Ongoing user acquisition for indie game developers

[Music] [Music] there's a little bit like a deja vu because I had a I was monitoring a panel yesterday except the same time the same room about user opposition so I guess I have different people now with me but so panelists this baby immunity Johan from chartboost first call from eating games and then Robert from next games all these kids getting kind of comfortable so know my background I used to run back at the base I used to run unity ads well actually already had a prefer used to running the BD moved on to outwit sevens my talking dumb guys I was their CRO for a while and about a year ago moved back

to Finland and then started you know doing different things including advising games companies you know helping them to grow a little bit marketing automation projects and stuff like that and obviously you know glad to be here and some of these guys I've known for four years so even some of them are hired I would hire again right but you know things off maybe you guys can just introduce yourself quickly like like you're all what are you doing in your companies and stuff like that is this working hi I'm baby I work at unity ants as the Senior Account Manager and my daily work is to talk to developers who are on their you a stuff yeah I'm Yoann I'm a general manager for a short post Europe and yeah similar to baby I also talked to developers on you a stuff so I miss calculus and the CMO of Eden games among other things and I consult for a bunch of other developers of marketing and I'm

Robert Lucas I do all kinds you a at next games cool cool lineup so there's a clear difference of like service providers and the people who actually do the work right now just kidding by the way are there like many Indies in the room not too many in this er oh there are oh cool that's cool so we hear about 37 minutes I was thinking of like trying to be a bit like in a 30-ish so we have little time for some questions maybe later but the kickings off maybe just to kind of set the really really basis and and and and this is kind of kind of maybe most relevant for Robert and Pascale that like like if if you're an indie and you look into like acquiring users let's forget the budgets for a while but like what are the typical channels like what are the channels that you would consider being good for a game developer I think

one channels that you kind of want to start at is these social ones they're easy to get into they're easy to start with and you can find your kind of target audience you can test out yeah I agree with that that the community as an indie definitely you don't have supposedly a lot of money to break your IP so they have built on the users that you already have cater to them built their love and this way they will share and that's your start and it's also part of your retention so anything else you would do you actually get a better impact over time about a long tail impact if you already have the community going before it so start with that what will still like if you for a while but I like like change to hats not Oscar's hat but like I had for a big publisher having the deep pockets so what's different like you still probably work

on social but like what kind of kicks in like in terms of channels like you know it's like you can go and expand the networks and like how do you kind of play around with this stuff moving from that like I don't have any money to actually I have some money to spend at some point if it's a little money then you probably start doing some either some regular you way or your way around the moment you're gonna get featured to maximize that featuring and then you use people like these fine folks or personally I use Janos PA here in first Frontalot and it's really almost like a network yeah he's doing the data stuff and I'm more the guy looking at the mix and trying to find things that Indies would be interested in sometimes finding things that are either cheaper or free and one thing I do a lot is youtubers now I'm not gonna lie I'm praying for it and I'm using a lot of money for it but there is always

that one or two youtubers who may have 500,000 subscribers 100,000 views a video and who loves your content so much that you can make me make him a partner and ambassador give him stuff that doesn't cost you a lot of money and that's also a part of the community manager's job I think super fans it is about building the community that building the community around your game that will in turn also give you more users and there you have user acquisition so then you guys like like I know you guys get a lot of like people like Indies asking advise and like you know how should I like start with this and what should I do and what's relevant like how do you like how do you like have those discussions because obviously you know I mean I was running unity as I said it's like obviously and you want to understand if

there's an opportunity for some company to scale that they can actually start significantly spend money on marketing at some point so obviously you want to be very supportive and you want to you're gonna kind of like build something which is rather like easy to unboard us yourself sir maybe but how do you have this I mean do you do you have still a lot of Indies kind of reaching out and asking for advice and how do you like what what do you actually do for them then yeah that's that happens a lot and I mean it's important to give them as much as advice as we can scale be right so I think both platforms unity and chakras are both highly kind of self-service minded I assume I don't know unity that well but but so they can do a lot themselves and then I think I think what kind of advice we gave him a lot of times is you know if you know your audience then you know targets pretty early don't you know too much first campaigns or don't do you know discovery early on because for for

