How to choose the right partner for your mobile game

we're gonna have a panel now we're going to talk about partnership so I'm going to ask Kevin Charles Cindy and Andrea to come up and join me and we can have a talk about why it's important not to go alone you know you've got to take a partner with you there was supposed to be a kind of an Zelda based joke in there somewhere but clearly too tired after all the walking I did yesterday to follow it 1 30 second one up guys so partnerships I mean this is really the point of what we want to try and talk about and how we can make this relevant as relevant as possible to everybody here but each of us all have our particular interests although I do know that there's three people on this group that have either currently or previously

had an involvement with a certain game engine it's not that's not deliberate by the way and so let's this system suit yourself hi everyone for those that can't see on the camera the room is absolutely packed right now so I'll try to keep it short so we have enough time for questions Andrew burn briar I'm with Apple ifs we're a mobile games marketing platform we've expanded beyond just Gammy's now so we also do not gaming but we we were born and bred in the gaming space happened to be here thank you for taking time out of your lunch to come sit here and listen to our panel my name is Denis gang I do bits development for unity ads my sole purpose in life is to make developers money through putting in mobile video ads in your game my name is Charles McKeever I'm the director of public relations for Corona labs we offer a free 2d game engine pull sdk for also we have a corona ads which was just

launched here recently for adding ads into your didn't Adam you know Kevin Robertson I was at unity for five and a half years Iran biz dev for north america on the course I'd up until January and then recently came on with game sparks which is a 50 a back-end server side engine so that's when obviously this kind of group is divided into kind of getting your game promoted and making the game in the first place in actually you're perfectly position because now I know you do adds to it's like perfectly down the middle so I mean let's start this end you know we're going to be making a game we're going to be kind of crazy something do we make it ourselves or do use apart how do we start that process off how should people out there start thinking about engaging with people at yourself on the back end people it's off in the engine how do you and mr. how should these guys engage with you you know I'm stocking yeah I think one of the most important things is just to consider that you know what is one of the things like to say is

what is next gen I don't think it's graphics I don't think it's VR to me it's more about engaging is about cooperative it's about multiplayer it's about having competitive elements having things in your game that key people wanting to come back rather than just kill three minutes on your phone at the bus stop and I think that we were seeing this a lot more there's there's really examples of you know really extensive back-end systems made and in games like clash Royale I think it's a great example of a game that's you know supercell iterated and they created an RTS that was super addictive but but most of that game is all back in it's all competitive its matchmaking it's it's having systems built in that keep you coming back and knowing where you stand where am I am I in this league of my bronze and my silver and what items am I getting what what resources what rewards and all that stuff is is engagement that stuff you have to keep powering after game is launched and I think that's a good way to start that telegram and I wrote book cool games the

service so I kind of would think that but it is really kind I think caught to me which is this knowing Hannah built something that's simple and small and do it well but then knowing how to build the support structure within it so that it can scale I mean it went public with people coming to you first thinking about how to make the game yeah we'd see them say a lot of that but I do i do agree that the interaction is very important now and how you engage the player making them want to just open the app again right because getting them to stall it the first time as a challenge getting them to play at that first time is fairly easy after they installed it but then getting them to come back again and again is important and no front fun run is a great example of a game that just you know gets you engaged in it and then also is because it's multiplayer it has that back-end support it makes it to where you want to play with your friends and so we've got a need to be able to find the right tools and the right partners for that an understanding that this the next great thing is not just about making the game is about the whole

support I think we then move forward and think about well how early should we start thinking about finding their audience and so you know when today when we start talking to people how early do we want to engage those guys you know in terms of getting them involved with companies like ourselves I think in any game developing any game you want to just ask questions ask the right questions on terms of like how do I build it from ground zero for the most important thing is how do I make money many eight percent of people don't pay I don't pay I mean I played clash Royale for so long I'll probably spend five dollars on a pack of gum before I spend a dollar on like 80 gems right so you always want to ask those questions and the reason why like I believe in ads or whether it's video banners whatever it is is it empowers developers to continue and make content good content that clink surface and the App Store I love to play games so that's why I'm trying to empower developers to be able to ask the right question the beginning make sure they have the right content build on the right platform but they also have that longevity of keep going and the only way they can keep going as if they're

