Biz Daily: Can Vainglory overcome the mobile MOBA curse?

hello and welcome to biz daily I'm John Jordan so today we're talking about vainglory so vain glory is a MOBA MOBAs as I guess a lot of people know our massive kind of pc genre so kind of online multiplayer games very specific hello John Rhodes kind of come out with a very specific type of type of gameplay and then very flexible kind of fair basis that kind of historically or traditionally they've got quite hard games to get into so it's going to be one of these kind of interesting kind of genres that's grown up from some very very hard for players not off casual players that just takes a lot to gain to the into them and the big wide league legends and come a little sleen interesting is legal aid has a lot of players but in my eyes is actually very weakly on a per player basis and what they do is it every month or so they release some new characters typically

the character to overpower so everyone buys them and then gradually they kind of balance them out and then you have this kind of a kind of were here next month and the last another player another character comes in so it's kind of been a very good model for amirite games who run league of legends there's a few other kind of pc companies who who who also come on edge but they're the league legends is kind of like takes place the lawn chair so as we've seen a mobile devices particular tablets get more platform very hard to break into the pete the mobile pc market now so we're kind of seeing people looking at now how can we take that gameplay into mobile there's been quite a lot of attempts actually I'm so game afraid ago there's been startup so hammer chisel how to go with with the fates of fiber and it's been a kind of a few other homes in gotta go as well um and even though the kind of the gameplays kind of quite well known her well quite well understood on PC there's been a bit of a discussion about how to kind of get it down to mobile so typically the new player three by three typically they do what people call them play a mobile and

the session makes a much shorter so obviously this is whole idea the mobile Clayton not never going to play the long periods of time and the other big problems really in control so as with first-person shooters keyboard a mouse that's come her first person to use kind of evolved and became really popular and that's helped the control method was not saying you can't play the mother devices have consult the embrace and very successful first person shooters but the pc is is these soon as the cover best controller so me members really it's a guess it kind of a 50 the mouse how you can kind of be kind of using the master control things on a touchscreen it's very hard part there's a touch screen says different connect drama that it also could your fingers are kind of where you won't be looking so could also get to enjoy pad but figuring each type has on Dutchman's there's been kind of these kind of design problems to overcome with lids with touchscreens and people having to go and and cuz i guess what we consider moment is faint glory which is from a u.s. startup lots of

them kind of a veteran developers they're super evil megacorp so cool name and they put out a big glory after and it's highly anticipated game they got a lot of funding so they come no more doing they put out come in november and just for a my pad and equations be rolling out i need another come at countries and father and the Vice accessor is now going on iphone so um I have to admit I'm terrible temper removers mmm said by definition terrible at vainglory so I have played it a little bit but but really coming into this not not my game pilot another tons of to throw away but it's very well produced co-presented game and obviously for people who well the augment is people who like am I wasn't pc they probably think taba games as well all he's got a phone and so maybe they're bit of crossover well that's been proven off not yet but things dissertation is seven kind of super evil have now announced after going live exclusively for iOS and getting all that kind of lovely Apple push as you know the only

game in 2014 that got a TV advert spot with Apple Apple mooncalf to bond over not really going big on games certainly the moment and but they got that big push they got a lot of downloads and not we see not monetization they've said that's fine they're not focused on 10 citation the moment there's a big argument that back with a game gopher can say that even if one as well funded as a superb anyway that's what level I've said and they've been focusing on retention and that engagement which is kind of much more I seems a long term kind of a design balanced game you're kind of players coming back and we can all the time and come engaging building communities coughs the communities are much stronger the kind of much wrong leading the really come short term elicitation because you can happen for years as league of legends are shown so interesting news today is that now they'd always come out on Android 150 devices they're claiming the support so that's kind of interesting as much lower spec devices and obsolete Android

players and tend to be a bit different and so excuse some countries more so dance career is a is a big Android company Japan's car fifty-fifty rush is quite big Germany quite big Android companies and then China big one as well see and there's kind of asian countries around there so they'll be interesting to see how adding all these at places I've been a player vainglory because it's don't be online less how that changes I kind of the game successfully at this point machine with someone at least two people gonna have to start wearing about monetization so it's been interesting and the gifts of course has been interesting on the back of that to come back up there augment they've been looking at retention is they've announced a pebble over 1.5 million active players a month so that's a reasonable number um it's not by any means a massive amount but this is a hardcore game so compared to learn Angry Birds everything at one point of rovio had 300 million napkin please a month how lame is Inga now has as a king these kind of numbers have hundreds of millions back to plays a month but there's over multiple games and they're

very casual games so 1.5 million is deadly a starting point that's only adding you be look they be looking I guess they're 22 maybe in three when they got their Android kind of players kind of downloaded and Selden but what's also interesting is what they're announcing and it's kind of where we've seen the PC mode was going is that vainglorious is going to be the positioning it for esports esports a big growing kind of field where you have kind of a professional gamers who could be sponsored by any companies recruit on supply gang comedies he responds by hardware companies take up in it again it's not a big thing in Korea and then at the moment then the West well have been confirmed these different attempts to come up South cut pro leagues and things but anyway two people are kind of saying up vainglory as as them as the eSports mobile on tablet and mobile I guess the focus release dr. Bayliss don't want ipad them they are or iPhone or how that's been what we've seen so far and they're going in in them deal with a Korean broadcaster so it's going

to be a it's going to be like for the first kind of vainglory sports event happening in that career next week sir be interesting to see an awfully careers kind of like the heartland of spectator video games so the interesting to see whether they can nag on Android where they can get foot hole in their stop growing that marking um after that be something we'll be looking at over over the coming monsters just to see how vain glory you know how the how this changes the market for them because there is another argument element when I kind of leaned was a little bit that certain types of genre like first-person shooters our movers are just not going to work on mobile know that that is quite controversial view of TV monks people who were making mobile Zen third-person shooters but it seems to me that Ashley is kind of better at doing some chores and others so there's an obstacle but I'm sure see people will be happy to prove me wrong and I will be happy to be proved wrong as well so we'll go a little among sketchy tomorrow