Asia 2016Video Coverage

Henry T. Yeh: Have Fun, Make Money | Casual Connect Video

August 22, 2016 — by David Radd

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Asia 2016Video Coverage

Henry T. Yeh: Have Fun, Make Money | Casual Connect Video

August 22, 2016 — by David Radd

'The goals are to always have fun, make great products and make money (in that order)' - Henry YehClick To Tweet

Join Henry Yeh of Gumi and other publishing professionals in a panel from Casual Connect Asia. This panel (called The 20 Billion Dollar Market! Really?) raised a lot of questions on the international side of the mobile games business. One of the big questions was: Who is making money in this market and how? They discussed strategies from a publisher’s perspective as well as what a developer should deliver and be prepared for before searching for a publisher.

Henry T. Yeh: Gumi Asia's Managing Director
Henry T. Yeh: Gumi Asia’s Managing Director

Henry T. Yeh is Gumi Asia’s Managing Director. The publisher brings games to various markets around the world, except for Japan and China. The company has over 230 employees and the stated goals are “to launch great games, provide user entertainment and monetize our games.”

The beginning of Henry’s story was started in 2000, when an angel investor asked him to join Com2uS as COO/CMO/General Counsel Com2uS. That startup eventually saw a Com2uS IPO in 2006 in South Korea’s KOSDAQ and is worth roughly $1.3 billion U.S. Dollars today. Making the first 100 employees US dollar millionaires was a nice achievement but it was the family atmosphere that makes the team persevere. He went on to be Electronic Art’s APAC+SANZAR Director and started other startups that were acquired/exited.

While Henry had the childhood dream of being a painter, and got a degree in the fine arts, they also is a certified US lawyer. However, Henry has always had a passion for technology and its interaction with people, so gaming seems like a natural fit to enter this industry.

have fun, Make Great GAmes, generate money

Henry’s main role is motivate his team and be a problem solver. He suggested that understanding and motivating people, both in the company and within the industry serves multiple purposes. Henry also advises that workers value themselves and value their company. This will lead to profit.




Tokyo building ad for Phantom of the Kill
Tokyo building ad for Phantom of the Kill

“The goals are to always have fun which produces great games which ultimately makes money,” notes Henry.




Getting into this line of work was inspired by Henry’s love for technology and the people. One aspect that he loves about his job is working with great people and learning from each other in an ever innovating industry.




invest in employees

Henry helps people and naturally wants his employees be the best that they can be. He sees value in teaching and enriching employees with new skills. When that happens, those employees reciprocate by adding value into the company and are more likely to be engaged and thus retained.

Henry always starts off with hiring the best and ensuring the staff is learning and engaged thus making it less likely to jump ship or move to Apple, Google or Facebook which is a big task.

The co-founders of Com2uS in 2003: Park Ji Young - female CEO, Young Il Lee - CTO, Gin Hyeon - VP International, Henry Teh - COO/CMO/General Counsel, Henk Rogers - founder of Blue Planet Software and owner of Tetris
The co-founders of Com2uS in 2003: Park Ji Young - female CEO, Young Il Lee - CTO, Gin Hyeon - VP International, Henry T. Yeh - COO/CMO/General Counsel, Henk Rogers - founder of Blue Planet Software and owner of Tetris

“Fun is great but only the first step… making money is equally important [though it must be done without] ruining the game by over-monetizing,” notes Henry.

experience, transparency and attitude

While a game should be fun on its own terms and not be compromised by various forms of monetization, that’s not the only advice that Henry has for developers looking into working with a publisher. They say that developers should also consider a publisher’s experience, level of transparency, approachablility and general attitude, as things always can go wrong.

Henry Yeh speaking at Casual Connect 2016 taken by Lera Polska Photography
Henry Yeh speaking at Casual Connect 2016
taken by Lera Polska Photography

Henry sees video advertising as a huge trend, partly in user engagement and user acquisition. The goal of the publisher is to get the developers’ games above the noise, help them make money and give constructive feedback on the game to create a virtuous cycle for all parties involved.

 




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David Radd

David Radd

David Radd is a staff writer for GameSauce.biz. David loves playing video games about as much as he enjoys writing about them, martial arts and composing his own novels.

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