At Casual Connect USA in San Francisco, Mike Lu spoke on the importance of community in today’s ongoing, service-based game experiences. He cites Riot Games‘ incredible community engagement in League of Legends as a clear example of how community contributes to success. Lu observed, “The most recent League of Legends championship had more views than the World Series!”
Games as Social Drivers
Mike Lu is VP of Product at GREE International, a company that believes “When you can play what you want, when and where you want, it’s even easier to discover new games, face off against friends, and compete for the top spot on leaderboards.” He states that he has been very data driven throughout his career; a quality which he finds invaluable in his current role where data is key and keeps him aligned with his goals.
Mike’s passion for gaming extends far beyond his work life. He enjoys playing games across all systems; whatever free time he has he puts back into what he loves most. He is presently playing The Last of Us, Kingdom Rush, League of Legends, SC2 and Candy Crush.
Data to Understand Changing Consumers
The biggest challenge in the games industry right now is adapting to change, according to Mike. He believes, “The industry must rise to this challenge by continuing to do what it does best; make great games, but to do that, they must grow and evolve with the players and the hardware.”
Mike has a formula for meeting the challenge of evolving while continuing to create the best games. “Data + Design = Win.” He emphasizes the importance of using the best analytical data we can collect and bringing it together with great design ideas to deliver new experiences to users. In addition to normal metrics like ARPDAU/Retention, Mike looks deeper into player behavior, and constantly reads player forums for feedback on the game.
The best moments in Mike’s career come when he meets users and finding out they love playing one of the company’s games. He says, “I think as mobile developers, we don’t have the same input from our players as other markets do, so this type of feedback gives me a tremendous sense of joy and accomplishment.”
Saying ‘No!’ is Hard
Possibly the most difficult aspect of his work is saying “no” to ideas. With a lot of people playing games, many have great ideas about what they think would make the games better. Often, there is very little data to prove that one idea is better than another; he must simply rely on his best judgement. It will be essential to turn some ideas down. But Mike insists, “My objective as a game maker will always be to produce games that everyone will enjoy.”
Mike claims that the mobile market is still in its early stages. As more developers come to this market, they will raise the bar of quality, so he expects AAA quality production will soon become a key aspect of mobile games.
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