“History tends to repeat itself,” says Mike DeLaet in a panel during Casual Connect USA. “You’ve seen, with the feature phone days, this happened: original IP came in and took over because licensing costs kind of went through the roof. As more and more developers start going licensed IP, you will probably see this happen again.”
Mike DeLaet came to Kabam in March 2013 as their senior vice president of worldwide business development. After 2012, when Kabam had the #1 Top Grossing Game on iOS for the entire year, he recognized that Kabam really understood free-to-play monetization, and realized this was a place he wanted to be. When Kevin Chou approached him about a unique opportunity to help them grow to new heights, he was quick to sign on.
Understanding In-Game Economies
DeLaet has strong opinions about F2P. He applauds how it makes game companies create really engaging and deep games that allow consumers to vote with their wallets, rather than charging them $60 for a game that could be terrible. He sees only one serious drawback: most game companies still don’t understand how in-game economies work and how to best utilize them in their games. Unfortunately, they tend to make paywalls in the game as a monetization strategy. This approach only alienates the players, causing them to fall out of their games and hurting the image of what a good F2P game really is.
At Kabam, DeLaet runs the global business development team, which involves managing all their platform partnerships on a global basis. The team is responsible for all business development at the company, as well as driving many great customers into their games. Since joining Kabam, he has effectively led the company forward through platform partnerships with Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft.
Finding A Winner
For the past 15 years, DeLaet has been involved with mobile. He served as the senior vice president of global publishing at Glu Mobile, Inc., where he led the company’s expansion into Asia and gained significant market share in China, South Korea, and Japan. Prior to this, he worked for Sprint, most recently running the games business with more than 30 partnerships, including EA, Glu Mobile, Gameloft, Disney, and Popcap. But the proudest moment of his career was joining Kabam; he says, “I knew this was a winning team that could be very disruptive to the entire games industry.”
Upcoming Trends
He believes the next important trend coming to the games industry is higher fidelity products with monetization of the 2D strategy games that dominate today. He also expects to see more users playing on tablets or phablets for a deeper experience while on the go.
DeLaet is a gamer who enjoys playing on all platforms, so he owns a PS4, Xbox One, PS3, PS Vita, and multiple iPhones and iPads. He claims, “I definitely appreciate a great mobile game or a deep console one”. But his favorite platform is mobile, because it allows him to play wherever he goes and in short sessions while still getting the satisfaction he wants from gaming. Currently, he is playing The Hobbit: The Kingdom of Middle Earth.
His work leaves him with little free time, and he is also very busy with his three children and their activities whenever he is not working or traveling. But he still loves gaming and sports such as football, baseball, and basketball.
Comments
