high level executives make poor decisions that negatively impact products teams and product decisions. Steve Jobs … [Read more...] about Destructive Executives and the “Giant Spider” Problem
The “Strange Attractor” in Video Game Design
Context Before gameplay, mechanics, monetization, or any other key design consideration, a new video game design needs to consider the most important aspect of all: a good concept. Feature film screenwriter Terry Rossio (credits include Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin, and many others) developed the notion of a "Strange Attractor" to help other screenwriters … [Read more...] about The “Strange Attractor” in Video Game Design
Mobile Game Design: Iteration vs. Planning, MVP = Dangerous!
Mobile game design typically follows two primary schools of design philosophy: Iteration based design = Just get some core mechanics in and then keep iterating until you get something fun; some initial but not extensive design before development Planning based design = Think through all of the features, every key screen, all of the dependencies and interactions between … [Read more...] about Mobile Game Design: Iteration vs. Planning, MVP = Dangerous!
Mobile UI and Game Design: Screens vs. Flows
Context: Mobile game design by flows refers to the concept of mapping out the entire set of screens a user can tap through in a mobile game: the user flows. While many of the larger mobile game studios such as Zynga or GREE routinely design UI/UX by flows, many mobile application designers are still designing individual screens by feature. In this blog post I describe: … [Read more...] about Mobile UI and Game Design: Screens vs. Flows
How Complexity Domain Impacts Software Development Process
Should your software product development team be agile? The answer I almost always hear (especially in Silicon Valley) seems to be "of course, yes", but the right answer should be: "it depends." These days there seems to be a bit of religion and marketing brainwash around development teams' requirement for "agility" and the Scrum process in particular, and yet for all of the … [Read more...] about How Complexity Domain Impacts Software Development Process
Why Mobile Games Need a Strong “Heartbeat”
Introduction Humans require a heartbeat to live. The heart pumps blood including essential nutrients throughout the body to sustain life in a regular cycle and rhythm. Similarly, mobile games in particular require a similar concept of a "heartbeat" in order to sustain an audience and user interest in a regular cycle and rhythm. This is especially true for mobile games … [Read more...] about Why Mobile Games Need a Strong “Heartbeat”
Design & Implementation of Mobile Analytics
There is a better way to make your mobile analytics far more effective and to dramatically reduce your integration time! Further, I illustrate how the best person to manage analytics not only understands metrics but also has a good product sense and should have a deep understanding of the mobile app itself. Read on... BACKGROUND: I've had a really great opportunity … [Read more...] about Design & Implementation of Mobile Analytics
Monetization-based Game Design: ARPDAU Contribution
Context: In today's mobile game market, the most successful games must have extremely high LTV (Life Time Value). As LTV is fairly difficult to project accurately (at least in the short term), shorter term metrics around monetization (usually ARPDAU) and retention (usually D1/7/30) are more typically used to estimate LTV potential. The table below depicts the simple view … [Read more...] about Monetization-based Game Design: ARPDAU Contribution