How player behaviour is changing | Gonçalo Martins from Boombit

[Music] I'm now joined by Gonzalo Martins from boom bit games how are you doing today very well very well di but very well I know the feeling we're nearly there end of the day but it's it's a busy it's a busy one this it takes a takes a toll but in a good way so I mean you've already done talks as well haven't you yes yes yesterday morning right in the morning so I was still fresh it was really good excellent um I don't think we've spoken boom bit games before so give us the slugline what is Boom bit games all about yeah boom bit games is a lot of things but mainly we're a publisher and developers so we publish mobile games uh we have a portfolio that is pretty extensive so we go all the way from midcore casual ier casual I think we are present in a lot of different game genres uh we built a lot in house but as well we have our publishing arm so we are trying to be know present across uh as many types of gam possible which I the end of the day gives us a

lot of experience and I think it's what's what's makes the dayto day exciting well it's it's a challenging landscape out there at the moment I know we've been talking to a lot of other sort of AD monetizer and developers and things over the past two days and there's been lots of layoffs there's VC spend is clearly down fewer games are likely to get made this year how have you felt the impact of these changes over the past you know year or two yeah I think we were very lucky in the sense that we were focusing a lot on upper casual and then we moved to midp around the beginning of 2021 okay so we were able to have our feet on on the both sides on the on the IAP side and on the ad side of go of publishing let's say um and that was pretty luy unfortunate for us so we we saw our mid flors and we saw our IP Revenue increase while of course like some the the ad Revenue was decreasing a little bit with with all that is happening right so we are able to bance it out a little bit uh we're

able as well to have right away the the right Focus to go more towards iip driven games and for the past I'll say at least one year we've been building uh new games that we're going to be publishing soon uh but more focus on what I so is that is that the big shift that you've seen in terms of what is delivering at the moment also we've been seeing for example even on a casual side that even though before these games were 99% out Revenue Focus nowadays we are seeing a 10% I in these very very low retention games but still you see that the users are behaving slightly different towards their games like they are more committed to the games that they play more committed to the games that they like even though they are for casual and you see that on the if consumption like they are giving them opening themselves to do a bit more of a of a purchase even in when we're talking about games that are a casual and and very low it's interesting cuz a lot of people focus on UA at the beginning it's all about trying to grab as many as

possible but I've been speaking to some folks and I feel like there's sometimes not as much Focus Put on Not Just retention but reactivating all us as you maybe have walked away from it have you seen evidence of that do you tend to lean towards one or the other in in your experiences yes I think it really depends on the game once again uh nowadays I think companies and Publishers and developers they're going to be focusing more on nourishing the users that they have uh building more content on the games that they have making sure that the games are for the users to play for a long time and that will result on going back trying to revive all old users trying to revive maybe even old mechanics uh because we now we want to nourish the users that you already have right before was you're focusing a lot on user acquisition like I said a lot of new users as many as possible and then there was a big uh change between Gates and the users were jumping around uh and nowadays is not that much like if you have the user is I

think the most valuable thing that you can do is try to really uh give them content give them quality and then they will stay and focus more on your daily active users instead of just like acquiring new ones yeah right we've seen quite a lock down in data from the major app stores so obviously Apple did their thing couple of years ago uh Google Google have been locking down and even places like China you talk about making inapp payments more important they're now saying you can't do daily login rewards and you know that that that's quite a big Market in and of itself does that loss of signal that loss of information and data affect the kind of games that you choose to make yes I would like the answer is yes of course uh and it's even like going back a little bit what I said before because now with with that lack of uh of data right with more privacy inability to Target inability to really uh Target your audience uh users themselves start seeing less um you

they start seeing less ads that really meant any something to them right so then basically before if you were playing a puzzle game you'd see 20 puzzle ads and you jump around with puzzle uh games nowadays because the users are not having this this Dynamic on the ad side they are trusting a lot the games that they know and they are really staying on the games that they know because at least they know that they can have some comfort they can have fun they can they can play that game and they know what they are playing due to the Privacy changes the lack an ability of targeting an ability of doing the perfect targeting users are seeing more random ads let's say so they're not going to new games anymore or as much as before right before was was really the the users were jumping around a lot and now they are trusting more what they know they are staying more on the games that they know because also in terms of advertising they are not being faced uh with a lot of other options right so then for us once again we are more focused on having a good good quality

game uh a game where the users really can rely on on the performance uh they can rely on the mechanics because we know they're also they prefer to stay in the game that they know than to jump around uh between other apps yeah AI was obviously a big topic last year because of the main streaming if you like of generative AI now as a publisher I imagine you in your analytics you use a lot of ml or work with folks who use ml as part of those Services is there anything from this new wave of AI that is is actually useful for what you do and as you make games and develop games we've seen people using generative AI to create Assets in a way that's both has been received positively and quite negatively in some cases do you think it will change the way you develop It's Tricky uh because you know the the answer should be yes because you know the having AI special generative AI involved in in asset production is a huged health it it increases the the production Time by a lot but at the same time gener CVI is still not at a point

where it gives you um new assets but constant assets that you can use uh in your game for for example 6 months right it's so volatile nowadays you can ask for a certain type of asset and then to receive exactly the same style exactly the same the same Dynamics the same coloring but instead of being a human is a horse it's very hard so of course it can help you out on maybe inspiration on have like a base onone that the assets having a base on like the your scenario but at the same time keeping that consistency for just so just so that you can create a game you can create a a good quality game in a long G is still very very hard I know that in people's mind it looks like it's very easy right to just go there give me this give me that uh but the the results that you're getting back are very different even though within the same style maybe but they are not consistent enough just so that you can produce a full game so is treaty we are starting to use it

of course it's helping out in a lot a lot of areas but the base is still I still think the base is pretty I don't want to say old school because it was 6 months ago but uh it's still like the traditional way let's say what do you feel about the push back against it the the legal issues for one thing but also the fact that artists are saying that it's like you know stolen work and it's effectively putting an entire industry out of a job I mean do you feel those fears are grounded or uh I don't think so I know you you still you always going to need a a human support and a human uh hand in everything we're doing especially right now and I would even say for the next five even maybe 10 years depends how it's how it grows uh but still you always need the human touch you need like the the story needs to be aligned it needs to make sense we still need to test everything that we are producing right it's not just because AI is producing it there's going to be a success you still need to iterate test um it's just you know just going to maybe make it shorter in terms

of production make it like even maybe cheaper which is good uh but you still need to to curate your game a lot for the users to be attracted to it it's not going to be easy to to produce a nice game right and you've come to the show today what's the benefit for coming to physical events and these kind of conferences like in general what do you he yeah you I think you're here for the for the details I know it's it's weird to say this but you know you you end up having a lot of conversations on the site and I think those conversations are the ones that really give you the the small nuggets that you don't have on a zoom call on a meeting on on a work meeting it's after all the all the bureaucracy and the sales are gone and then you have like the the more face tof face talks and you get like the what people are thinking uh what people are you know what are the trends that they're seeing on their side and that's what really never it never FES in in a meeting you know in a zoom call you never you ended up never really talking

about that uh so I think it's more like the The Human Side of of being face to face and trying to understand what they are thinking what uh yeah what they think of of everything uh yeah it's when the mask drops fantastic well hopefully have enjoyed the rest of the show and uh thank you for coming and talking to us today thank you thank you very much [Music]