GameMakers
F2P product management, game design, and monetization strategy by Joseph Kim.
Documents
The Future of UA+PM | N3TWORK's Nebo Radovic talks Product Management and User Acquisition Strategy
The integration of user acquisition (UA) and product management (PM) teams is a critical driver of competitive advantage in the mobile gaming industry.
- Integrating User Acquisition (UA) and Product Management (PM) teams is a primary driver of competitive advantage, shifting from siloed operations to shared accountability and unified goal-setting.
- High-frequency communication, including daily or near-daily meetings, is required to synchronize live game events with UA strategies and monitor metrics like early retention and payer conversion.
- Genre specialization is mandatory for success, as distinct game genres require tailored creative assets and targeting strategies that align with their specific Lifetime Value (LTV) curves.
AskGM #4: Psyon Games - How to create an anti-viral game! Psyon is making vaccine awareness games
Psyon Games is pioneering a novel approach to pharmaceutical marketing by utilizing interactive mobile gaming to drive vaccine awareness and public health education.
- Psyon Games utilizes the tower defense genre to gamify complex biological processes, aiming to replace traditional pharmaceutical marketing with interactive experiences that improve knowledge retention.
- The studio validates the commercial viability of health-focused gaming by using Facebook ad campaigns to track performance metrics like cost-per-install and click-through rates.
- To measure the effectiveness of educational content, the company uses proxy metrics such as email sign-ups and collaborates with government health institutes to assess shifts in player attitudes.
How to win in eSports! | Evil Geniuses eSports Head Coach Aaron "Gotcha" Chung
Evil Geniuses, a premier professional esports organization founded in 1999, maintains a long-standing reputation for competitive excellence across titles such as Dota 2, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six Siege, and Rocket League.
- Evil Geniuses maintains competitive excellence through a rigorous regimen of 35 to 40 hours of weekly team practice, scrimmages, and systematic gameplay analysis.
- Professional esports success is increasingly tied to holistic player development, emphasizing rest, nutrition, and physical well-being to sustain cognitive performance.
- The esports industry is experiencing significant financial growth, with major tournament prize pools for titles like Dota 2 reaching as high as $20 million.
AskGM #3: Can Splatoon + Brawl Stars = Mega Hit? | Action.Reaction Studio Indie Game Development
The development of a 3v3 mobile multiplayer title blending Brawl Stars-style combat with Splatoon-inspired territory control mechanics represents a high-stakes entry into the competitive PvP market.
- A four-person studio achieved a 40% Day-1 retention rate in beta testing across Finland, the UK, and Canada by blending Brawl Stars-style combat with Splatoon-inspired territory control.
- Independent teams should prioritize a single North Star metric, such as Day-7 retention, to guide feature development and prevent scope creep.
- The ICE (Impact, Confidence, and Ease) framework is essential for evaluating feature additions against limited development resources to ensure high-value outcomes.
AskGM #2: How to Compete Against Clash of Clans? | Sand Forge Games with CEO Khaled Alroumi
The mobile strategy market remains dominated by established titans, necessitating a strategic shift for new entrants like Sand Forge Games.
- New entrants in the mobile strategy market cannot displace established leaders like Clash of Clans through incremental mechanical refinements alone; they require a distinct market identity driven by unique narrative depth or innovative meta-systems.
- Simplifying core loops, such as removing troop training overhead and adopting energy-based systems, is a baseline requirement that can help achieve a 35% Day 1 retention rate.
- Sand Forge Games is utilizing a data-driven framework for their title Warfronts, focusing on telemetry to monitor D7 retention, monetization efficiency, and install-per-impression rates.
Top Grossing Game Designer Reveals His Research SECRETS! | Game Design Document
Effective game design research relies on uncovering the underlying philosophy of mechanics rather than merely cataloging surface-level features.
- Effective game design research requires analyzing the underlying philosophy of mechanics rather than just cataloging surface-level features.
- Designers should maintain a 'brick' library, a centralized visual database that maps every game screen in chronological order to track user flows, tutorials, and currency sinks.
- A rigorous research methodology involves systematically reviewing update logs, analyzing community gameplay footage, and identifying potential exploits to ensure system balance.
