Innogames’ Strategy To Extending The Lifespan Of Legacy Games

Hello welcome welcome to the Pocket Gamer podcast with your host me Brian Baglow and Miss Piggy and salt. Piggy freshly back from Barcelona and the Mobile World Congress I believe but that's not all you've been everywhere over the last few weeks. been one of those one of those years actually it's Barcelona after Barcelona with a little bit of Berlin between so it was Barcelona for Games Forum got some great people coming on the show I picked up there everywhere I go I bring back great guests so it has been a whirlwind three trips in one month. Speaking of three the magic number three well that's what I did I went out and started a conversation with InnoGames and they were so gracious they said we won't give you just one guest we'll give you three. We have a triple dose if you will of practical insights to keep our audience

on track and reaching that goal right that mother of all goals extending the life of your game right so important so important to studios and who better to tell us than the folks at InnoGames because they are the powerhouse that brought us Tribal Wars legendary strategy game that's been around for 20 plus years Forge of Empires just hit a billion lifetime value milestone in 2023 I mean I think this is the most we've had on a show period Brian and certainly the most experts in one place. We've had a duo of guests in the past but we've certainly never had the complete package so so welcome everyone. So we have Matt Milligan Matt product head his focus is Forge of Empires Matt great to have you. Stefan Flintermann head of game UA Forge of Empires Stefan

great to have you as well hey and Torsten Torsten Schönken senior product manager his focus is Tribal Wars one that's the one Brian that's the one that's been longer out there than maybe still media has I don't know it's 20 years uh Quite possible yeah. Matt and Stefan I guess product and marketing really do belong together but can we start by unpacking a little more about how you work together? So so how do you guys focus on bringing together the the product side and Maybe maybe I can start cuz just to mention it already in the beginning is that we we basically just changed the UA structure last year to focus more on on the games we actually have so beforehand we were kind of structured around different marketing channels and partners and and I am for instance was in charge of a team which is taking care of search display and DSP partners but then last year we we shifted from that towards a clearer game focus structure in UA and that means now

that that my team is taking care of all kind of different partners but we have the luxury that we don't have to think of four to five different games and also how to approach the the audiences in the best way so now we can really focus on on Forge of Empires in my case and and I have the pleasure to work closer with with Matt together now. And maybe just one or two examples of how we already collaborated a bit more than in in previous times is that one example for instance is that we've been thinking about re-engagement quite a lot in in the last years and we wanted to do a test on on different re-onboarding of those inactive players to the game to to basically boost our re-engagement activities and together with the team we developed a specific questline for these players unfortunately the results were not too great but this is definitely something we can learn from and improve the setup for the next time. And a

second just very recent um development is that someone from from my team basically pitched an in-game event based on the initiative playing for the planet which is I think it was even here on the podcast a while ago so that's the great initiative to somehow make the world a better place and as I said someone from my team pitched this idea to have this initiative in a in-game event and currently the teams are working on it and yeah soon or later this year we will be seeing this event actually being shipped so I think that's a already a great outcome of this whole restructuring we did on the UA side but I guess Matt has a few things to say to this as well. I mean I think you summed it up perfectly there to be honest Stefan for from the game side of things it's much easier because we now only have one person to talk to rather than let's say 20 or 30 and having that more personal relationship makes it much more easy to communicate

it's easy to streamline communication and it means that we can be a lot more transparent with each other we can align much better and I think that's really the key of any game and marketing relationship is having that alignment and working together in the same direction rather than in 20 different directions as we were potentially a year ago. I have to interject I think that's really amazing and probably a blueprint here somewhere if you think about it Brian I mean before it was you had your acquisition channels you had your focus and you were sort of spread out everywhere but if you focus on the game and everything starts with a good game and product and marketing are on the game that's their focus then it's going to have a flywheel effect it's very very smart and something not a lot of studios do. It's fantastic to to kind of hear about the alignment and see exactly that same focus from from everybody. But you have to wonder sometimes Brian you know there will be clashes there will be disagreements

um pick up with the question I was thinking about you know how do you do that? You work together you work together focused on the game it's all about Forge of Empires but there is going to be a difference of opinion you know do it this way re-engage that way what do you do? Um I mean luckily so Stefan and I actually worked in the previous studio together so we do have some form of relationship already which was quite nice so we we already got off on the right foot in terms of trust there but um for us it's as I said before like it's really about having that alignment and being completely transparent with one another so what are the plans of the game for the next X years not only the next six 12 months but really where are we headed for the next five years for the next 10 years? How can we then support one another with that? Can we contribute or help marketing out with certain initiatives within that time frame? Do things align with our vision or strategy? But I think ultimately as in any company it comes down to what makes the most

