No matter which category they are looking to conquer, new games face fierce competition when entering the market. As a part of the panel “How to Create A Chart-Busting Game” at Casual Connect USA Chris Akhavan advised, “Test dramatically, [use] different looks and feels rather than small variations”. As President of Publishing at Glu Mobile Inc., Chris’ main peice of advice was to think about your UA strategy up front. This panel took a look at the important steps to create a successful game in today’s market, such as defining your target market, focusing on your technology, building your game ecosystem to include social features and balancing user acquisition and monetization for a positive return on investment.
Chris Akhavan, President of Publishing at Glu Mobile, Inc., oversees the company’s global business development and business operations, including user acquisition, advertising revenue, marketing and PR, and platform partnerships with companies such as Google, Amazon and Apple. His global responsibilities include offices in China, Japan and Korea.
An Intense Attraction to Games
Chris was attracted to games from an early age. He relates that he grew up as a huge console gamer playing franchises including Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania and Sonic. His all time favorite is the Resident Evil franchise. He relates, “I’m a big horror fan and I still get chills thinking about how awesome and innovative the first Resident Evil was. It was the first time I ever experienced the horror genre in such a deeply engrossing way. The dynamic range in that game was incredible – going from disturbingly peaceful atmospheres to adrenaline pumping payoff moments that made you jump out of your chair.”
Gaining the Skills for Business Development
He began his career at Yahoo!, then joined a couple of startups, Rock You! and VideoEgg, focused on the Facebook platform. At Yahoo! he began building the business development and content production skills that have formed the foundation for the rest of his career. He gained expertise in free-to-play through the work he did with the startup companies that were releasing apps and games on the Facebook platform. Prior to joining Glu, he was Senior Vice President of Partnerships at Tapjoy. While there, he was able to develop deep mobile user acquisition and advertising revenue expertise. All of the knowledge and skills he has gained in his career to this point have proven to be valuable in the work he is doing today at Glu.
Glu was an early partner of Tapjoy, so Chris has known the company closely for some time. He became excited about the company’s potential after several conversations with their president, Niccolo de Masi and in 2013 he made the decision to join them.
Chris has been involved with digital advertising from the start of his career. In fact, if he were not a part of the games industry, he would certainly find a way to work in mobile advertising.
The Future Will Be Virtual Reality
When he considers the future of the games industry, he admits to being very excited about the potential of virtual reality really coming to life. He says, “The more I play games on VR, the more I believe there will be an explosion of immersive experiences on the platform in the next few years. Oculus has announced that Glu is one of their early partners, so we’re definitely keeping an eye on the VR trend.”
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