"If You Aren't Curious, Your Bottom Line Will Show It": A CMO's Warning for Game Marketers in 2025

[Music] I'm Peggy Unsaltz. This is Clock Gamer Connects London. It is the event to kick off the year with some great vibes, great people, which is a great segue to you, Michelle, because Michelle, you are in the industry now at Pixel Federation. 11 years. That itself is a story. So why don't we start with you for a change rather than we'll get to the we'll get to the company but I want to get to you and your backstory. I mean first of all being there for so long that in itself is an achievement. Tell me a little bit about about what keeps you there. Yeah. What keeps you there? Uh I think like ultimately it comes down to people. So working with the best people in the industry in Slovakia or that particular region and also doing what we love and I love. Right. So I was always into the data mathematics studied

it wanted to do banking didn't end up in banking as you know already and uh actually by accident end up in gaming and didn't know that gaming on mobile even existed right like outside of Angry Birds for example and other other titles I didn't know that there was a gaming company in Slovakia so I ended up by accident and I stayed there for 10 years and it will be my 11th in May. Yes. This year. So, uh it's a long time you you know I would say it feels like a family to me now. I' like I like the analogy. Maybe it's not the case in our company always but like to work in a sports team, right? So, we do all all our best. But, uh yeah, 10 years and not Yeah. I think yeah, I'm quite happy about the career I chose. Yeah, that's great. I mean, it is it's like it's like living the dream. I've

known you for a long time as well. So many panels, so many different opportunities to chat with you, but I wanted to hear, as I said, your backstory. And I have to say, yes, your team, they they rock really. I haven't met anyone on your team who I can't really get along with and uh and have some fun with. So, it's fun. It's games. Um it's also the math. I mean you must feel like all of that education that you had banking finance it's really really coming out I mean it may be in fact your superpower who knows it's considered a superpower obviously but I mean like it comes down to two things like ultimately like in marketing especially and uh in growing games is like all about the it's at the end is about money right so money in money out and uh I I think like the company grew not only because of great products but also like being sophisticated about like measuring things and evaluating and scaling on the

channels and places where it makes sense right so we knew what makes money and where we lose and then it comes down to making this good decisions about it right so that's one thing and um and yeah but like I understand also like you mentioned superpower right but it's also kind of like it can be a limiting factor when you're not taking chances and not being b you're not being bold enough and making like a huge bets like if you're in a casino, right? Like you have to sometimes put the money on a table and not hope like make a calculated risk evaluation and okay go for the thing that makes most amount of sense. So for example in my team like I know about my powers but I know what I'm lacking, right? So I try to build also the team with the people have people in the team that that are adding towards these kind of things. Right. So uh it would make

sense. You talk about bets. What is the biggest bet you ever took and actually came out on top? Maybe to your to your own satisfaction or actually to your own relief because taking a bet is risky. But uh sometimes it pays. You've done it for so long. What's one thing you did you said, "Yep, that paid off." Career-wise, I would say two things. So, when I moved from analytics to marketing and try to do be more hands-on with the business. So, that's one of the best bets I made. So, I could have stayed only doing analytics, but I would never had a feeling of the ownership of like executing the actual insights and and and changes I want. So, that's one thing in terms of the career. Second in career would be yeah I'm an introvert like deep down right so this for me like 10 years ago I would be standing in a corner and not talking to anyone. So the the second best second biggest bet was trying to persuade

myself that in order to grow and to to learn from people I have to be with people and talk to them right and give them something in in return as well. So that was the second biggest bad and on a personal level that uh I started dating my wife. Well now it's she's my wife. Yeah. But uh yeah so that was like that's the ultimate like life goal live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live life live achievement I'm think so not only talking about the business right yes there's more to life than business that's why we're doing this because yes we can go into that and we will talk a little bit about that but I think it's also so important because everyone's had to adapt. I mean, this year feels positive. I've been here some years. It was doom and gloom. I mean, like the last two years was like, "We're all going to die. There are no new games. There are no new gaming companies." I was talking to a couple startups that, you know, went up in revenue because they focused on a niche. Yep. Rather than trying to own the world, right? So, I mean, it comes down to your goals and