sense which is quite an easy thing to say I guess but it's all about what has the better ROI what's the cost of delay for certain things if we bring stuff forward and overall we do try and do everything and I think we're pretty good at getting everything done it just comes down to a question of time. Torsten you're the the product manager of Tribal Wars and almost you know a one-man band as as you don't need marketing it's an incredible place to be but but how is that possible how how is this working? Well I I wish we had marketing obviously like like everybody would but um it's obviously through black magic I have to tell you Brian but no but but jokes aside um Tribal Wars is in a very special place I think so Tribal Wars was there in the beginning it was one of the first games that that well did what it did and you might look at it now and think oh it's a bit outdated it looks looks old school but that's actually what what players love and return to and then back

then it actually looked cool I mean it was 2003 there was graphics and and you could play it in the browser with your friends I mean that was pretty cool and I think players fondly remember that and um I I start to see it like a cult movie sometimes I mean you have your Home Alone you have your Die Hard that you watch every every Christmas and same with Tribal Wars you you have a check back every year what changed are my friends still there can I start another round can I start playing again and I think um it's it's a bit of the the nostalgic feeling that we're that we're riding on. You had an incredible start to 2024 um just this this year what do you what do you attribute that to is it is it were there changes made or is it just that nostalgic factor with people coming back to see if it was if it was still there? Actually no we're we're working still on the game I mean the team is not as as big as the Forge team for example but we have a very dedicated team and and we don't have much overhead which helps us to bring

new features into the game very fast and then especially um features that are requested by the community and and obviously it's mostly small changes but we're working on events we just introduced a new event in in January that contributed to the success after all these years our game designer comes up with really really cool in-game ideas for events and and and players honor that by by playing it and being very very engaged and and in the end spending money so I think it's a it's a mixture of that like we keep the player base happy but we don't rest on our laurels we introduce new stuff that that engages the players again and I think that's a that's really good mixture and just to illustrate that although we are the oldest game at InnoGames portfolio we have the youngest demographic our players are the youngest of all the of all the games which is which is amazing but the mean age of our players is around 37 years and then when you count back 20 years, you are back back then you were 14, 15,

16. You were in school, you played with your friends and I think you can come back now after 20 years and then then finally you have the money that you didn't have as a as a pupil probably and then start investing in the game and I think as I said this mixture of of nostalgia and then keeping the game fresh really helps. I have a bonus question for you Torsten if I may which is how important is the community? You know, it it have they been with you you know for the duration or you know, do you do you lean into them for a lot of the the updates and innovation that you talked about? Well, the the community is everything for us. The the players as I said I think we we have very loyal players. They have been there for for 20 years not all of them obviously but I'm listening to to the community as I think the the recipe for success but we need to listen to the community and understand what the community wants because sometimes the community doesn't know what they want or what what they need. They know what they want but they don't know what they need and I think the secret is to to translate that into

into things that we actually implement that benefits all players and not just a few and then I think that's the that's the secret sauce here to to figure that out. Yeah, Stefan over at Forge, you know, a little pressure maybe on you to beat his record. You're a decade in, right? A little bit more. Um you were also cross platform even before it was cool. That's all we talk about now. That's like the 2024 topic but you did this before it was cool and I like to understand a little bit more about that decision, that decision in product and then how you deliver that benefit via marketing cuz there must be something in the marketing to say hey, cross platform means you know, you have the power to play where you want. if my research was correct, we transitioned to our first iPad version in March 2014 although I could be a little wrong there. It was just before my time at InnoGames

and I think it you know, at the same time it was the the next great breakthrough for gaming just as Facebook gaming was was coming to not an end but certainly tailing off compared to what it had and really mobile gaming was exploding and I think it did explode. We we hit the market at more or less the right time. Over the next few years from that you know, our revenue split between browser and mobile game actually almost hit 50/50 at one point. I think 51/49 was was to be specific a couple of years ago. We also introduced the Microsoft platform. So having an app in the Microsoft store so being completely standalone there which is fantastic and that also encouraged more people to come into the game and one of the things that we're seeing nowadays over the last year maybe two years is that browser is again taking over and the the revenue split player split that we have is going much more in the browser direction and then going I