it for an India of course it's money it's it's a scarce resource right so so spend it well in the beginning and that's kind of the advice we give we we don't want them to we don't want to spend foolishly with us we wanted to spend smart with us base but that's the kind of advice we give usually I would actually a bit disagree because I would say that of course you don't want to spend much because you don't know where the users are but with like huge networks like we are it is very easy to scale and it's like it depends on where you're targeting of course I think the first thing is for index to do is to think okay what do I want to achieve do I want to get do a tech technical launch so I could get users from like Thailand or Vietnam with like 20 cents so that's not gonna be expensive but then basically this is like my start of the conversation like you should be broad in your targeting think what you want technical launch don't go after US for instance no don't do that but but don't start like thinking like I mean I don't

know what you meant by saying that like they they know where the users are like if they actually launching they don't really know where they like users are like what how do they behave so I would say target or like identify first what do you want to achieve technical launch do you want to know where your bugs are in the game go to loads here countries Taiwan and so on and then the next one would be actually to to scale up and understand your users more well my point was mostly that I mean I've been in India myself and I done launches with big nectars myself and just on my own experience if I mean the paths are kind of bad that you have I mean if you have a you know a big budget for bursts or whatever you were the technical launch of course I mean go big you can do that with short poster unity or anyone but if you don't have that much money then make your money worth that's what I'm that's what I'm trying to say so it's it's about you know and most of times you do know users and you may already been on social networks for instance you already have an audience you know kind of what to put

a target but also I mean make sure that the game is solid as well I mean get something back right I mean cause monitor to acquire user and if you have you need to have your own boarding really solid right they need to stick in the game don't waste money that way make sure that monetization works you know get something back right then and and make sure what virality works as well because I mean if you can acquire a user that generates another user then all of a sudden you a cost is cut in half right so so it's like you know be prepared well before you start spending on it right that's kind of my point ignoring what stage you are that is very true like you have to understand what you're doing that you have to have a plan not just thinking oh I'm going on board ten different networks Facebook Google all these ones and then I'm gonna just see where I'm gonna put money in yeah and to add to this I think it's it's very important what your hand said and I saw you know it so you will agree that when we say building a community it's not just put out great content on Facebook it is also within the game make sure you

have optimized the mechanics the legit incentives to get people to actually follow you on these networks because I see some games where sometimes their audience on Facebook is like 1% of their daily active users others it's 50% because they've honed it they have optimized it you want to do that before you spend so that by the time you spend you also get the organics out of your spinner there needs to be the value right I mean if there's no value and what would I come back right that's a game exactly yeah but also as an indie when when you're putting your game out there and you're starting to acquire users you need to have make sure that what you want said the ad when the monetization of the game is actually working that you're not just giving away your game and great content but you can actually also monetize you can actually get some revenue back from what you've spent but it's also like goes nicely actually like referring on again back to

my panel yesterday I'm back to jános that I will use a couple of dollars yesterday when we discuss more about like like um like social media and it goes for like whether you're an indie or like like superstar spending hundred million a year if you it's not if it's not clear what's your objective like why do you want stuff I'd probably not do it right like it's like better to go back and do your homework like why do we want to do they strike and then you come down to eventually okay okay so maybe Thailand because of this and that and I need to test this in that so yeah always know you're like stuff you want to know whether you have a hundred bucks or or Oh more no not gonna sit sit a little bit like like the base is maybe for the disgusting but house like moving on in terms of like all right there you know I'm an indie I have my great idea of the game it's kind of coming together and and and maybe I have my a little bit money from friends and families and other fools right so I'm considering

spending a little bit of money on you a where do I start from like what it's the first thing like like I'm gonna lost right you know I know there's a lot of people spending a lot of money and it's tough and it's difficult it's competitive how do like where do I start from I would say just start with metrics gathered date if you don't have data of what your users what your game is what your players are doing in the game what the retention rate is what what your monetization read is well what are you gamers doing so collect that data and get an attribution platform that you can trust if you don't have that I think you need to go and take a step back you don't want to do you a before you have analytics and enough attribution provider and this goes to like is there specific tools that you would kind of recommend like well obviously you will use trucker's life apps lie at just got you have all the the one you prefer basically and but but this point is

