Panel: Hypercasual: Different Backgrounds at One Common Place

[Music] hello and welcome everyone my name is Mosco i'm the publishing director at rolek i am in charge of game management and live operations valuable partners with us there from different backgrounds and they're going to answer my questions in about three to four minutes for every question and it will be about the business side of the applicatio and also the game management side game creation and game ideation side so bear with us as I said we're gonna have three to four minutes for each question I might have to stop you so yeah here we go

so can we have a brief introduction of you first I'm coming from Istanbul and the co-founder of ace games we are applicative gaming studio and we are 7 months old we don't have it yet my name is Aris I used to be a marketeer so I spent early times of my career in Lauria and as a marketing guy and then like seven years ago I went to games in netmarble as the CEO of that marbles EMEA region and for the last six years we've been like partner of malaria which is also a small studio for monta do you got casual and mitko games come recently with Moloch we started to develop high precision which we will share as well hello everyone my

name is Ahmad I'm from Danish day Turkey and I'm the co-founder and CEO of T play studio and we are also working with rollick we started as three people now we are 13 people crew we make hypo casual games or first trees was water story and it became a hit and we're looking for having more hits [Music] so from you all the first investors in the industry as far as we know and back then when there was no gaming industry no gaming investors and as far as I remember there was just like Facebook gaming and formulas and etc you know what was your motivation in the beginning of like founding of it core maybe the sort of a social gaming company yeah back in 2010 the first company I co-founded was peak games with famous by

the way I existed in 2014 some regrets there as you know like Zynga was like Farmville and my grandmother was playing farmville in English and she doesn't speak English so there was a huge potential there we started by acquiring a board game you know board games were sold to Zynga again two years ago and then we licensed an American farm game in in Turkish and Middle East area and I think it was the first game license in publishing back then very well but we didn't have neither twin blasts or northropi blast like that otherwise I wouldn't exit as I said I'm an entrepreneur I'm not a game would actually sorry

well there's a huge potential and municipal tension you can build a good team and you can get investment then it makes sense and it was one of the reasons why we got into pitch and not feel that much mobile games back then even China crashes as you know it's it was launched in 2012 I think and I was using a blackberry but now it's different like I'll get back to that question like the the tomb glass is now a huge deal and don't you like brag about like I found I was the father I don't want to take the credit there was really great see who was my co-founder and I have to pick I co-founded 20-plus more other take internet companies so I mean I shouldn't take the credit there but of course I'm

very proud of being a being one of the cofounders of peach yeah okay thank you it's producing very good casual and meet core game titles but now changing its direction into an application so we're very curious about the motivation behind this action well to us in order to understand that we should look at the bigger picture of advertising yes and I think like recently like 2019 we saw like everyone on marketing companies or whatever almost like 74 cents per dollar is going to gain under Tizen like three four years ago it was clothed like 0.1 but now it last year we saw like straggling 20% growth and it means that like all companies understood the value of

in-game engagement based the advertising materials so that created a huge business we know that like mobile gaming is almost like a 2 billion dollar right now and all the other gaming platforms combined like PC using PlayStation whatever is console is making around like 4045 well so it means that apart from the in-app purchase this is like becoming even even even much bigger so it's like an obvious choice for many gaming companies for trying to or like struggling to be apart largest core gaming business because in that power all I did was like four games which others like you have to spend like 50 hours per month for a single game and spend a lot of money and this is like the complete opposite where you can like you know get your mind out of like lots of USO stuff like that which is meant to be the meaning of gaming in census so application and for

gaming I see that the potential of this application is like for us as well because we're moving forward compared to core games or enough purchased stuff you know before there was like premium games then there were no Premium Suite to play games only now many of my picket lines polygons the problem because the speaker's advertises you're gonna keep on advertising in this engaging formats which is like just exploring that is easier to switch me to switch I want to make really quick follow then what you think about the production costs and production times and that is also already very important aspect of it but to be honest like every game that we created in the you know core gaming was 5 million dollar-plus and at least 8 to 12 months development process with more than like 50 60 people each studio so right now we know that for example I gave my party mobile which

is like working towards like has a studio of 600 people in China it was for Chinese build another 450 people for you know so well look at that it's it's becoming more and more difficult for like smaller studios to enter that market when I try to like do something because I did the Apple Store I'm going to sort left lost edge you know featuring power back in the day when you get featured people getting like millions of dollars now it's much much narrower so meaning that we need that so in the in terms of capacity of producing that's kind of like fast games you know like game mechanics now we can experiment on maybe like ten different game mechanics and try to figure out which one is the best which you guys like independently as you do not be able to do that but now we can thanks to you guys so it's kind of like you know do you think going on here yeah for some