think now we're at roughly 60/40 give or take which is surprising if you consider the the sheer size of the mobile gaming industry at least and I think the decision is partially listening to your instinct, you know, seeing what the market is doing and and where you want to head as well and does it make sense for you but also fantastically one of the the good things that's happened in the last especially five years is the data explosion and really you know, if you can support any instinct or hypotheses that you have with data, do it and uh it really makes decisions on which platforms to go to I guess much easier if you're not the first person at least but you have at least one or two references that you can to move ahead with. That's a magic word there for you Stefan. I mean data is also enabling therefore more effective marketing. That's probably certainly a benefit to you. What about the benefit explaining that to the players, getting that in the marketing, you know, continuing to make

cross platform work? I mean certainly it's a great selling point to be able to play on multiple platforms also with the same user account so you're not losing any progress moving from one to the other but from a marketing perspective I think it's also a great great effect that we can just by launching in a different platform also increase our potential reach again. So not everyone is playing exclusively on mobile or on on browser. So that is at least from a marketing perspective an easy win. I know it's not easy for the game team to maintain different platforms but for marketing it's definitely great great addition and we can with that also acquire different users who through different platforms and of course also with with different marketing partners so that just enables us to to bring this game to yeah, much more users. And Torsten, coming back to you, you're thinking about restarting marketing. You

said you could you would love some marketing but for a 20 year old game such as yours, how much of the the Forge of Empires playbook can you can you borrow from and what can you learn from the the rest of the team? Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't know yet but I hope we can borrow a lot because we were supposed to start marketing a bit later in the year but actually we started on Tuesday because as I mentioned small overhead in the team so we got to our devs to implement marketing and all that stuff very very fast. So we started on Tuesday. It's a very small test. It's a more of a technical test if we can pull it off. It's it's limited to two markets. It's it's on Facebook but it's running so we see players coming in from from the marketing campaign. Some even spent money already. That's that's really really cool and I think we just have to take it from there. We we we see where we are and

then we take the learnings from this round and then we expand it on different markets, different platforms. Maybe there's even some some mobile marketing in the works because 30% of the Travian's revenue is actually coming from mobile as well and you wouldn't suspect it from such an old game, right? Not a lot of players are exclusively on mobile. They play cross platform which is really cool. But yeah, the sky's the limit. We we are looking at at getting new creatives and then testing old creatives versus new creatives and and as I said different platforms so we are just at the beginning but it's a very very interesting journey I think. It's kind of interesting you know, you restart marketing. You come at it new and fresh. What do you then focus on? Is it just like the typical you know, the platforms we know when I think about mobile or you doing something you know, really different? Some different mix. I don't know you know, out of home. I don't know how you're doing your marketing but something different or is it just like no, just do the meta, just do the the

Google, you know, keep it simple. Also, we're not sure. So right now it's uncharted territory. No, honestly but but right now we are we're just testing really the old creatives that we have from 15 years ago like like the old ads that that look very outdated but but we think that might evoke some some feelings of nostalgia as I as I mentioned earlier, right? So so people seeing that and you know, who's on Facebook? Probably not the youngest people but so they see the ads and then hey cool, I know that game. I want to come back. I I have seen that ad before like oh, a long time ago. So we are yeah, just for now I'm testing the technical aspect of it and then trying to get players in and then see how they behave and just learning and then from there we will we will expand and then get better and then of course we will learn a lot from from Forge. Matt, let's come back to you. The challenge for you I guess with a linear game is how you implement that kind of live ops

approach, those events, those updates in a way that that works. So you know, how how are you guys approaching this? I mean one of the good things I would say is that we're not just doing live ops and I think that's the key that you have to continue to expand is probably the wrong word but also a very good word as well because you obviously don't want to bloat the game. You want to keep it focused but you need to encourage more activity and so we still do actively make pretty big changes to the game and we'll continue to do so for hopefully at least another decade. I slightly have a competitive spirit and obviously want to outlast anything Torsten has done. But it's good to see so from mid-2023 and and now it's it's fairly safe to say that we're growing again or rather re-growing as a title and with that there's a lot of potential to improve and we use live ops to support that approach rather than being driven from a live ops side and I think one of the things that

