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PocketGamer.biz25 Oct 2018

PGC Helsinki 2018 Pecha Kucha sessions: Rovio's Måns Wide

Key insights

5 takeaways

01
Developers must bridge the disconnect between data-driven monetization strategies and the emotional resonance that originally inspired their game design.
02
Treating players as mere revenue streams or statistics leads to the dehumanization of the user base, which undermines long-term creative engagement.
03
Shifting focus from cold metrics to the human stories behind player spending is essential for sustainable, long-term game design.
04
The industry should adopt iterative testing and repetition strategies similar to those used in children’s television production to better understand player behavior.
05
Integrating direct feedback and personal narratives from support staff can transform anonymous high-value players into relatable individuals with specific motivations.

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Transcript

I love goosebumps goosebumps are awesome although they do look better on small squints I love them because they don't lie to me I can fake a smile right or a laughter I can't fit I can't fake these bad boys right if I get the goosebumps it means I feel something for real so the Internet most people might use it to connect to other people or find information I only use it to get goosebumps so what I do is I watch all these speeches from nice movies and TV shows and she's like that and that will give me the goosebumps so whenever there's a guy with long stripe here hair like screaming at his soldiers that they are basically disposable that will give me the goosebumps and I watch all of this and also I found something great they have you seen these speeches where

someone really famous and successful have to go back to their old school and talk to the students a graduate student sir so yeah they put a cape on Steve Jobs is he so cute but these speeches are all the same of course it's all about you are the future Lee look into your heart you already know which is supposed to do your gut feeling will guide you through life but I love them I mean they are awesome it's like the last days of room for my goosebumps and when I started working with games I made these kind of games and I was really into that you know this is what I was expecting from the games industry now I'm gonna follow my dreams I'm going to do awesome games and I'm gonna listen to my heart because I'm a good game it right my heart will guide me now I'm currently working at the product label for this game and it's a lot of fun it's not exactly the way that I imagined the industry to be because this is a live game and I have to make sure that it

makes money right so people don't tell me to follow my heart that much anymore and I can't because you know as most games I am very dependent on these guys whales and I'm not a well myself so if I listen to my heart it's not a whale is hard really right there's something else I usually think of myself as a goldfish you know I pay in games not that much I'm small and cute and I have a goldfish house I mean instead of being a gamer creating games for other gamers I'm goldfish creating games for whales you can see that this is not the what I was expecting so how do I do that I don't know these people well I have kids and kids are really weird I don't know if you have kids but yeah so they watch these TV shows and these shows are horrible this one is called I think big machines and it's all like numbers about

this caterpillar can live this much stone I don't know they love it and this amazes me because the people that make these shows they are grownups so how the hell do they know that my daughters will like this kind of right I started reading about them and these people for example the male Sesame Street's these are brilliant people this is the 70s and to make sure that kids like their episodes they invented the distractor which is basically like a Pecha Kucha machine that they put next to the TV and then they would show the episode for the kids and if there isn't such the kids would start watching the distractor instead because it is actually really cool images right so they did this in the 70s these people would take over the world and then they made something even smarter they made this so this this show doesn't look like all that to us but they came up with a thing where instead of sending one new episode every day in the week they just make one episode and they send the same one five

days in a row because children love repetition right then I found that the guy the genius behind all this kinda looks like me right this is todd kessler i old were like if i wear the ring for a couple of years i'm gonna look like that like the golden version of me so this is God's Way of telling me that I have to become him he he takes his some out of the equation and he creates something with kids I have to do the same for whales right although this guy doesn't like that at all look at him Mel doesn't agree because this was supposed to be about my heart and my guts and all that and where is the goosebumps around there well it is a bit pragmatic William and I did lose them for some time which is weird because we have we had so many players we have two million players every day and I should get goosebumps by catering for them right but I don't because they are just numbers in sheets I don't know them I don't get them right but

something wonderful happened some time ago I will play Support Specialist Leena used to work from Finland for us but she moved to Stockholm and she's now sitting with our team and she's talking to all of us all the time and she knows all the whales she knows these people because they constantly talk to her with her problems I mean the Hebraic the game design by spending too much money so they have all these problems and they know her because she's really nice and now we know them as well so we know their names we know their habits and they are slowly turning from whales into actual human beings in our heads which is awesome so the biggest whale of all we're gonna call him Bob Hoskins because I'm gonna use his real name but Bob Hoskins is our biggest whale he spent shitload of money in the game and we know him by now I mean he's a lawyer he lives in in Washington he has two daughters will love Bob Hoskins right so that's my advice to anyone doing these

things I'm doing try to turn your whales into human beings turn the weird whale data into stories a couple of weeks ago bob hoskins eldest daughter got married and that weekend he spent more money in a b2 than he has ever than ever before so somewhere in a bathroom on the second floor in a mansion Bob Hoskins is hiding away from his own daughter's wedding and he's not a mindless huge sea creature he's a person and he's willingly spending this money because he knows that he can be number one he knows that he can beat all the other ways and he knows that he even if those green pigs might steal his eggs they can never escape the revenge of his level 91 super expensive super birds [Applause]

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Summary

The modern mobile games industry often forces developers to reconcile the idealistic pursuit of creative passion with the pragmatic necessity of monetization. While many developers enter the field hoping to follow their intuition and create emotionally resonant experiences, the reality of live-service games frequently shifts the focus toward data-driven decision-making. This transition often leads to a disconnect between the creator and the player, particularly when the business model relies heavily on high-spending players, commonly referred to as whales.

The core challenge for developers in this environment is the dehumanization of the player base. When players are viewed merely as statistics or revenue streams in a spreadsheet, the emotional connection—the "goosebumps"—that originally inspired the developer is lost. Drawing parallels to the production techniques used in children’s television, such as the iterative testing and repetition strategies employed by Sesame Street creators, the industry must find ways to bridge the gap between abstract data and the actual human beings behind the screens.

The most effective strategy for overcoming this detachment is to humanize the player base by integrating direct feedback and personal narratives into the development process. By leveraging support staff who interact directly with high-value players, developers can transform anonymous data points into relatable stories. Understanding the personal motivations, habits, and life events of these players allows developers to view them as individuals rather than mindless entities. Ultimately, shifting the focus from cold metrics to the human stories behind the spending not only improves the development process but also restores the emotional engagement that is essential for sustainable, long-term game design.