actually funded with money which is my purpose I think it's also an aspect of that which used about design designing the game right and so it works well and a lot right along those lines and you were saying you know ads are important certainly for the longevity of the developer who's trying to continue this is a permanent role what I was talking with the developer get me bro out here on the floor here and yesterday we were saying you know ads are intrusive unless the player is ops into them and most of the time people don't want that ad push to them but they will opt into it well I think the question that you asked was when do you start deciding what your audience's right so I think when you're making the game you already have an audience in mind and that is around kind of the genre right so if you're making a core game you're not really thinking about massive advertising because you don't really have enough users per se right so you're focusing more on monetization metrics and things that are any gauge than when it actually hook them but on

the flip side if you're making a casual game you're not going to make money through monetization and you need ads from folks like us that are actually going to help propel that so I think the early step is okay what is our audience how do we monetize that audience what is going to be the right way to do it and then segmenting that audience around it too so that you're not showing them ads when they're going to spend but you're showing them adds up to a point where they're not going to leave the game but I think you have to have that monetization in place and that's probably the first thing that you're doing when you're building the game I think there a lot of times I've been asked when do we think about monetization and you had to think about monetization from the very beginning so it's ok we have a cool idea for a game sure we scaffolding we do the outline and then it's ok where are hooks going to be and how we're going to make sure we can keep paying for the development and keep growing the game and then you start by the next step no going back to the the audience building no portion of it laser dog yeah at a Leeds in the UK they do an excellent job of telling the story as they develop the game and there's a lot of things that they'll do

during the development cycle there weren't things that they even plan to do in at the beginning on the outset to give you an example Rob Allison from laser dog he actually took a cool game boy and hacked it so that he would have an audio out yeah it's that we could get a clean signal for the for the audio and then you bought a MIDI module to put into the game boy and he composed all the music for a picot on the game boy at school so and during that process though he took pictures and put them on Instagram he shared all of that out you know and it was just it was fun to watch and people who were engaged with that when we're excited when the game came out I think that's really kind of keep eyes again you know we're trying to focus on the kind of policy partnerships are a bit but actually it's a wider piece than that and it's about thing about the audience in general I'm we could argue and we often we've had lots of arguments about this conversation about whether you start the design from the ad funding or the game funding or they're out front or would you be work a way to make a systematic process but it

buddy but being even in picking a platform though a lot of developers ask that question right up front right there looking for the pitfalls are trying to figure out how can I monetize this game before they even created it right and which can be a little frustrating for the engineers because they're like well we don't even know how to make the game yet but but but people want to know how to monetize I think we all agree you got to make a good game first but I don't think any one of us here wants to say like the key the silver bullet is make a good game because like 34 years ago at these events that was what everyone always said it was like yeah make a great game and then it doesn't matter no I define the right guy yet something kind you know what starts out like I'm gonna make the worst game ever just see what happens like you always want to make something good even if the intent is to make a very simple a put single finger game you wanted to be the best 8-bit single finger game it is right when one of the things though that they can offset that is audience bill before you get started right and and some of that is counter-intuitive because the developers are not necessarily camera front facing people right so pairing

yourself with with with a partner or someone who can be charismatic and go out there and and and sell the thing so to speak before hand is a good way to this is actually you and I talked about this exact out there we're in London together oh this is I think you read the crepes a and and it's it's understanding that there's this pool of talent you can get whether it's from a partner or from an audience and it's being anyone know how to focus that correctly and I think well we want to got these guys to get to take away for in them it is is what skills that takes you what are you looking for in those partnerships you know is it just or is a relationship I how will I get on with them you know is it about how much money you're gonna get out of there what's the call kidding you're gonna start like we product right you always want to know with a good product that's sustainable and for me working with the right people right so I can have a great product great people those are two combinations where you're like comfortable there but if you work with a product that's so so you're not trying to longevity you don't know how it's gonna be around that creates extra War II and then the worst case for me is