surprises people at least in a linear game, you know, one of the biggest things that we have to combat and I use that word deliberately because I think that's the approach that most people take is that most people try to combat power creep. We don't. We actively want to support power creep. We want to give it more places to go and that makes live ops and the core game very intertwined together and it creates more avenues and more areas where you can put rewards into and more relevant things into the game to allow that power creep to go and have this consistent kind of fake content race as it were. And well, by doing that we're able to have more events. We're able to have more rewards and keep that live ops running but also adding great features to the game at the same time in the direction that users want. Stefan, let's talk about the business. It's it's totally fun doing this, but it's always, you know, getting players in. You focus on UA. It's about getting great players

in, letting them play the way they want, as Brian pointed out, right? But great results come out of it. Um, but loyal users are made, not born. You have some great retention numbers. Uh, what do you think contributes most to this success? First of all, I have to say at the beginning that this always game is is also pointed out earlier already, Peggy. So, without a great game, we could not be live for such a long time without marketing. And of course, we are somehow feeding this machine to to some extent with a with a constant flow of new players coming in, but the game is making them stay. So, um, we we're we're nothing without the game. So, in in UA in general, we always try to find the right players for our game. We're not trying to to oversell it uh just by for instance showing only CGI material, which which has nothing to do with the actual gameplay. So, that's something we we try to avoid. And as a company, we are really number driven. So, we have a great prediction model for

our marketing performance uh in place, which which shows us basically on the first day already uh return on advertising spend prediction. And of course, that capability helps us a lot in in making really informed decisions on on what kind of creatives, campaigns, and partners we we should be focusing our work on. But again, the the heavy lifting really comes from the game. So, you can have the best marketing campaign and creatives in the world, but if the game is not fun to play, the players would leave to the next one instantly. Everyone has to own it. Everyone has to feel they're part of it. How have you approached that as well, Matt? I'd like to understand because marketing has their forecast, but everyone has to buy into it. How have you made that part of source of truth for product as well as as for marketing? And And is there a lesson in there for our audience of Indies about, you know, hey, forecasting matters. I

think we could probably do a chat on this topic alone, to be honest, given the number of forecasting tools that we use within InnoGames. I mean, on top of the the marketing model that we have, one model that predicts the next several years for every single game that we have. And that allows us to see what action we need to take in the long term. Do we continue on the road of sustainability, which we we tend to stick to, or do we have to take drastic action? Do we need to move our games to a different stage of development instead of the growth stage, for instance, the plateau stage, where our our tactics and our strategy are a little bit different. We then have another model that predicts the next year, and we renew that every 6 months or so. That allows us to react a bit more immediately to weaknesses within a year. Um, it allows us to see if there's going to be a hole in 1 month that we can pick up next the infamous summer hole that um mathematically doesn't exist, apparently, but for some reason seems to

show up every year. And then we have another model that we use to predict the next 3 months. And that's one that's very accurate within around about plus minus 5% on the the bad end of things. That's where more manual input is required and more knowledge of the game, more knowledge of sale uplifts, more knowledge of the effects that new features or feature iterations are going to have. And that allows us to see exactly what's going on, where we might need to improve or change the path in the next couple of days rather than next couple of months. And within all of that, the marketing model feeds in. So, we can see roughly how many new players we're going to get in, see how many existing users we're going to keep, and what consistency we have then of the the user base. And that allows us to predict roughly our our revenue targets, our marketing targets, and and everything around that. It also then allows us to keep and meet community expectations because we can announce if we need to change our plans or stick to our plans, which I think is

quite good because we we can almost predict the next few months and and really be honest and open with the community. Um, but coming back to what you said about is there a lesson for the audience? Um, again, it comes back to data being your friend, or at least it can be. Um, for us, we have previous games. We know what's happened. We have a prediction model built around that, and I think we can or anyone, if they have a couple of previous games, can look at that revenue data, that retention data, and build a model around it. But even if you don't have that, there's an absolute myriad of sources online now where you can grab data from different platforms for different games, for different genres, for different subgenres, and you can do a rough calculation there as well. It's not going to be as accurate of having your own in-house system, but I think you can calculate a very approximate return on investment by using the CPI and kind of calculate the the user value after a few months. And

that's where I think the key is is using that data that's out there and really using it to support what you want to do. So, Torsten, coming back to you, you you've got fans out there and players who have been loyal to the game, playing the game for two decades, you know, longer than many of our listeners may well have been playing games full stop. So, what did you do better or differently to other studios to to build that level of connection and keep those people with you for, you know, potentially longer than some of our listeners have been alive. Yeah, I mean, that's the holy grail, isn't it? So, I think there's there's two points. The first one is that I think the age helps us with it actually because our game is is feature complete. The The core game is running very well, and and it um different to to Torsten and um what Matt said, uh we don't need to to introduce more and more and more. We we just start a new server, and it's like a board game round. Players return and then see,

