*The Most* Famous Mobile Gaming Blog - Deconstructor of Fun | Origin Story with Miska Katkoff

hey everybody one of the most widely read industry blogs for the mobile free-to-play gaming industry is called Deconstructor of fun Miska cat cough who started the Deconstructor of fun blog started the blog as a hobby but has since that time steadily grown the blog over many years - now we're routinely many of his blog posts get over 50,000 views so I wanted to talk to miss kit today about you know some of the benefits of having started the blog why he started the blog in the first place in terms of the origin story and the original motivation for starting the blog what allowed the blog to become so popular and what's the future in terms of where the blog is headed and some of the things that he's going to be doing with the blog and just for readers out there to know I actually started guest posting on Deconstructor from last year it's been a great experience and we also started a podcast well I started a podcast with Michigan last year as a segment on Deconstructor a fund called this week in games and so hopefully you

will check out his blog and also please check out podcast anyway without further ado we'll take it over to our video interview with Michigan off of Deconstructor fun [Music] hey everybody I'm here today with the famous Mishka cat cop who is the famous blogger and Deconstructor of fun and also had a studio at Rovio but I wanted to talk to you about your blog Michigan because when I think about the mobile games industry you are definitely one of the most famous people that I know and in terms of blogs Deconstructor fun is probably the most well read most recognizable vlog take me back when you were first starting this blog what was going on in your mind like all right I'm

gonna be so the blog started pretty pretty much pretty much from taking notes you know as working as a p.m. you always deconstruct different games and then I've noticed that all the deep restrictions that I did when they weren't like prior to the blog there weren't too good because I did it kind of for myself and I wasn't put in the effort to it I was playing a game and I was thinking that I kind of learned something but but it not all honestly the way I learned is by writing or so I started I had him like back in the days it was my ex-girlfriend she's winning some kind of beauty blog or something like that the ball game was pretty new back then and then and then I'm like since tink oh oh open up a blog as well it'll be about games so I kind of got the idea from her and and I just started putting my notes in there writing about stuff really didn't care about what you know how much traffic I'm getting or

anything like that it was honestly just known for myself and they were better because they were public and it originally blew up through CSR racing that was kind of the first top grossing game yeah that everybody was talking about it we was playing and people were talking about that at the studio I was working at Roby about them and I remember one of the designers talking about like everybody had their opinion and it was kind of I was like okay I can I can get into this discourse in this small channel of designers and PM's around me or I could just write what I think about it to this blog that I started so I wrote it and it went super viral and everybody read it and everybody at work write it so it's kind of interesting bad that instead of having these four the one discussions and lunch and whatnot you just have this you create your opinion and write it down and break it down and then you make it public and then suddenly everybody

talks about what you said it's so fun she's just weird but I kept on going with that I kept on you know writing more stuff and and I remember writing about clash of clans and that one got like half a million clicks so I definitely went pretty viral you know how long were you writing or before like the turning point with CSI but the see saw a recent post do you have any idea why it went viral or how yeah it was a big game so the same thing still with the blog people read like our readers I mean you know it but our readers are only fitting money yeah they're interested in why a game makes money they're interested what does the market look like so that they can make money they are not interested in cool games they're not interested in games that are like interesting they're not interesting graphics or understand anything else but money and that's the motto the other

side as well it's because fun a serious business so we focus on writing mainly about why somebody makes money we also are not incident why somebody's not making money and then how has a blog benefited you like what do you think are the main advantages from having a blog [ __ ] popular and people starting to recognize you I mean there's Goods and Bad's in it as well so of course it gives you a differentiation on D on the market the top mark and of course there's a lot of opportunities there's a lot of juice you engage with people to discuss things so it's great and done as a learning tool it's fantastic writing deep deep you've done Idol heroes for example there was one of the best ones we've had in 2017 2017 I think you wrote it or 1817 and you probably learned a lot by writing that piece you-you-you formulated your idea so if somebody wants to talk about RPGs you could you

could you know smoke them pretty easily because you're formulated and it's not but how many how many hours you play just you had the time to think about it and write your opinions down so through that of course it has held in the terms of making you a better game developer a better designer that our product manager I know you know a better general manger just by understanding the business and you know the negative side is like people do like to hate I mean I post stuff and I just close down I don't care about the comments right I don't even look at the numbers of views we get okay only if other people are writing the post then I kind of tell them like hey good job just reach this maybe I don't care I don't know how many movies my post get but you know some hey he's just a blogger that's that's the typical thing he's just a blogger they want to dis you through that and I'm like listen bro you write a blog tell me how that