really important that you also look at your Facebook demographics whether you're in soft-launched or whatever at some point you have data you have some users so look at who are the biggest spenders who is staying in the game for the longer things like that and you probably want these users rather than the cheapest one sometimes what is cheap sometimes you can like why a user for 50 cents but it brings back five that's a loss if you acquire for four dollars a user that lifetime value is gonna be four point fit but 4.50 that's profitable so you need to know who this user is and when I go to youngish to to place ads that's the first thing is gonna ask for me what's your user demographic what is the age what is where is their territory where what are they ask their psychographics what are they interest what do they like what do they watch what do they read and the more you know about your core audience the easier it will be to find it out

there you'll make mistakes obviously sometimes you're gonna try something and the user is not coming from there but you're not gonna spend too much time and money in that attempt if you know who you're targeting and like Janna said yesterday if you know what your objective is because if you don't know the goal how do you win says that you win I start to feel it you know so you need to come up like like do like from your experience people reaching out to you as in this like do they know what they need to measure like do you have a feeling of back at the days I remembered you need like still a table fire starting ramp up to video advertising stuff and doing a little UA so we have long discusses of people who wanted to start actually have deep pockets but do you have a clue of like should I actually work with at just or apps fire and can you recommend and of course as a network we couldn't

really recommend because like we needed to support everybody who's kind of you know viable opportunity or option but do these guys now there's known they're like oh you know doesn't change do people know that like this is my me this is what I want to measure I didn't maybe have all the data yet but I think the research is still the key you basically like I think every English should first look at all the options for instance attribution partners right see all for the main ones and see what the offer is basically do you want to pay for install so you want to play for pay for kick clicks and then put that plan or this research into understanding what is actually matching up with your tech stack so that's attribution right but then like Robert said analytics and reporting that's that's the key because yes you're gonna start with Facebook for instance right but if you don't understand what the users are doing and if you don't have those tooling and that's gonna be problematic now then already that time you should also think about scaling later because later you're not gonna add any more

tools like you're not gonna want to like change your analytics because your game is really big right so these are kind of like the things that like there's of course everybody's still asking I don't think it's never gonna go away but the research and like understanding what are the kind of key players out there it is it's very very important and then match it to your own game because they are very different right yeah yeah yeah yeah like you mentioned that it's very hard for us to we can't give advice on who to use because we have to support everyone but that information is relatively easy to come by though I mean like evaluations of different attribution partners or mediation tools and stuff like that I mean that's talk to talk to someone at the conference you know talk to someone you know like like like you or talk talk to someone is not from a network but yeah so I mean you talked to a few industry people in a conference and you have a really good picture of who you should use I mean that's that's relative assessment is relatively easy

that's that's what so great about games interesting like Pocket Gamer because then it's very like open community in a way like people are happy to add voice right and I think baby baby mentioned something very important as well and that's the scaling part because when you're choosing a provider when you're choosing an analytics platform you don't want to end up in a situation where you suddenly get a hundred thousands of users and your bills is just increasing and you you don't know what to do when you kind of need to either switch off their servers or switch off your attribution provider and you don't want to end up in that thing and that's something that we learned as well we grew crazy much in a very short time period and and you learned by your mistake and and take a look at those contracts it's quite boring but look at the contracts and look at what that will mean that contract will mean for you if you have ten thousand users hundred thousand users half million and 5 million users because that may happen

that's a very good point because often engage when I talk with like early early early studios and and just playing with numbers playing this like you know a bit of like people don't like to do that because it's like you know it's pushing my luck but let's just like mapping it down and I think that makes perfect sense because mapping it down in terms of you know like there you just blend it like okay so at this point you know maybe I start you know pushing more money to you a you know there's different things but like you know yeah it's it's but but sadly enough this is typically not the core competence offer of a new games company right because you have like developers designers stuff like that so but yeah I mean it's a good always to ask for help from from people in the industry I think that would be maybe the first advice for Indies based on what you just said that usually it's not their core competency you have friends no matter how young and or small you are you have friends maybe one of them has studied economics maybe one of them must read what it takes to become