"Hey, I lost the last world. Maybe my alliance can win this world." So, I think um we are not running against the community like other games, probably younger games have a have a huge backlog of things they they want to implement and have to implement. We we do not because we are uh already working very well as a game, and then so everything we do is uh yeah, in in accordance with the community. I think that helps tremendously, and everyone will tell you that that they are community driven, and uh they are uh they care that they listen, and and they do. Um, I I don't doubt that, but I think for InnoGames, it's a bit different because uh InnoGames wasn't a company that developed a game. There were the three founders that developed a game they wanted to play themselves. Um, it worked out. Uh friends played played it, others played it, and then they they said, "Hey, this works well. Let's let's uh form a company." And I think the spirit is is still ingrained in the DNA of the company. And then just some examples because um I don't know. A lot of employees that

work here, not only in the Tribal Wars team, but but in all other teams, they um applied because they saw, "Hey, that's the company that made Tribal Wars. It's the Tribal Wars company. That's cool. I played that when I was younger. I'm still playing it. I'll apply there because that sounds very cool working there." And um we have we have a lot of people that started as external community managers, then moved in-house, then moved into product management. And I think this is so deeply intertwined in the structures of the company that it helps a lot because everyone knows that the community matters. And for example, my boss and Matt's boss, our studio head, he started as an external community manager. And so, whenever I I explain why we have to do something for the community, then yeah, um he's all ears because that's that's what he grew up with, right? And um yeah, also the founders the founders are still there. And and when we do something that is goes against the community, then we get get in trouble with the founders. And it's really really cool that they care so much and and uh still still

you know know what's going on in the games. It's pretty pretty cool. Stefan, let's consider a UA, the user acquisition. Um, with games that have, you know, this longer lifespan than most, um you you'll have to have changed your approach to UA over the years, and it's the channels that deliver the most value will have will have shifted. So, what does that look like right now? You know, where where is it that you're going to to find those players? I would say over the last years, we have built up a very very broad marketing mix of probably something more than 30 meaningful partners we we have in place. And as I said, we've seen partners come and go, but we always try to to not rely on a single or a handful of partners, but really spread our investments and and reach for for each platform, there are of course also different partners, and only a few of those partners really uh are really active or also successful on all platforms. So,

in general, we try to to have a very close collaboration with with all these partners to ensure that we are really close to to them, and um that we stay up to date with with their latest developments. And and in the end then also to fully use those potentials of these partners. Yeah, I mean, I guess everyone says that, but on top of that, we are always looking also for new potential partners to to further extend our marketing mix, and not just to to stay with the ones we we have for a long time. That makes perfect sense. That's very interesting because there are so many people so many marketers we've had that's like stick to the basics. These are times just, you know, do what works because you have to get your you have to get growth. It's great you have a a wonderful and connected community, but you have to get the growth as well and hit those numbers and yours is about again experimentation where many others are saying, "No, let's just battle down the hatches, you know, let's stick to what works and let's not look beyond that." Is that Is that an

easy sell within the company? Because again, I've spoke with marketers where take that up to C-level and they're like, "No. No, I'm I'm risk-averse right now." No, I I I would really say we are really uh not not forced, but encouraged to really uh test new things, right? I talk to my boss and say like, "Yeah, those are the five partners we've been running for the last 5 years." And I'm I'm not presenting any new tests and he would be really really disappointed. So, um that's somehow the the spirit within the marketing team that we we want to test new things and new approaches and just not uh settle with uh stuff we had already. One of the things that has become very clear over the course of our conversation is the fact that despite having this huge legacy in these games which are so well-loved and have such active um communities and ardent fans is a sense of innovation, a sense of of looking for the the new ways to find users, to engage with users, to to, you know, give them something within the