goes write a one article tell me tell me how that works in the middle of your own work in game so so that's you know that's what I think I never seen like I guess one of the positive advantages of blog is like you know it's kind of made you famous right and so like we're here at GDC last year at GDC there are folks on my team who wanted to take pictures with you because you're so famous like how do you feel about that that sort of celebrity part I should have started off man these are these debut groupies are nothing skimming yeah it's of course it's really great I'm kind of embarrassed but you know yesterday we didn't talk and a guy came afterwards and he was the other founder he might Temple Run what's the studio called I want to say Jumanji but it's different yeah yeah Manji or somebody not anyways shout out to them and you came in as

like hey thank you like I've been reading your blog good stuff and since like I don't know 2013 so so it's it's really humbling because these are excellent people excellent game developers and I play their games and found them and for them to to benefit from reading a blog and a lot of people have gotten their first job right by reading the blog and kind of preparing through that to go to an interview we got analysts reading it they kind of understand better the business so they asked that a question from the CEOs and so forth so it is it's it's humbling in that sense to be able to contribute to the industry that I love yeah I hope that I could contribute with a [ __ ] smash hit of a game but we're working on that apparently that doesn't come too easy but till then it's gonna be just just just knowledge sharing interesting things that I think you've mentioned to me it's just Deconstructor fun as more of a platform rather than just a blog can you can you explain what you mean by that like that how is it gonna be coming

we have like 115 people now inside the constructor of fun everybody sharing it started off from from you know having a lot of time to ride to having little time to ride with family and and then I was a fan of the Neal this group this horrible horrible blog name on both guns blazing I mean do you hate readers I get what he was going for but that is some Middle American [ __ ] then then Adam Telfer has his mobile free-to-play blog and some other people have their own blog so to kind of just you know say like hey you know you can cross post it here we're not competing that's the important notion to understand we are not competing we're sharing information and if you want to use this platform as well then go for it so a lot of people kind of started doing through that and as we've got more guest posts

more guest post wanted to do that's all right we get monthly people asking and and we do get monthly submissions of different type of posts and we do reject them very often and you're also very harsh in review so so once you get past the threshold once your post is published you become a contributor and you're invited into the slack group ok and and and there we just share knowledge and have a lot of people from a lot of studios around the world that are very open in various things which is very helpful right so I have a personal theory that the whole notion of like a paper resume is dead that really what in the future that people are going to be evaluated more on what I'm calling like the digital footprint like you know your work your thinking your analysis kind of open in you know whether it's a blog post or podcast or something like that like would you agree with that notion and is that a good motivation to have a

blog or something like that just so that people like you know future poit lawyers could evaluate you I'd say you have to approach it just like you our disapprobation they've create awesome concert guards awesome tweeting like everything and they posted publicly to be our station just to get you know visibility you'll just get notified just to get sometimes you know a positive feedback from what they're doing designers product managers you know probably people we don't have that so this is this should be considered like art station this is our version we spent hours and hours on perfecting our craft and sharing it freely ready with the roof and of course that generates opportunities for people you know a lot of people from from the blog have gotten their next jobs by by by participating by writing and getting noticed and people you know it's it isn't like you have your resume but it's also like a work sample yes when you

look at it like okay this person really understands this if you write about an RPG game it's not uncommon for a couple of our PG Studios connecting with you and asking like whether you would be interested last question what's next for Deconstructor of fun just continue blog and I we've got the podcast now or like what are your thoughts we have consulting as well yeah we have been consulting for quite a quite a you know couple years now very big we mainly consulting clients I will not name any of them but every listener here has used their platforms or played their games but I don't know it's um it's I I don't know it depends on what that what you guys want to do okay I'm very open to it but my priority is still trying to make those [ __ ] hit games even one come on like I need one top girl seem like come

on so so does that still that's still there that's the priority this is second there this is fun this is good learning this hopefully supports the original important cause but yeah that's that's the way to see it so I take no pressure okay great well there you have it Mishka cat cough the most famous vlogger in the mobile wait why is he doing this la thing look riot why can't we just be normal like demos I have a house story for you we are going to talk now to the the most successful executive in games north from Hollywood and also had a studio of Rovio so make sure you check out his upcoming game in the future no and again he is not just the blogger [ __ ] [ __ ] download and pay pay right oh convert immediately and pay and

retain alright that's it thanks thank you you