your data analysts find the guy I wouldn't advise an indie developer to develop that competence on top of everything else he already knows because to get come an expert it doesn't have the time to find a friend will do it for you and again like when you play with numbers there's a point where hopefully you grow and there's a moment hey you know at this point maybe it's time for actually you know getting you a manager in to look after these things you know you know there's obviously there's agencies and at this point scares me because it's usually too late well that first me at sometimes you arrive and you think only had called me six months ago could have saved them but that's yeah I think getting an expert in is definitely worth it early and it doesn't have to be someone that's super well connect and husband doesn't be these super expert in you way it needs to be someone a small and good and analytics can focus on and can focus on it and it doesn't have to be full-time either but it you know it needs to be someone I can yeah semantics

works really well in Excel for instance that's that's that's pretty much what you need because you don't have to be rocket science they kind of evaluate two different metrics as long as you know what you want to do and and kind of what you're okay with in terms of ROI or retention stuff adalah results you're ok with as long as you have those metrics clear for you the person evaluating that doesn't have to be you know a rocket science again but the person needs to be smart and pragmatic and and good in Excel and and you know if you get those then you're pretty well covered you know yeah yeah changing gears a little bit like so it's all really like you know couple two or three years when then fertility for games use requisition video has been P formats right so like a little time you wanna you wanna buy users for a game you know yeah you need to produce a video right but before going to the actual creative stuff and the problems there are there still other formats that you guys are using and you

guys supporting them or like some of the old you know like static interstitials banner whatever and then moving on also like what's next that's the the million jillion dollar question actually but what are you guys using now in terms of like you own video or format next games we're we're trying to use everything the newest thing the bleeding edge of ads that we can get out there because we've seen a clear clear competitive edge by pushing something new out there but that's not to say and video still works really really well I'm really really good across many channels so as an indie developer and you don't have to have a crazy great CGR video it's like five minutes long and Allah all the Heartstone video that just came out you can just take a chill take make a gif even because it's something

movable that works it's something that catches the intention of the viewer then you're good if you can get that half second attention and then you can get the rest of the ten seconds view of your gif and then then you're pretty much sit yeah and sometimes comedy yeah helps as well when you're small and you don't have a big budget comedy can be your friends not for everyone of course not for every general but it can be I look a lot at youtubers as well I've given talks yesterday about that that's one of my things at the moment obviously video ads work obviously Facebook ads work as well Instagram ads and but it always depends on your own LTV with your title on these networks if it doesn't work for you don't force it you know I think all the rest of the industry does it I have to do it too and I mean as an indie you might not go with a crazy 360 video the first thing you do on Facebook you have

to take it take the step back and test it out hold though you can have partners as an indie and that's a great way to save money and that brings the bar to deal about the deals is no money changing hands if I do a campaign with pagani day bring the car I bring the youtubers the youtubers want to see the car so everybody does it for the zero or less than usual because you brought three things together instead of two sue is a commercial negotiation 3 maybe we have party partnerships is very important for indie and don't think for a second that big companies will not look at you if your game fits never forget that the really giant companies their problem is not money their problem is creative ideas so if you have something go to them we're talking about ad formats also I mean video is is it is the best performing ad

unit I do want to start out for play balls though that's up-and-coming because if they'd they what we're seeing is that clay balls can work really really well what I came out really really bad it's like a big span on if you look at conversion between crushing to install but there's so much optimization potential with labels you can you can measure everything it's like a game basically I'm yeah and you can optimize it so much so that what we see that there were a well-developed or well-crafted playable that been optimized performs much better than anything else basically that's well that's that's what we've seen right now all right yeah that's what I wanted to say so that like pay play also definitely like a big thing right now and it's new people actually like it stay well engage with that however it's a very good point that it also might not work like it's it might not bring up your performance because it's a playable right but just like quickly jumping back to like the fact of like a banner ads not video I would say that like it's hitting 95% of all developers like they