your goal setting. How do you keep, you know, your team focused and motivated on the on the details but still celebrate the small successes because they add up, they matter. Well, in terms of like you mentioned, there are many companies that grew even when everything was supposed to be dead already, right? So, yeah, I had a nice talk with one guy from Czech Republic. He has like a small studio and they scaled tremendously. I mean, like a really small team. The game has amazing metrics. They're ROI positive like really in a short period of time. So that actually proves that there is still opport there are still opportunities and uh for example for this particular case I take exploration from because we are big company. So the processes take like as usual the bigger you go the bigger you get the slower you become that. Yeah, nice analogy. But I mean, especially in gaming, yeah, the now it

shows me that it's not always about the big players. You have to be the biggest to to dominate and to earn revenue. You can be a really small team and be highly profitable, right? So that's like one of the good inspirations and and according for the team itself, I'd say it's like a combination of uh like appreciation, personal growth of the people. So they know they are learning more and they are like also climbing the corporate ladder in a way and also financial motivation to me like we are okay maybe not everyone but people are doing this also for the money they have to like feed the family earn money but they have to live somewhere right so uh so we like rewarding people that are making the best efforts and doing some extra miles that's so far for the one year and this current position that I have. I think that yielded some really nice results and growth of the people because they knew they are appreciated

when they do extra and when they care about what they do. It's not like okay I go to the work and come back home right and nothing nothing nothing they think about it it's part of their identity now right being marketer for example that's very true it makes me think of the conversation it was at another conference it was a keen actually from triple dot talking about leadership qualities and you know what it takes and it's all about motivation really because people are are are doing a lot and they go above and beyond and look into the data or see different patterns or really really work because it's all about being curious, staying curious. I hear that all the time. How do you stay curious or is it just in your DNA? It's part of DNA obviously, right? Like you have to be curious. You have to get deep into the data into like players how they how they play. But I mean it's essential like otherwise if you're not curious

like how are you going to learn? like it's not going to stick and you're not going to do anything about it. Like if it's like ah I come to work I do some campaigns and yeah that's it. If you're not curious then everybody will surpass you right with the team within the team especially and within the industry even more like you're not curious you're not innovating you're not doing any something differently you're going to see it on your financial results. So yeah, it has to be if it's not in a part of your DNA, then you have to learn to be curious or at least to do something about it, right? It's about the excitement of the industry, staying curious and also the excitement of what's ahead. As I said, it's it's more positive feeling this year. What are you excited about out there? You know, it's like web app is really good for getting some data, right? Uh because we have to think about where to get it from. It's not the way it was before. What are you excited about? What do you see out there? Probably not a DTOC play for

Pixel Federation, but you never know. For the company, what I'm excited about is like launching new products. That's one thing. We haven't launched a new product, I would say, successfully. It's like we launched like three products in a last couple of years that weren't a huge success, right? They were like okay we killed couple of those we kept couple of others but there are no like bumping up the company on a significant level. So that's what I'm looking at looking forward to most. So launching a new train game and also we have other projects in pipeline for this year as well maybe. Yeah. One just so that's one thing and in terms of the industry well it's not yesterday it was a good talk from Eric Suford about like what the networks are doing as well and yeah um yeah there's not that much talk about the privacy anymore right

like fingerprinting was no no alone a big no no for a couple of years and now I say everybody is doing that that it became a standard and if you're not with the major ad networks that utilize also like probabilistic attribution then you're not growing right so uh so it looks like with all the changes in the world now it looks like we are I don't say back on track on the pre IDFA era but it's significantly better now with all the modeling and all the things that the networks did to bring better quality users to advertisers, right? Or to developers. What about the monetization models? I'm hearing I'm hearing a lot more about subscription because people are saying nobody owns anything and we're all used to paying at least maybe Gen X, Gen Z, you know, that's okay. What about the models, the mix over at Pixel Federation? Are you trying to mix it up

