The views expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the views of my employer. Even further, this post is just a fun thought experiment expressing a contrarian view to current popular opinion. Fortnite: The Cultural Phenomenon! Fortnite is a cultural phenomenon with over 40M downloads on PC and console and bursting […]
2016 Mobile Gaming Trends Report: Key Take-aways
SEGA Networks (mobile operating division of SEGA) partnered with Sensor Tower this year to present the 2016 Mobile Gaming Trends Report. The report covers the overall and category-focused mobile gaming industry trends. You can access the full report contents for free from the website here: www.mobilegamingtrends.com. This post covers some of the key take-aways from that […]
An Open-source Mobile Gaming Taxonomy
Context: Every mobile gaming company has their own system for describing different types of mobile games. In other words, a mobile gaming taxonomy or classification system. Unfortunately, no industry standard exists. Further, I’ve been very unhappy with the current taxonomies developed by the various research firms out there. As a good friend of mine stated […]
Crazy, 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 […]
The World’s Greatest: Why Activision Needs to Acquire Glu and Ember Entertainment
Context: Huge pent-up demand exists for Blizzard IP based mobile games (e.g., Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo). We see strong market evidence of this demand in the countless number and success of infringing mobile games that operate without formal licensing with Activision Blizzard. Especially for fantasy gamers, the ultimate IP in mobile gaming is from Blizzard’s […]
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 understand how to […]
China Mobile Game Market: What You Need to Know!
China’s mobile gaming market has been experiencing explosive growth and and is projected to soon overtake the US market by as early as next year in 2015. Independent research firm Niko Partners estimates China’s mobile game market to grow 93% to $2.9B in 2014 with compound annual growth of 37.6% from 2013 to 2018. Source: […]
The Compulsion Loop in Game Design Explained
A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills. – Arthur Schopenhauer John Hopson introduced the concept of the compulsion loop applied to video games as early as 2001. Since then, compulsion loop mechanics continue to get integrated into video games fairly broadly. The compulsion loop concept regained popularity […]
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 […]
Implications of “Alpha” and “Beta” in Mobile Gaming
Bear with me on this post. There will be some financial jargon and a bit of math but the conclusions drawn I believe will be worth your read (at least I hope so!). Let’s first start with some financial theory which will form the basis of the arguments I make. In finance, the “efficient markets […]
What’s really going on with Facebook gaming?
According to Facebook and the press, Facebook gaming is booming. Headlines from the media indicate: Wired: “Facebook gaming thrives” The Next Web: “last three months of game revenue are a record” c|net: “Facebook’s games business stronger than ever” Wall Street Journal: “Facebook Racks Up Record Games Revenue“ Facebook CFO David Ebersman: “Q1 represented our largest three-month quarter of […]
Emergence of the “Software Artist”
In 1983, a small group of entrepreneurs was hard at work creating a company that would define a new age of digital entertainment. This new company was built to fulfill a vision by founder Trip Hawkins to help enable and distribute products built by a new class of entrepreneur: the “software artist.” The company was […]
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