From Artist to CEO | Concept Art House Origin Story and Inside Tour
Concept Art House is a high-end art service provider for the gaming industry, specializing in concept art, illustration, 3D modeling, and marketing assets.
- Concept Art House, founded in 2006, has scaled from a six-person team to over 70 staff members, providing art services for major clients including Blizzard, EA, Sony, and Wizards of the Coast.
- The mobile gaming sector drives 70% of the company's output, with production budgets for individual mobile titles now reaching as high as $40 million.
- The studio operates a distributed business model with a San Francisco headquarters and significant production facilities in Shanghai, utilizing Jira, Shotgun, and Basecamp to manage international workflows.
AskGM #1: We Kick Off Ask GameMakers!
The Ask GameMakers initiative establishes a public consulting platform designed to assist independent developers and studios in navigating market challenges and improving game performance.
- The Ask GameMakers initiative provides a public consulting platform to help independent studios improve game performance and commercial viability.
- The project was launched in response to significant industry demand, triggered by over 30 unsolicited requests for consulting services following an outreach campaign.
- Consultations are conducted in a transparent, educational format to create a public repository of shared knowledge for the broader development community.
The Future of Hyper-casual Games | GameJam CEO Christian Calderon
The hyper-casual gaming market has evolved from a niche category into a dominant force in mobile entertainment, characterized by high-frequency ad monetization and rapid development cycles.
- The hyper-casual sector reached a major milestone in 2018, when its titles accounted for 15 of the top 20 most downloaded games globally.
- The industry has shifted from intuition-based design to a data-driven model, where market leaders like Voodoo, Ketchapp, and Lion Studios prioritize retention analysis and lifetime value optimization.
- Macroeconomic trends show that advertising revenue has surpassed traditional in-app purchases, enabling developers to achieve payback windows as short as a few days or weeks.
'Star Trek Fleet Command' - Scopely | Ft. Game GM Steve Huff and SVP of BD Henry Lowenfels
Star Trek Fleet Command, a mobile free-to-play title developed by DIGIT Game Studios and published by Scopely, represents a strategic entry into the 4X march-battle genre.
- Scopely and DIGIT Game Studios partnered to develop Star Trek Fleet Command, aiming to expand the 4X strategy genre by integrating RPG and simulation elements to reach a broader audience beyond hardcore players.
- The development team scaled significantly since the project's inception in 2015, growing their staff fourfold to support the game's ambitious scope and content roadmap.
- The operational structure features a collaborative model where Scopely manages product strategy and live operations, while DIGIT handles core development, with overlapping roles to ensure consistent feature prioritization.
*The Most* Famous Mobile Gaming Blog - Deconstructor of Fun | Origin Story with Miska Katkoff
Deconstructor of Fun serves as a prominent industry platform dedicated to the analysis of mobile free-to-play gaming, focusing primarily on the mechanics of monetization and market performance.
- Deconstructor of Fun functions as a specialized analytical platform for the mobile free-to-play industry, prioritizing technical deep-dives into monetization mechanics and market performance over general news.
- The platform has scaled to include a network of over 115 contributors who produce content and host the 'This Week in Games' podcast.
- The blog serves as a professional portfolio for contributors, where public documentation of analytical processes and industry insights frequently leads to career advancement and recruitment opportunities.
How to get 40M installs? Mobile Games Marketing | Brian Sapp VP User Acquisition at Jam City
User acquisition (UA) in the mobile gaming industry functions as a data-driven performance marketing discipline, distinct from brand marketing in its reliance on measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) such as cost per user and return on investment.
- User acquisition (UA) at Jam City is a performance-based discipline where marketing budgets are strictly allocated based on projected payback periods and the specific lifecycle phase of each game title.
- The UA process follows a structured R&D path: starting with technical stability in soft launches, moving to retention metrics in secondary markets, and concluding with predictive lifetime value (LTV) modeling in primary territories.
- UA departments should be organized into cross-functional 'supercells' consisting of media buyers, analysts, and creative strategists to ensure ownership and alignment between marketing and game production.