a little bit? thinking about maybe even possibly taking it to alternative stores because that's another big topic at the show as well. Yeah. Well, distribution is one thing, right? So, you basically two topics. So, distribution, yeah, alternative stores is something that's that's growing. We are utilizing that web store, web stores and web experience is something that we we already started last year. So, we launched train station 2 on web. I would say it surpassed our expectations in terms of the in terms of the I say scalability but profitability in terms like you know like we can acquire and attract really good users right on web but the game has to be feasible for web it has to have a good web experience it's not like every game can be on the web right so having that in mind so the different distribution and adding new channels also maybe going to new geos that you weren't present before with alternative with payments. Yeah, that's one thing. In terms of the monetization,

uh I don't know about subscriptions to be honest. We haven't had like good success with that in the past. I don't know about this year if you want to test it out. But but what we are focusing on now and what we are doing for a couple of years already is hybridization like h high hyper casuals going to inner purchases and vice versa like the midcore and hardcore games adding ads. So we are in a mixed business. So we have both revenue streams. But the sophistic level soph sophistication what we need to tackle is like segmenting the users right away. Right? So for non-paying users that never going to pay like ramp up the ads that you show to show to players and vice versa. Like if you have like a let's say a whale or high paying user, you don't want to bother them too much with ads, right? They got used to it. But like if it's a user of a CPI $50, like you don't recoup that with ad money, right? You need those inner purchases and and uh bigger payments in the end. So So yeah, you

have to be more sophisticated when you are in a bigger level. But but I see growth like ultimately in the industry from really small developers, indie studios that crack the UA and crack the product. So they are successful even this in in this era which I wasn't I wouldn't predict that two years ago I would say consolidation big players not a chance for small developers it's not the case anymore at least I hope I have some some data points for to prove that but it's not universal truth right so great chatting with you Michelle we'll do it we'll do it more often we see each other everywhere anyway right I mean we're always at the same shows So, next month, right? Yeah, next month. Exactly. I think it is. I think probably even a panel, maybe another unfiltered, who knows? But when we meet again, let's say it's a year. It won't be, but it'll be when we meet here next year again. What do you want to be telling me about your year, your contribution, your

accomplishment? Well, I hope we'll the sec we successfully launch two new two new products and the company will be on the growth again after a year of consolidation that we did last year successfully, but it was a consolidating year. So, it wasn't nice for everyone as you can imagine. And and since you're a guy who likes risks and you love data, um the risk that you might might take and be able to tell me about some sort of Yeah, I wouldn't say a hack, but one of your typical moves in your own way. Yeah, it's it will it might sound boring, but yeah, I'm going to Sri Lanka, which I Yeah, it's a nice country, I guess, but I never never been in the in that part of the uh world, right? So, it's not a risk anymore. It's it's not risk at all. It's just mind expanding. Yeah, it's gonna be mind expanding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is true. Stay curious. Stay relevant as you do. It'll be mind expanding and I'm sure

it will bring a lot to you. Michelle, I'm so glad we had a chance to just chat, talk about your world and um yeah, and give some inspiration to all the indies out there. You met some great indies. ROI positive is a big deal. Yep. And it's a big deal to always chat with you. Thanks so much, This show is all about how to do your job better, how to make an amazing game, how to market it, and you have a say. So, if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on, then we would love to hear from you. We want to hear from you. We want to reflect the reality of the mobile games market in all its wonderful complexity and strangeness. So, if you have any suggestions for us, if you have any feedback for us, you can always get in touch. You can email us at podcastpocketgamer.biz. You can find us on Twitter @pgbiz and you can reach out to us through the pocket gamer.biz website. If you're interested in listening to all of

our podcasts, you can find them at pocketgamer.biz/mpodcast. And we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows. And we've got you covered on all the major platforms. So subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said, look for us on YouTube. But if you want to read it, hey, you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website. Tune in again for the next edition of the pocket gamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you in the near future. Until then, I'm Brian Baglo. I'm Peggy Ansalt. And that's a wrap until next week. [Music]