like you put your blood sweat and tears in making a game and you email this person for like a support question or just have questions to ask and no response I have to have to fully agree with Cindy I always tell my guys there's actually freedom in the audience yeah you're welcome Cindy I think you don't work with companies work with people so it has to be someone I mean as much as it kind of sucks like it has to be someone you like and someone that you would appreciate having a coffee with or sitting in the room with for an hour right and someone who does genuinely care about what you're doing so even if it is somewhat of a lower quality product people are going to spend more or take less if they actually like who they're interacting with I think pot light is that that person is going to bring something to the party here they're going to bring some experience some some context something that adds genuine value at the end of the day we don't just buy from liking we buy because an expectation and future value you know like insulting right because like your if I'm a developer this is my baby and I want people to support me it might be whether it's emotional whether its product with its ideas connections

networking whatever it may be like this panel don't go out alone right what as much support as you can yeah whether you're looking for a co-founder of a company or just a teammate you know for for development of a now you're looking for someone who almost has at the opposite strength of you right you're not you don't both need to go to that meeting you both need to do that thing right you need to you need to have complementary skill sets I again just can I go back to later dawg Rob Robert you know Rob can do the graphics he can do the programming himself but he teamed up with Simon because Simon does you know all the graphics he does the the game trailers he does all those things like that and then Rob can just focus just on the programming and that's great that works really well and what's interesting is that when you look at there's across their social media they're goofing off together at other things besides just sitting in front of the computer so they really work well together they like each other but it's interesting how you don't have to like each other for that to work we

look at rummy and its business partner with lamb beer they are on record they don't feel like each other that much yeah they just have not work well yeah I'm sorry I know a lot of married couples are like there too but you know i love that way I'm not recommending that yeah when you're in a company and okay you don't have to like each other but if you're not the same company your end goal is a safe yeah a little partners your end goal is not the same yeah and I have run into people who who who start down that path and then and then end up not liking each other just because there's they spend so much time with each other talking about problems that the relationship suffers and so the way to reinvigorate that as till as you say have a goal a common goal that you took em both then work toward right to refocus refocus we focus the partnership second I promise interrupt you had you about say thing was going to say that it's important to to have a forward-facing outgoing person no matter what your studio is because you know I

come from what most of the course I'd a lot of the mobile is or at least on the monetization side of things and is very new to me but you still is the industry's super small right I mean no matter where you're in if you go to every conference it's all the same people so if you have someone who can really relate to everybody it's it's important that I've been it mix between mascot and and public relations specialist is you have to have someone wear that hat because again it's so small it's very rare that you you find some success story out of out of the blue these days it's not happening as much anymore Sarah quite fun talk it was mixed in Baldur worries but really focus on three things you have a hacker a hipster and a hustler yeah it's really nice kind of metaphor anything anywhere yeah and if you think that those throw three talents they're really kind of critical when I don't know what the finance guy would be in that but there must be some funny guy there he's hustling going mad but is amazing I mean so you know what

role do we play in the partnership that that helps support that I mean is it just the case that we're taking a game engine we're taking away you need to have a team that's going to build your game engine that is clear obvious thing with an ad company we're providing you with a connection to an audience through you know support what what are the key things are hustlers and hipsters yeah you do wand over three you just wind up seeing the same pattern over and over again as you said you know this is a small industry and you do see the same things happening over and over again that's uh picking a game engine picking some sort of form of monetization picking us a way to promote right we either working with either a publisher or or or an intended consultant who can do promotion or you know just whatever yeah that always comes back around and a lot of time as developers will work out that the tool will work out the ads and then they'll forget about the promotion so you can't you can't forget that part

and here's what I had to pick up I was going to say it feels dirty to a lot of game devs I think that to get into the monetization stuff I mean you see a lot of traditional game devs going to mobile in it is this so I think you made a point that it's you know if you have to think about monetization from the get-go if I wanted to talk and I said it sorry I'm going back to that but he also i think that the the customer base the the player base is becoming more sophisticated so you know how do you incorporate monetization elements how you incorporate ways that aren't don't feel like payment walls don't feel like pay to win and I think it's up to the designers and working with monetization and add strategies just like you know I I raised my hand to participate in an ad is really a new thing but my daughter does it all the time and it works great sometimes it's got to be premium i mean that's the thing i think we always want to think of these like crazy new ways to monetize but if you make a really good game sometimes i prefer to pay upfront because i know i'm not going to see ads

