“If you want to acquire users, there’s a lot of people you can talk to,” Tomislav Mihajlović says while on a panel at Casual Connect Eastern Europe 2014. “Just talk to some people and try to find something that will work best for you.”
For Tomislav Mihajlović, the fun of the industry lies in the ever-changing ecosystem. Changes are constant, always with something new to explore. He explains, “You can feel that you are always on the edge, always in
need to keep pace or be in the lead, even set new standards and raise bars, be a pioneer in many fields but always watch for really great competition.”
Mihajlović is currently overseeing monetization, marketing, and social media departments at Nordeus. He and his team are responsible for the establishment of Top Eleven, which is the most popular football management video game around the globe. It boasts a player base of more than 100 million registered users in about four years. He joined Nordeus early on in the game in order to handle the marketing and operations team. He has more than ten years of experience in marketing during which time he has successfully developed and executed a variety of projects and startups in various industries. His previous experience with launching startups helped Nordeus to be on the right track from the beginning.
Once while on a beach in Greece, Mihajlović was simply looking to rent a jet ski. By chance, he was wearing his Nordeus t-shirt and a man who was working there took note. It turned out that he plays Top Eleven a lot. Mihajlović was happy and surprised to meet someone personally that enjoyed their games. The experience helped him realize they were reaching people and making a name for themselves. His response: “I ended up giving him some gift cards for Top Eleven, of course”.
To Mihajlović’s dismay, snowboarding, which is one of his favorite past times, is not the subject of Top Eleven’s next video game. Another hobby is football/soccer. His natural curiosity is reflected in the games he plays on his Android mobile phone. He plays Top Eleven games as well as Clash of Clans by SuperCell. Mihajlović states, “I’m rocking CoC mostly because it’s keeping me engaged and to be honest, professionally, I’m interested to see some promo and retention tactics SuperCell is using in-game.” He also owns a PlayStation 4 which was a present from his wife.
Current Challenges
The game industry faces many challenges.. Mihajlović believes that the biggest challenge is for small companies. It is particularly tough because small companies lack the large marketing budget that it takes to get their games onto the mobile platform. The most effective way to overcome this challenge for Nordeus is in social integration and localization. The discussion in the Nordeus office regarding the next big trend in the industry may be wearable devices and their integration into the gaming industry. Some disagree though, so really, time will tell if these small objects will take hold or not.
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