people first fine the one really exacting some point the other but so what won't be too much so you have rocked the top charts give it both your shitty cost option number two can I just explain the process of building the motor shows it'll scratch yeah because it was very interesting for us because the idea didn't come from my team which is very interesting the idea she came from Brock the co-founder of Rolly and at the time we were working on a prototype it was our first prototype and they liked the idea but I'll agree we just started our relationship like that and then they invite us to Istanbul we worked on the idea for a day it was already you know we were just

ready to you know move forward with it and the second day we had another meeting at the in the morning and after the meeting Brad came to me and said which was very interesting I still like find it very does he he said can I curse it let's do this what I have an idea let's do this alright guy and then we just trashed everything we killed the idea not didn't kill either sister in the freezer but we started the idea which became water shooting in about a day like that day we actually created the prototype prototype I'm sorry which was basically blocks shooting smaller blocks to another block so gang D you know feeling you understood the gameplay it felt right and then after that we put

you know a stick man and then the rest it happened like magic in about a few weeks I think it was two weeks it was ready the core game was there it was hard for us to do the balancing and polishing that was the biggest challenge we had because that was the first game with it in hyper casual vertical popular and rolling helped us a lot we spend a lot of time in Istanbul again Istanbul ending izzi for the ones who don't know these two cities it's not very you know close but it's a Centon flight so we traveled a lot and at the end it worked so that was the basic you know rundown of what have like 30 cars to see those done pretty well yep okay suffer similar question without

us but again with your background you also earn certification gaming you'll have an investment right now which in itself you're also an managing director what was your motivation actually as I told I invest in like more than 20 companies in internet and tech and the reason why I picked tech companies you see the results very fast and if it's good or bad you see the results result by the only revenue if you messed my character I think and and we saw very good success stories from Turkey as you know Graham Stenton and rise up maybe and and those are all in our ecosystem and we also great publishers now namely

Rolly and I think one of the biggest spirit is in Turkey's the talent pool we have great developers good designers and I think there are relatively less expressive compared to other countries but then we compete in the same market things to our publishers so I thought it was a good time to get into application and what I do good is like creating teams creating the culture and we did it really fast now we are sitting the prototypes and hopefully so what do you think about I mean you have a very broad perspective on gaming coming from all kinds of is called the case your application now what do you think about the future of publishers or what stands

out as publisher characteristic I mean what what differentiates for you the better publisher and was a worse option for you well you know I did publishing for like almost 70 years vacuum that Marvel so we published many different type of games like yourself I think where we struggled most now I want other side of the table so I'm looking for the same thing as well what what did I miss what did I do wrong the most important thing was always a trust because like most of the smaller companies who are looking for a publisher it is lacking trust because you are you should be able to give a certain maybe a big chunk of your revenue to someone reversible to represent you your name your product on the global market that you will never dream of reaching right so in one way year you need to take this publisher as a big brother to you so they should be able to like take care of you you know

let you create freely and at the same time they should be able to like let you know to learn about your mistakes so you can make mistakes and you can get on board as soon as possible because like her concept this is like super fast business and gaming was already fast but type in cash was like much faster I mean like we were killing a lot of games in that problem but up here is like killing games like out of this world so the adjustment period you need to adjust and I think like pops you need to take care of those strings very well like the transport you know the no half transfer because know how since this is like a young segment of the gaming bill really fast so you need to change their know-how I'm like transferred to the developer which in this part I'm the developer so I need to learn about those really fast so that I can make a product yeah which is also in my opinion like very tough for like you know non-id

cases videos like us because like we are driving brach crazy we are trying you crazy because like you are looking for like you know I try to type it like you know stick mans we are doing a full-fledged prototype with like finished product and if I'm polishing it we have to trust because we don't trust that it's gonna work without doing this because we're blind on this so when you say gaming you think that like you know game ok ok you are entrepreneur I'm not capable so for me game sounds like it's the same all around the Germans but it's not right it's very different from each other so for hyper casual I think like the publisher is more important than a core game yeah because it's changed so fast so that's my idea like sorry should a publisher be demanding you think I think like they should be more demanding than the course studio because the developer should does just for example in core

games when you interrupt develop put too much then you can lose the creativity yeah right because it you are building a product that is like gonna take a year so if you interrupt too much then you may lose the sense of creating the core dynamics of this RPG game or like because it doesn't change that quickly but in application since it changed too quickly and the developer is not gonna be able to learn or hear what's happening outside or the consumer side then you're gonna lose it it's same for - you know advertising parts as well like we need to know we don't know anything about how advertisers want to engage through hype occasions again we have to learn you have to teach us in turn up more we have to be open to interrupts to tell yeah this has been a question in everybody's mind I mean people say lately that the sector is like changing this direction into that's what they call like publisher publisher