i know i get all the levels right away i don't have walls i get to engage as much or as little as I want and sometimes it's a higher already product so it's okay to make a pretty perform okay I represent the other ninety percent who will not pay but it does I told you get you where you're coming from and I is ok to make games premium and there are some game models which will definitely go that way but a lot of the time I find any way that game designers find themselves making assumptions because their heritage looking in other industries or you know triple-a I'm thinking in particular and they end up by default accidentally falling into a premium game when all the needs to do is step back and say hey where's the repeatable bit where's the context loop how's it with the metagame oh now I can make this a freemium game I want to you know to two things I want to address both both sides here want one you mentioned that the developers feel little it's a dirty or you know that sort of thing okay I I encourage them to think of it more as a responsibility you you have you've taken

up this person's time you have asked them to engage in this thing even as that's invested them to invest their time in this this game and it needs to be sustainable it needs to be something that it's gonna you're going to improve on it you're gonna you're going to further their enjoyment in it and on to so many people i don't care if it's game gaming industry or across other industries say i really don't want to charge for this and and and and I'm thinking well great then you you want to reach the 10 people that you can possibly support right not the millions of people who shouldn't be enjoying your thing and then the other part is that you know you said you were the other ninety eight percent I don't know why we can't be the whole hundred percent why you can't charge for the game and put and put the ads in it and have the merchandise and have that you know all the other bits right because monetization isn't just one thing I think having ads people have that dirty word sensation to it right I think if you build as part of the gameplay why not make ads fun why not make it

engaging make it part of the core game loop that everyone always talks about you put you build it in from the very ground zero and it becomes fun instead of something intrusive I've seen so many developers go okay we just want to wait three days no ads turned on let's see how the game does and they reach this peak and then all the sudden is like square peg round hole oh no we need put ads in there the traffic's declining we got to make more money I don't think of it from the very beginning and just start off from that it's like when it stocks are going high you want to sell it right you do not gonna just start like putting you more money when this something that's also i think one thing we found a lot of the work i do a particular is looking at how to make that design attractive you know how they get mean all of these processes all these tools that we use need to be attractive to the player not a barrier and we've had a heritage historically where advertising was done to restrict your access you had to see the ad before whereas now we're in really nice they feel like oh do you use our declining we're not making it up purchases anymore I think you like put it put it in somewhere anywhere hey if you build it at the beginning and you're gonna if you're already planning on

turning them on to 30 days you just turn them on a day one because then you're just seen as a dick move by 30 days in I really like this game and now you want to show me at while you gonna bait and switch me but if you do make it from the beginning and it is part of the core the core process and it's great but I just wanted to make a note on why can't you do all three as a core gamer if I'm dropping 60 bucks for a new title like cuz i'm talking about console stuff oh sure and you also show me ads like I swear to God I will never play your game again and I will tell every person i know that every player get a mini game that you're playing and it's not as hard limit he gave okay like Burger King did a thing back in the day with Lex they did these go-kart games and stuff like that but they're also kind of limited release games which were fun to have and so you kind of accepted that was part of it but that's again if it's initially part of it but the game was also way cheaper so there has to be a trade-off for because if I'm paying the super high cost for what I think is going to be a triple a title it better be dope and I better be able to play as long as possible as immersive without being touched by any of that because ultimately I am that two percent of the core gamers who is willing to spend for that experience but I think while we do

make games for everyone ultimately if you capture that core audience the people that really really love games you're going to support yourself way longer than am asking about understanding that the the audience is change as they engage with you so when you're dealing with a order to discovering you asking them to pay up from you better have delivered a massive amount of anticipation otherwise get in the water but also you're getting to learn the value of the game and how it fits into their daily routine before they then get truly engaged we have to be retailers it's a world where like okay do you pay I would say you should also charged a user or charged a player subscription model whatever it may be you have these wonderful beautiful neck issues what are they trying to do with an ad is that hey here's the latest new nike edition of some sort of shoes right you're talking about like dynamic retargeting I think that's a great idea gdm right there was it your target ads correctly it's actually beneficial to the relevant ads always make the most sense i mean this is a very important