basically don't put any budget into banner advertising so I want to ask you like because you guys support banners right because we don't you know so only video but how much is that kind of like scale wise like do you get a lot of budget for best thing ever so we there's still a lot of spenders in in the in banners and well but banners hasn't static interstitial basically so an interstitial but it does static and that's you know that that was the original that's like the ad format a few years ago right and and and it's not used as much anymore but it's still converts though it's still and you know it's it's usually and it's the is usually cheaper also so and if you don't have the resources to make a video than making a static it is really easy right and you can optimize that as well and it can also pay off pretty well for you in in terms of ROI and and and that so it's it's not it's we are biggest the most important I'd formats video and and the the most exciting ad format is

playable but we still have a lot of static interstitial and it works as well and again it's it's much easier to produce much cheaper to videos that's the very good start exactly the point we're gonna in this because I'm he added producing we I mean there's obviously people who can help you producing a great video but that's not any more an advice you get on like here that's actually a production which costs money right but again like when again I've been we were diving at the unity ask me so this clear difference tough like I think we use the term life video kind of pre qualifies the user a gameplay video actually so gonna going back to this kind of like super expensive productions of offer like a trailer of like a brand it's more like a brand awareness rather than actually showing the gameplay video we showed them back that there is like huge difference between actually engaging users who are coming back like retention was a lot higher for people who saw the gameplay rather than just a trailer of like hey

you know this company presents and you know stuff like that in a way you're right and what your hand said makes perfect sense to me because I remember those days where I didn't have a video agency and I needed to do static but when I think about even games in gear club I realized that we have the luxury to have a video director in house soda seriously with Vallely pisto and that's a huge advantage and it's a very very sensible investment that would that would give us an advice to any indie developer in the same way that you have a friend that studies economics you have a friend who wants to become a film director he's gonna take 15 years to get there giving his first shot is gonna be cheap and he's going to give you great work and video is becoming so important not only in ads but also social media that this guy is a great hire to make and don't forget that to me when I look at an indie obviously there are very the difference the definitions of the word

indie and independent is one thing but when we talk about indie really we think about the rock bands yeah of you know of yesteryear and those guys who get together at school three or four of them I can do graphics you can do coding well get more friends get a film guy get more friends who can maybe do the games but they can help you sell it and it's because if you want to stay indie this is crucial otherwise you're gonna stay in the for a week and then sell out to a publisher yeah so in terms of creator do you guys help with creatives if somebody wants to start stuff and you know like I have this great game I have screenshots there's it like you can see the gameplay but can you help me producing a video that then you using your network yeah we do with the video playable static with a definite saying basically we can help out but of course there are like the agencies that you can use to create videos it's it's not actually that expensive like I feel

like I mean yeah of course if you can get somebody in-house that would be perfect but if you don't and I mean start off with like two videos 30 second make that same video in just 15 seconds that's what we two videos you should test at them outright and to actually pay like 300 I don't know dollars for those two videos from an agency that's not the end of the world right and you can still keep using them and those assets like all these like banners and everything yeah yeah you mean you mentioned something important though that yeah I mean you need to test ABCD whatever like you need to have set of stuff that you test and drive because that's the only language like going back to outfit seven when we starting to like proper like a so in terms just like logos on the store and and ice cream sauce I mean we always had a great idea that you know when we had like four alternatives that this is the best we loved it and it was never the winner after the test it was probably very well but something else up here to close we do buyer stuff like okay so we did this be working on this stuff stuff for last

year and we're gonna love this character needs this kind of hats and stuff like that is cool but you know the audience actually size and they need to decide right I think that's very important what Myka just said that let don't don't decide yourself what's a good creative don't decide yourself what's a bad video or a good video just let the numbers tell you because that if you trust the numbers instead that's your core audience they're telling you what they like and then then iterate over that video and as you said if you have a 30-second video you can easily cut that down into even three different pieces 10 10 10 and you have three videos that you can test against each other but also you're like it's like kind of like the the extreme I've seen is that the data data is so high in the priority that it kind of drives your creative like framework and well I mean there's obviously particular for you guys