sector not the gaming sector because the publishers like taking the game like just reading it into a battery molestation and like killing the creativity so people say but I agree some disagree what you say well I kind of like agree to disagree because like this is something that is not set on my mind well when you look at for example like you know some publishers it's it's pretty difficult to like BAM done yeah to let them exactly let them let's say believe in what you believe so and I think they shouldn't as well so I kind of like I get to disagree on the thank you so there has been an organization community yeah that that's a game capital partner with rollick yep

so what was the motivation behind building this community and what do you expect of gathering together promising studios and like pumping them under your roof sure let me explain what it is first and I'm gonna answer your question so we are creating an accelerator program called off on Orion photo along with rollick and this is an ecosystem financing new game studios in Turkey and the reason that we are doing it is because there are two channels of God for us first channel is you know like hiring people making better games working with you guys releasing new hits etc and the second channel is creating an ecosystem where we plant seeds and they trees so that we can collect some fruits and share them because we believe in the power of one plus one equals three when it comes to intrapreneurship and it

comes to anything actually yeah and that has to do with business and I don't like the idea of for example thousands of people from Turkey sending games to dashboards and just waiting for a response just to see that they are rejected for I don't know like 26 cents then it's a heart no and that should be a great ground there should be coaching there should be you know guiding guidance and we're gonna provide all that to make those people I call them game entrepreneurs it's not game developers game entrepreneur because it's not just about CPI it's not just about KPIs it's not just about you know unity whatever it's it's more than that and we're gonna provide all those hopefully in a few years I'm pretty sure that I believe that we are gonna see more and more contact companies from all over Turkey not just anchor Istanbul

Izmir Denny's day and a lot of more cities thank you juice so ok last questions I believe we have more time so you yes you're an entrepreneur you're an investor you're looking for the revenues the outcomes but we see you very intact with your Studios and we see you like managing your studios and also found in your investing your Studios a really hands-on to studio a very hands-on with Duval the person artists how do you I do it without an arm first and secondly what do you expect from your developers and what do you expect from your publisher side so they call me seal entrepreneur and I think I mean I don't recommend and I mean actually if I chose the right path but that's me so whenever I see an opportunity and

whenever I see that I can build a team and I can create the culture and then I'm like why not why we are not moving then I do it but like recently I read this book it's Jerry Keller's one thing the book called one thing and it's telling that you have to prioritize and focus on one thing at a time yeah and I'm trying to focus more on one thing right now and which is hyperesthesia thankfully and so I'm and I like getting results and thankfully my wife is very understanding about that so I get up like 7:00 in the morning and I go to at like 1:00 and it's full of like working and managing but as I said like it's right now I'm trying to focus more on one thing and like what I'm expecting from the opposite I mean we are a good relationship our publisher and like

they're as our asset like their demands are very critical and very valuable for us so I think the most important thing is like getting on the same page like because developers are from another world so it's really hard to understand them so you have to motivate them and sometimes you haven't picture in your mind and you tell the developer and the next day something like very different comes to you so we are trying to get on the same page with them and we are doing some extraordinary stuff to motivate and like I mean I'm a very strict manager robot with the developers you can't the guy goes to bed like 5:00 in the morning and you can't expect him to come nine in the morning yeah what then if he comes late the designer says why

am i coming so it's I think it balanced and like being a team is like managing this and yeah so I I'm a hopeful our 2020 and we'll do good job with Roy I hope I hope to so us my final question again try to get use of your aversion and experience to this this question has been in everybody's mind I mean we're inside the cage the world my people are saying this game has three modes of lifetimes there are six months of lifetime of this game is one month of lifetime application has nine months lifetime and stuff so what do you think about this what to be honest like I thought about this question you asked me like a week ago or so this is a tough question in my mind I want to approach this question like that I think that the

purchasing power of people who play games always misunderstood right yeah when you look at the hard numbers you see that the PPU in Asia is like huge and it's like almost by double of what we are having in Western countries you know at the same time we know that the the age group of mobile phone owners are growing right so the penetration is evolving so meaning that it's not like that these people doesn't have purchase power and especially the youth is coming with the purchase power and that group is gonna like get this business more so where they can direct their purchasing power probably to a couple of things that we never thought before like we always thought that okay number one game to game on the three game the top charts are always like hardcore games right but now we see that the advertising revenue is that mixing this charts a lot over so we think that it's like number one to