game. Um so, where does that innovation and inspiration come from? Is it Is it each other? Is it company-wide? Is it team? You know, how do you How do you keep things so fresh and and kind of novel? From my side, it's really I guess kind of simply it all comes from the team. That is purely because the team represent the community. So, nearly everyone that is working on Forge uh plays Forge as an avid player. They're in guilds. We even have a couple of VIP players. I I won't question the morality of that in in the team and in the the design team, which is great. So, with 15 plus nationalities, they play across all of the markets that we have. They all have different play styles and that allows us to get very direct and very quick player feedback on what we're doing and what we're developing. And really, I can't thank the team enough for everything they do on that front because it means that we very rarely miss a beat. It's only when we make override decisions that we to to not do

well. Um so, really getting the innovation and the ideas from that front because we have very streamlined access from, you know, almost a million daily active users coming in through 40 people plus the external CMs on top of that. It's a very efficient information system and a very efficient way of uh moving forward and getting feedback. And that's how we innovate at least on on Forge. Yeah, maybe to add that. I I think one of our values is open information sharing and transparency and I think that alone helps also that not only, let's say, the Forge team or the Forge UA team can can um add some ideas, but basically everyone in the company is open to to give feedback and to to share some ideas and that I would say helps a lot to to innovate also then. When we're looking, for instance, at creatives, this um and the inspiration for these, I I think it helps a lot of a lot to think about the the different player types, their motivations, and that usually brings

already some some good ideas and then for me personally, for instance, AI helps then to to translate some of those ideas into into rough visuals, which then can our our specialists can take and do their magic and create the stunning videos and artworks we have, which of course I I couldn't do. As far as for innovation, it's my might sound silly, um but we are we are now in the process of of migrating our our main channel of of discussion to Discord. And I mean, we're very late with that, but um the Travian players, they are used to their forums and then they love their forums. So, so it's a it's a very difficult uh step for some of them, but I think Discord offers so much more because on the forums, there's a there's a very vocal minority of players. We have um 19 different forums, one for each language version and and uh the funnel, just getting it all together with the external CMs and then it goes together. We have to check is that an issue in every community or that is uh very

time-consuming. So, I think Discord where where all the players are more players that that are on the forums now and then then one channel, I think that's will make it easier for us as well. So, um these are the types of of innovations that that we do. Although it might sound silly, but it's a big thing for us, for example. I want to ask each of you a little bit about yourself and bringing, you know, as they used to say, bringing your full self to work, right? I'll start with you, Torsten, cuz I was reading about your background and I thought this was great because yes, I also studied political science. Look at me. I studied political science and philosophy. So, what I'm doing in gaming, we have to figure that one out. Um you have it as well, which I think is very cool. And then a community manager before moving to being a product manager. So, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, you know, political science training, that's the diplomat in the community where emotions and tensions can get high. But tell me what you're drawing from to to guide that development, to guide your own career.

Yeah, political science, well, you can also ask me for North Korea. That that's my my pet peeve. So, um if you ever want something like that. But no, uh you you're absolutely right, but I think for me it was more of a of a of a different approach because um I loved reading, writing, um compressing information and then giving information, you know, as a political scientist, you you analyze stuff and then you you um have to to stakeholder management and then that's that's um that's a lot of fun for me. But I also was a was a forum troll. So, I know how how these people think. So, so being a community manager and then then being on the other side suddenly uh helped me tremendously, but um my background as a political scientist really really helps me with with um gathering and then then um analyzing information and then talking to people. I think that's that's my my strong suit and uh really love that. And of course, I've always been a gamer, so these two things come perfectly together where I am now. Mark, coming back to you. I mean, you you love games. That's become clear over the course of this

conversation, but what turns a love for games into a career in gaming? And and can you offer any advice for our audience for for pursuing that and getting into games? I mean, that's an interesting one. So, um to go back to university studies that don't have anything to do with your career, I actually studied biochemistry. Um and I actually ended up dropping out in the third year because I hated the statistical analysis side of things. And then now that's a I would say a pretty large part of my job. So, it's it's kind of gone full circle a little bit and I enjoy it now. So, I think for me it was the the games that kind of allowed that attraction to happen and then that like to happen. And so, pretty much the same as as a lot of people, you know, I came up through community management. I was a moderator on on other games and then came up in that direction. Had a a knack for product decisions and then moved into the product within a couple of years of of joining the community management department. And I think that's the key for anyone, you know, if

