What do you do when you have a new company but little success? You shift gears. At Casual Connect USA, George Zaloom, led a candid and fun conversation with the CEO of China’s leading social casino gaming studio, Le Xu. After experiencing little success in casual games six years ago, Le started to search for something his new company Topgame could do that would keep them in business. In his search, Le Xu discovered casino games. He played many games, a lot successful and some not so successful. With each one, he asked himself what made made it so they were or were not successful? “Each game had a special thing, [for one] you need to love your game”, he explains. From there, he was able to see the good in each game and make it better in his own work.
As CEO of Topgame, a mobile casino game development company based in Beijing, Le Xu is intrigued and inspired by the constantly shifting mobile games industry. Games have a short shelf life, he says, and it takes a lot of work to keep them appealing to users.
“All gaming companies face the challenge of keeping our games fresh and exciting way past that usual initial bang,” he points out.. “This is a CEO’s biggest challenge and biggest headache: figuring out how a winner will stay a winner next week, next month. I love this challenge.”
Le has been a serial startup entrepreneur for more than 15 years. In 2002, he began work on China’s first online payment platform. In 2006, prior to his graduation from Tsinghua University, he received venture capital to start ItryBeforeIBuy, an experience-based marketing program.
Le got his start in the industry working on social games, and from there he pivoted into mobile games. He struck his first big success as the distributor of PlayForge’s Zombie Farm in 2010; then he founded Topgame in 2012, and found another hit with Slots: Titan’s Way. Now he’s taking Topgame public.
Constant Change
The transition will bring a shift in their growth strategy: “Instead of attracting individual talents, we will be working on attracting team talents,” he says. “We are looking for teams who can synergize with our beliefs, our culture, our determination and our dream of a leading position in this industry.”
In the casino genre, Le predicts that in the next few years, games will evolve beyond recognition. “What constitutes a good game today will not even make it to first base soon,” he says. “We will see innovative design concepts emerging.” Topgame developed their recently released Farm Slots with that sort of innovation in mind, he says. Xu also believes emerging technology like VR and wearable tech will disrupt the genre.
Leaving Room for Creativity
Despite his passion for his work, Le spends most of his time away from the office, for two reasons: “to free myself from day-to-day operations so I can concentrate wholeheartedly on the strategic direction of product development, and to create space for our teams to explore and express what they are truly good in without interference.”
When looking for new talent, Le tries to find people with ambition and a drive to be the best. It’s hard to find and retain talent in such a competitive industry, he has discovered, and proactive workers who look for ways to overtake the present industry leaders are especially rare.
Le emphasizes that a strong focus on a good product is fundamental to success in the industry. “Never stop improving your product,” he advises.
Leisure Pursuits
When he’s not at work, Le enjoys spending time with his two sons at home. He also enjoys film: “I am also a fanatic cinema-goer. I watch practically every movie in town, usually accompanied by at least one big ice cream cone.” He lists international travel as another hobby, and likes to refresh himself, body and soul, in different places and cultures.
If he weren’t in the game industry, he says he’d probably gravitate toward companies like Airbnb and Uber. “They connect accommodation and vehicles,” he says. “I want to connect people.”
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