twenty nine but we don't know how much money replication gave did so maybe it's something that we should don't like to start measuring correctly and then it's gonna be something that diggers call companies will also start to focus we see this example in several Asian companies now they're looking hard on how they can tackle application and they have like different missed opportunities unlike trying to do it with like a course to do and we know that course to do doesn't work on my pro casual or casual cases to do do like it's there are few examples like you know the king trying to make Call of Duty mobile but them turns and finishing they've collected the meaning that application is gonna get much bigger than my open in the next three days three years so maybe it's gonna be like the number one not just the Chandra download right now it's only number one download yeah but it's gonna probably be

number one in terms of like revenue probably not spending those horse pants problem it's gone up still big core games but I think it's gonna probably intern in the Armenia include in-app purchase in some way becoming like hybrid games in that sense probably because this is what we see there's always a blitz coming up online market share so probably it's gonna be you wanna like kindred advocate a little bit more maybe yeah just about us right now small studios that's my blood striking inside thank you so final question sure and I think it's in every Studios mind that what happens to a studio after it publishes again so I think they're they're already Studios

here that hasn't published any games and I think this question super important for them so before and after water shooting no sure so before before water shoot it was chaos like heat long story short and after water shitty we are more structured in in a nutshell so let me kind of deliver elaborate this first we had an idea of growth channels so as I explained we started the invest in the ecosystem almost immediately like I think I start talking to Barack about you know all phone back then it was another name right in the middle of September which is you know the date that we release the game because we immediately realize that okay this is gonna be a big what next then it's other developers its relationship strategic partnerships etc so that was the first thing the second thing is we invested in our infrastructure meaning that we

started to use better tools for project management we started to have more people involved in different aspects of development including QA QA was the biggest change in in our production pipeline for example so we started invest more in terms of time money and energy and I think the third biggest change is the milestones so immediately because you see numbers it's very straight forward okay you know you release the game it creates this much revenue and it creates this many opportunities so you're there to decide what to do with it what if another game hits it what happens if five more games hits it so you have to kind of see one month one year five year ten years you got to do that so we quickly realized that is T place to do that we needed a campus so

infrastructure becomes like like serious facilities technology data inside and we start working with rolling about that as well so hopefully in 2021 we're gonna have a campus in Denizli mid studio ABCDEF hopefully more well and a co-working space for all phone we're hopefully more than hundred people get around and work to create not just hyper casual games but you know and not just mobile games but I don't know maybe steam games maybe VR we'll see Danny but this is the biggest change so it's a shift of mindset I don't say well so you guys - thank you Cheers I think answers a lot of questions in mice so this is it for us we can have questions can we have

question so I will I think interesting for me is that in Turkey a lot and I think it's an interesting how so many Turkish companies have been at the forefront of where our characters come from why is that what is this what's special about Turkey that makes that happen oh yeah I think it's this mall day yeah I mean like Europe we are like a country that has lots of issues right so the youth is like 25 million people like 30 million youth is in Turkey so it's like one third of the country and these guys need something to stick and like make it happen and I think like games has been always been a way of expressing Turkish youth hyper K just gave the window of

opportunity in terms of you know the local time smaller teams executing great itself back then it wasn't possible like we had you know practices that we did want a chromophore example but they all demanded like bigger teams bigger times bigger finances right now that's why we are like you know skyrocketing or like who's spearheading this where I was going with that is not I don't I think I agree with all that I think it all makes sense but I think it's also something about the geographical position particularly the access to the MENA market which Western audiences have ignored is that is that fair can I answer that because I've been thinking about this question why so why because it's not proportional yeah the amount of impact and you know particularly can't be can't exactly go and shorter production you know times and there's something very interesting about Turkey there's 3.7 million

University students in Turkey there's about 80 million people the country same population as Germany and in Germany they're 1.7 million University students maybe 10 times bigger economy I don't know but there's a mismatch there there are a lot of university students or people who are trying to start something a career and somehow hyper casual started and it gave them an very quick very low barrier of entry to a hugely growing economy and another thing is I think I can say this I live like 10 years in the United States and one year in Norway I don't know why but the percentage of technically developed people is slightly more in Turkey for some reason I don't know why so Finland has a similar I mean in my opinion anyway the reason I raise this is because it's it's something that's come up in the Pocket Gamer in Jordan as

well where we see that this this low barrier to entry to be able to create you know real value you know entrepreneurship games isn't perfect from a medium to that because you need a PC and that's to see internet and I think that's a right phenomenal thing that's so I think these all these things are true but I think what's interesting is that we are still seeing this evolving and it's not going anywhere so thank you very much guys really appreciate it [Applause] [Music]