because you have an IEP you work with but like I think data is still the it's the tool that helps you write you need to be creative and then the data helps you to figure out what works but like I've seen cards weird like yeah this is the cell we have and you need to turn this small you know silo and do the best creative and you kind of find into the hands of actual artists and I think that's why I love to have an in-house video director so much because you can test so much more than with an agency a test with an agency cut he's in the team he knows you know and and you can test wild things because yes you should look at the data but that doesn't mean you should narrow your mindset too early in the game you should still a be test something wild everything else you turn it down that's it move on you kicked the ball once but try it because Robin Squire if I remember last year's set on stage if for the cover of Nirvana to

smell like teen spirits we had a be tested images I don't think it would have come out with a baby chasing a dollar bill in a pool and yet it's one of the most iconic covers of all time so allow yourself to be creative and artistic if if you just look at the data of other people and then try something within that data set and yes you're becoming a robotic then and bland and you're not bringing anything to the entertainment business overall that's probably why analysts are not creators exactly but that's a really good point let the creators be crazy and the neighbors don't give them too much direction early because you're the spontaneity is good what we also found out at some point at at outfit seven that once we started to introduce like just on ASO introduced logo for game on a store which we can eight months ago in

work we reintroduced that on ABC they destined of like weiner like by far it's like alright it's kind of like just again you know fresh refreshing just and it was cool then and now it's like okay just popping up again I think to pascals point this is really important in the beginning of the iteration process it's really important to be really creative and if you want to try in or three four different creatives to where you started they have to be completely different than beginning then you can kind of learn okay what would seem to be working and then you iterate on them and change smaller things and at the beginning you make it completely different I would that would be my advice also at one point like what I recently discovered is that for instance strategy games you can you can put different features in that are you're gonna see that these are working better so strategy games they don't put in gameplay that much anymore but for instance when one developer discovered that if they put in submarines they're gonna get the best users but the game has nothing to do with submarines but the video does because this is gonna

define those best strategy male users so but just putting that one feature into that adds or like the get creative that works for them but again this is exactly like you start you saw it brought you have that kind of gameplay videos and then you got to learn the data you're gonna see that okay so this feature works better this does and I'm gonna push this for the other video and so on yeah interesting a little bit edgy kind of like but again what do you say you and quite trying like even crazy things like don't limit yourself you gotta have a few minutes time few minutes left so you might want to jump back to the topic ongoing UI for English I mean we kind of miss that but so we discussed the formats and how to start and like the matrix and stuff but like you know I'm in India have a game and then I'm have my matrix in place and I'm kind of like okay I can get a little bit more money to set it's like okay try this out how do you not necessarily scale but how do you build that as an operation which is ongoing we got maybe you spend I don't

know a thousand bucks a week but date and doesn't make sense cuz into a lot of money I wouldn't spend a thousand bucks a week I would save that money until I can do something better [Music] but yeah ongoing anyway I think the key word is rhythm you want your team to put out regular updates every three to five weeks maximum maximum because then it gives you an opportunity to do marketing again to move to another video to the relaunch to do something around it if nothing goes on in the game and it's there and it becomes stale what can you do as a marketeer let's never forget that we all depend of an of having a fantastic product to begin with none of us here can sell if I may use a French word so it's really important to keep that rhythm and same thing on social media and in ads and like you said earlier sometimes an ad that was performing really well for three months well now everybody's seeing it and we're

bored with it so switch and now if game is a service then marketing is a live show it's no longer all we made this and now it's done it's never really done if they keep remaking the game we keep retooling the marketing I think the main thing is put the money where it's spent effectively like analyze the data kill the channels there are not many making any money back but just like this is how you eventually ongoingly scale your business like choose where you're putting the money in fully agree and and also get a process in place try to automate as much of the analysis as possible and and get a process in the way you work as well as all you know if you do optimizations you know do it maybe in the same same time of the day or some other I mean keep it make it into process that you can also optimize right so become more efficient it was a good point like it is to be continuous like you need to be on top of these kind of numbers all the time because like you know at fats fatigue and all these