we if we look at product managers that I've seen in my career uh and have met producers even from from AAA studios or or across the world, a lot of them come from QA or community management. And I think that's the the key to jumping into the industry, especially if you want to go into the product direction or have a love of the community or a love of quality and testing and then even the development of unit testing, which I think is a fantastic area to go into as well, is look into those areas and really contribute to what are traditionally seen as like the the bottom areas of of game development, but they are actually the most important and they lead to probably some of the most important people in the industry, I would say. At least what I've met. Stefan, you are in marketing. That's where you belong because I was looking, you have a long track record in online marketing years ago to the present day. So, in your case, it might be a little bit of just um staying true to your roots and and diving a bit deeper. What is it that you

bring from that marketing experience to your current marketing role? Yeah, I mean, it's as you said, I I've been almost doing only online marketing uh in my entire career. So, um and also only for for online games. So, um there there was no other path. I honestly don't know really how I ended up here in this area cuz I'm also not like the the big player uh how maybe compared to to me and Torsten, definitely not. Um but um I mean, the the one things I I do play uh are like fantasy football um groups. And um yeah, I think what I I like about the games is really looking at the data, how are the developments. And that connects pretty good to the marketing cuz marketing is in the end a lot about data and looking at developments and that somehow uh brought me then to the to this uh company and to to working in in games. That that brings us very neatly to the to the end of um today's

podcast, today's session. But we don't let anybody escape without asking two very key questions that uh our audience are on fire to understand. The first is, what game you playing right now? Uh what's obsessing you? What are you spending a lot of time on? And secondly, favorite game of all time. Um Stefan, let's stick with you first, if we may. Yeah, so at the moment, I I do, honestly, only play Forge of Empires, but it's also because I I really don't have much much time. I do have a little daughter, which is keeping me quite busy. Um but when looking at all-time favorites, uh clearly the the FIFA series. As I said, I'm very into football, so um that's my my take. That's fantastic. Torsten, how about yourself? Um, thanks for the question, Brian, because I actually asked this question every potential employee interview I have to to give me an idea. It tells me it tells me a lot about the people. I think more than than your typical HR question. So, I am playing right now Baldur's Gate 3,

but because I'm a completionist, I'm 100 hours in and there's no end in sight and I only have couple of hours, well, if it's even because I have a small toddler and that of course keeps me from playing as well. But when it comes to all-time favorite games, I first want to drop a shout-out to The West. It's the second game that InnoGames produced and it's an RPG set in the Wild West. I started as a community manager there, then became a product manager on that game. So, I really want to give a shout-out to that. It's a bit underrepresented, but it's really nice game. But you see where this is going. I love RPGs and then my all-time favorite games would be Fallout 1 and 2. So, the isometric ones, not the 3D ones, although they are really good, but um, yeah, I'm that old already. Sorry. You're in good company, man. You're in very good company, sir. And last but not least, Matt, how about yourself? Yeah, at the moment I'm I've hopped onto the the Nightingale hype train and I'm mostly enjoying it. Spending a lot of time trying to master it. Quite complicated in terms of the

supportive system it has for construction there. As for my favorite game, that's I think there's probably two categories. One that inspires nostalgia and one that doesn't. Nostalgically, you know, Alex the Kid, Commander Keen, those those from back in the day. Yeah. Slightly older games than than Fallout, even though the Fallout series were amazing, but more recently, you know, Horizon Zero Dawn, the PlayStation exclusive Infamous games. There's there's so many fantastic games out there. It's it's hard to just pick one, I would say. That brings us to a a conclusion, I'm afraid. As much as I would love to carry on, I think we could we could usefully pursue a lot of these topics over the course of an afternoon, but sadly, Peggy will have my legs broken if we go over an hour or so. But I just want to say thank you all so much for joining us today and and I will reiterate what Peggy said earlier. We would love to have you back and find out more. You know, and once we hit the the 30th

anniversary of the game, Torsten, you know, please do come back and we'll we'll all get together as even if we're just heads in jars in the future. We'll all be here. We'll definitely all be here. And I have to second and third that and I have to say that understanding how you're working together and that it's focused on the game and how you're approaching forecasting live ops. There's just so much here, so much that you've shared, so much useful information. One, it's a great episode. It was fun. It was informative and yes, you're coming back for an encore. So, thanks so much. Perfect. Thanks for having us. Thank you. It was tons of fun. 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 [email protected]. You can find us on Twitter @pgbiz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website. If you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts, you can find them at pocketgamer.biz/podcast 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. 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 pocketgamer.biz podcast and we'll look forward to speaking to you in the near future. Until then, I'm Brian Baglow. I'm Peggy Anne Salts and that's a wrap until next week.