topics yeah it's very I mean we have a couple sub companies that we started as well that are around that idea right like using telco data that sort of thing right it's very important I feel like if people get an ad that they actually want to see they don't feel bad about it but again we're going back to the crux of this whole thing is you have to give me up for that because if I'm expecting this great experience and I see a targeted ad even though yes i am a sneakerhead i love sneakers i'm not gonna be that bad especially if they were in my shop a second ago but at the same time I'm like what the heck this is not what I signed up for so it's just got its gonna be like that that open contract out front that says sure it's gonna happen sometime there's got to be something that you can opt into I mean going back to what we were talking about earlier right if you can opt into that that ad captain opt into that interaction I mean games do it the console games are doing it right now all the time right where you've got you've got some sort of chest or something that you can only you can only unlock you can't use in-game credits you can't use anything like that points whatever you've got to and it's and you're not going to not do it because every youtuber is going to do I play through

on it and show you what you could have gotten you know or what your friends got and you didn't get to deal with all this stuff we need to actually have that information a data in this sport and the infrastructure to be able to respond to it yeah that's so long to build upon that is like I think a lot of devs are used to oh I've shipped it and I'm done right and so a really important thing is to understand where my players are going what are they doing how are they engaging this if they're they hitting that ad and is it are they dropping constantly so I think one thing that the devs need to really start looking at and in almost it's a standard you need to be serving your player base after the game launches to be able to do all the retargeting and and I think you have to see and understand that in segments and a lot of this is something that's really nude a lot a lot of deaths across the board even especially on the course ID and definitely it's relevant and mobile yeah it's really crazy to see to talk about the developers to say well what kind of analyst you had to the game they're like we didn't handle analytics like how do you even know analytics yeah

how do you even know what what you're studying Japanese style right the Japanese gaming companies when we first were going out there a lot of covers were out there they were like what do you mean tracking why we don't need that we people love our games they spent crazy dough I know it doesn't really matter but what thinking yeah well I mean they're obviously doing pretty well for the long run so do but they are catching up and they are doing that but I think we can all agree the Japanese gaming market still pretty strong games for like 20 but hey let's talk about this over lunch in a few cocktails but what I was going to say is that when you're looking at the audience and this is with advertising side of where your site comes in right is like you can show ads to a certain point they're gonna have to drop off so by looking at your audience and understanding it best you can find out where is that optical point where yes people are okay with this amount you're gonna know how much money you can make per user and then you know okay if I show one more at they drop off so we'll do it at this point or you can say I know that most of my users leave after 15 minutes I'll show them all and add at 14 minutes and 50 seconds they're already going to leave anyways it's not

impeding their user experience you're making cash they're not impeded and then we're all happy I agree but actually I'd argue that that model has been busted by now largely the stuff that we saw in the research that she did on that has actually shown that there isn't necessary standard cap in that way anymore it's about understanding what the what the anticipation of reward is for opting in I'm realizing that actually that can actually extend duration of play it can extend you know retention if it's done whether you do it like a venture capitalist did right and you get you get a 2 X multiplier by watching a video at now right which i think is a great thing don't think you guys yeah yeah encourage I've been multiple placements cuz you don't know the way I play game the way everyone else plays the game Kevin plays a game differently we come in from different points of entry you figure out multiple placements use analytics uni offers and for free there's my body and then you figure out which placement actually does really well and then from there you just

eliminate the other ones that people aren't watching do you show it but do you show them all the same ones I think that's where it's important you have you have the ability to cohort them and show different ads for different types of users know as for certain users certain him out right you have to like is never gonna be just one overarching and let's not let you get back to the topic cuz let's not forget to give value give back and give value a value then ask okay don't don't don't just mean my all-time favorite thing right now is that games one as soon as you open it up it's like it gives you something yes it doesn't ask anything from you and then and then I think I'm trained you on how to use the reward system I think that's a cheap hook though like I don't know I mean this is a genuine ask of you guys hear me or is she right I feel like it's a cheap hook when they forced me to use my gems right away because I know I'm gonna want that gem later on and you make me use like two of them nothing like hey here's 100 now go use five of them to build this thing I'm like I can wait five seconds I don't know no I want to use this no no it's at their premium or