things so we the same same back at this when we push lot of this like your monetization SDKs to guys out there so but typically happened at that time still happens that you integrator whether that's unity ads or chart whatever and you just leave it in a team okay we need to you know I mean I inter quite a couple of ad networks to show us and then you know that's their they're doing good but you're not like managing it and that happens often you it's not that bad because people tipping who do that understand but then it needs to be like you need to be very spot on but hey sorry I need to cut down Sue's right I'm gonna have two quick questions brief answers like five words no maybe a little more one biggest mistake you can do when you an indie and you want to start doing you a biggest mistake spend money without data start being aggressive when you're absolutely not ready in many ways of the term it can be that you don't have the little TV it can

be that your game is actually more looking like a prototype and you're the only one not seeing it there are so many things for which you might not be ready and if you start to work it obviously if you're a big company you have the luxury to you know correct your mistakes by throwing money at them as an indie you don't have that luxury so it's sometimes you get impatience when you are in the creative process you're just tired of working on that thing for a year and you just want to get it out don't forget that the way you come out is important and if you have little money maybe you don't have a second chance so yeah make sure you're ready yeah be involved in the campaigns especially in the beginning not just to be make sure that it won the money or wisely spent but also to learn it's it's a lot of learners you can get very quickly I just sat in here it's like have a plan I know what you're doing like don't you start like kind of going crazy you know I'm gonna implement everything and I are integrating this but like actually have a plan so that's the biggest mistake of

not having a plan what's one advice you have and maybe all of these things we just turn around that's the advice right so you know like have your data you know like have your plan like know what you're doing actually that's the point and you know like I've seen the weather you're in do a big Poppa's it is always like you easily fall in long love also for the products so and other means that you kind of like you just work on too long for it or then you're gonna like just like you pushed for I need to get this out you know and one more advice I would insist on get your friends around you don't think that you know everything or that you can learn everything you could maybe theoretically learn everything but over several lifetimes which you don't have timing is everything yeah cool thanks guys um I ran out of my mic quick I have more but let me check something cuz I alright this is all great interrupts I totally agree with all of it there's one little thing to

doubt I have about a/b testing although I am a huge fan of it and that is the Heisenberg principle I know this is quantum theory anism to do with games and all that kind of stuff but there's this thing about uncertainty which is really interesting which is observation affects behavior and I wonder if you think about things like yeah observe obsesses Rocky Horror Show Rocky Horror Show if that went out you know based on its first few weeks the film would never exist any more we've begun and yeah it's the longest-running cinema release in history and that's why I'm wondering if we're actually missing some tricks now 99.9 reoccuring so at the time there'd be testing is probably about right and let's face it most of our judgment is bad but are we missing a trick because our very active a/b testing things too early we don't know how that brand that identity that that technique that ads planning will affect the observation

perceptions and cultural surroundings for the game so I don't know I'd like to see what you think is are we judging too quickly all the time I think the best marketeers have to have the humility to understand that they work for a creator and if they don't and end up putting checkles on this creator everybody's going to suffer we are not creators and sometimes you have to step back and sometimes the gut of a genius prevails and that's it I think I think that this bigger risk actually to acting too late and and act and requiring too much data you know because the best in my experience best a/b testing is when you get directional enough kind of thing like okay this is this this assessment here is good enough right it's 75 percent confidence integration yeah okay I want to go in

this yeah it's fine I mean because if you wait too long and you collect all the data to complete the cert and make sure you don't miss any little pocket of valuable inventory then no your first will never certainty but if you wanted that kind of me it costs a lot of money and time right and if you're an indie you don't have well you don't have either maybe a time but not definitely money so I mean my advice is still you know directional it's kind of good enough unless you really big and you know need that so it's a great question though all the a be testing is is so important and cool I don't necessarily you know it was a devil's out but good questions much anything the reality is most the time even people do think they know what they're doing like me don't when it comes down to it all we know is what happened previously we can't predict what's gonna happen next [Music]

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