I burn it out why they're gonna pay up front I'm gonna earn it I don't want to pay to get far no it should be it should be a pure gift that's I'm gonna hammer just a pure gift okay okay but this is a question of design and this question of experience so I'm a developer how you know I need to pick one of you one or more of you to work with I need to have some information that how you gonna prove to me that you guys are the guys that I should be working with well look here's what here's what happens okay you go as a developer you're not looking for a reason to use a platform you're looking for a reason not to use a platform right you're looking for the pitfalls you're looking for the eat so you should go and you should read all the features from honestly platforms and you should look at the forums and see what kind of complaints there are and see if people are answering the questions and you noticing a lot of dr. equations Google Docs and then doing what you're saying and they basically have here the things I need which of the people have it I'm not really a matric oriented person but I can see it being very valuable where you check off it is that they have and then what they don't do and basically whatever has the least amount boom but in the end you

know they could just throw us all in a ring and see who comes in at the same time it's the right tool for the right job right because there may be you know the tool may check all the boxes but then when you look at it feel like well that language whatever it is might be a little too much for me right and and I don't need that I don't need all that or you know like the there's a whole ocean of C sharp developers right who work in corporate jobs who then can comply their skills to other platforms right but but then there are a lot of people who this is just their first entry into programming they don't they don't know what even c sharp is right so so you have to pick the right tool for the right job they asked the right question just to ask I mean there's no one tool that's gonna solve everyone's need everyone is custom some people use current out so people use uni some people use applet I won't get you something different for their own needs whatever they're developing for so if you ask the right questions that person fits you at the end of the day I'm lazy I'm gonna see the developers er I want to focus on my content great content so I'm gonna pick the one person the one partner with good product good people

that makes my life easier in every capacity so I can focus on what I want to focus on I wanna think it's really important to feel like you're being listened to as well is it that's one thing I've always done it still still kind of rings true that you buy from who you like and you buy from who's listening to you so I mean if you're the if you're buying a tech and you post some stuff in the forums and you get responses right away or you get you have a tech issue and people are on it immediately and then solving it for you that's that's a really really really good sign and sign of a healthy organization I agree with that what I tell people to do is send an email to an unnamed like customer support email and see who gets back to first you know like a is like a general signup page right when it's like hey sign up and we'll get out too if you sign up and it takes them you know this guy takes five days this person takes one day that's a pretty good indication of how much attention you get like a lot of times people ask me like what tracking should we use and that sort of thing I say some people have all these bells and whistles these other people are really small so either you're gonna get every single

thing that you want it's going to check all the boxes or these other people are going to be super attentive they're going to help you navigate even what they don't have just because they're right there with you so and people should let mean cuss like SDKs middleware tools should they should know this because I mean you know for me at unity and for Mia game sparks it's been my personal experience has always been you know you want to make sure they feel like your shoulder to shoulder with them because if not then it's a very scary thing to invest in a technology that's not yours we went from 20 years ago there was no SDKs or tools or everybody built their own stuff so well now it's it's it's really important that they feel like that you're you're in you're in the battle with it you know one of my most favorite things at Colonel abs is that when someone comes to me and says hey I was just work you know I'm not gonna cuff it I'm like look I don't know how that works but let me put you in touch with an engineer he'll explain every piece of it to you and that you want to know and a lot of times they'll you know they appreciate that direct

access so i think we have to leave it there i want to thank you guys for participating hope you guys got something out of this I think it's to me the key messages who's listening under the act on it and I think new if you think about all the partners that are available to you out there in the industry there are people out there who want to help support you who's interested in games is paramount I've got some great tech great systems in place to support you don't go out alone take one of these guys thanks very much guys you