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USA 2014 Video Coverage

David Kim: Looking at Opportunities to Come | Casual Connect Video

August 26, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

David Kim provided interesting insight into the Southeast Asia game market in his session at Casual Connect USA 2014. “The biggest differentiating factor here is that over half [of gamers] is under 25, so these are all the future earners that are coming into the pipeline that we can market to,” he stated. “On a per person basis, it’s still much cheaper to market in any of these Southeast Asian countries, with the exception of maybe Singapore, but Singapore, again, is very, very small, but generally, you’ll get a lot more bang for buck for any of these markets.”

David Kim, CEO of Animoca, is continually impressed with the strong culture in the games industry, “I’ve always felt the games industry is a collaborative industry where people are willing to share ideas and best practices that work well, and not only discuss trends, but be an active participant in the trend itself. Everyone buys into the theory that a rising tide floats all boats, so they are willing to open up and be very transparent with what they have tried that has worked and what hasn’t worked so well.”

What is a Developer to do in a Hit-Driven Market?

David Kim_Headshot — David Kim, CEO, Animoca

Kim relates that Animoca was built around a hit-proof model; they operate a broad portfolio of diversified games so they do not have to rely on building that one big hit to sustain their businesses. He takes great satisfaction in the fact that the business has sustained steady growth over the long term, saying, “I’ve likened it to the whole ‘Moneyball’ theory. We have been focusing on hitting singles and doubles and getting on base. We continue to have hits that allow for a steady stream of runs. We’re not opposed to home runs, but that is not what we have been swinging for at every turn at bat.” This is what they set out to do, and their success is a major testament to that approach.

Kim also takes pride in the continued success of the whole Pretty Pet Salon series, which has become the standard for the ‘cute and cuddly’ game genre.

The business partners are now focusing on building up the company’s new Animoca Brands spin-off and using it as a vehicle to launch some of the best IP in the world. There are a many great brands that would make for wonderful games, and the company is invested in making it happen.

Within the next couple of years, Kim expects to see higher quality game products emerging, with hardcore games becoming more dominant as the depth of experience in mobile games reaches that of the hardcore experience. He also expects to see more emphasis on gaming for younger children as more children are given their own mobile devices. But the usual freemium model will not work for this audience, so, he asks, “How will these games be monetized?” Although there is no answer to this question yet, there is still great interest in games for children and in educational games.

Pretty Pet Salon Screenshot — The Pretty Pet Salon series, which has become the standard for the ‘cute and cuddly’ game genre.

Riding the Technology Curve

Among the valuable new technologies that have not received the notice they deserve, Kim includes the broad range of game controllers, from devices that attach to your tablet to sophisticated control systems like Kinect, TV enabled mobile devices, 3D/VR devices and displays, such as Oculus Rift, and interoperability of mobile game devices, computers, and consoles. He feels that as more and more products and ideas are developed, new markets will open up for them.

He believes the next wave in the field of gaming might involve gaming hardware and software attached to a smartphone, incorporating the smartphone into hardcore gaming, not as an auxiliary controller, but as an integral part of the experience.

“This advance in processing power will lead to greater versatility in our devices so that eventually we may stop thinking in terms of dedicated disparate machines like a smartphone, a personal computer, or a gaming console.”

As the power of CPUs and GPUs continues to increase, both as standalone and integrated components, even more powerful and efficient hardware and applications will become possible. Kim claims, “This advance in processing power will lead to greater versatility in our devices so that eventually we may stop thinking in terms of dedicated disparate machines like a smartphone, a personal computer, or a gaming console.”

According to Kim, The Internet of Things offers fascinating opportunities. Gaming may well end up setting the stage for the large-scale commercial application of the Internet of Things. Other exciting technologies include new game accessories that will allow the development of novel and better game experiences. He believes that soon enough games will support Android Gear and we may see virtual reality go main stream.

He has heard people talking about convergence for decades, and it has meant different things to different people and generations. In its latest iteration, convergence will likely encompass many physical technologies as well as many different types of gameplays, and it will all be connected. He insists, “It won’t be here this year or next year, but it is coming, and it will be very, very cool!”

Lofty Goals for Animoca

As CEO of Animoca, Kim is responsible for setting the overall direction of the company and managing its growth, so he is involved in many facets of the business. His work varies from day to day; on any given day he may be meeting or talking with potential distribution or monetization partners, evaluating a game to consider publishing it, or working with the design team to optimize the user experience. The company is currently discussing many strategic initiatives, including the recent spin-off of Animoca Brands, soon to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Star Girl Screenshot — Star Girl, another of Animoca’s popular games

Animoca Brands develops and publishes branded games, as well as games developed by third parties. Publishing a game under Animoca Brands provides a publisher with access to effective distribution and marketing services, backed by their expertise in the global marketplace. Kim notes that now it is relatively easy to develop a new app, even a very good one; the difficulty lies in ensuring that the app gets sufficient visibility and traction to succeed. This is where Animoca Brands can help. As well, both Animoca Brands and Animoca offer consumers quality entertainment, ranging from famous IP games to RPGs, intense action, or more female friendly games.

Kim’s focus is on building both Animoca and Animoca Brands to stand among the biggest mobile developers and publishers in the industry, across the globe. Their mission includes helping other game developers publish and promote their apps. Animoca Brands helps developers through its publishing division; Animoca itself no longer has a publishing division, but they are working on a new service for developers.

Animoca will also be expanding their Pretty Pet Salon and Star Girl series, two of their biggest successes as a developer. Animoca Brands will continue to increase its portfolio of famous intellectual property brands, to bring their customers games based on their favorite characters.

_1030353 — David Kim with Yat Siu (left) at a holiday party at Animoca

Kim and his business partner, Yat Siu, have been working together for years; Animoca is their latest iteration. Recently, they have been joined by Robby Yung, who will lead Animoca Brands. They have been building games, launching online content and other types of services since the 1990s. By the time they started working on mobile games, they had already developed games for PC and consoles, including Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo. However, Kim emphatically states, “There is no industry like the mobile games industry in terms of its change of pace and dynamism. Whatever is in flavor can and likely will change in a couple of months or even a few weeks. The constant learning process that is required to stay ahead of the market is exhilarating, and that’s what keeps us in it.”

All Work and No Play Would Make Mr. Kim a Very Dull Boy

The demands of Kim’s professional and personal life no longer leave him much time for gaming, so when he does play, it is a brief session on his smartphone or tablet. Obviously, he plays a lot of Animoca’s games, such as Star Girl, the MMORPG Ragnarok: War of Gods, and running games such as Astro Boy Dash and Panda Run. And, he reveals, “I play our title Thor, Champion of Asgard whenever I feel the need for a crushing defeat, after which I always go back to classic time management gameplay, like Doraemon’s Repair Shop or My Car Salon.”

He also tries out many of their industry friends’ games; he needs to be familiar with what others are doing. But with so little time available, he plays only enough to get a taste.

Kim also has little time for any interests outside of his work, so he participates vicariously by contributing to the passions of others, worthy causes that have taken on new life in the world of crowdfunding. He supports two former colleagues who are trying to save the rain forest. To check out the project, go to:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherwhite/rainforest-connection-phones-turned-to-forest-guar

He also supports a college friend who is a doctor trying to better children’s lives through both medicine and music. To find out more about this project, go to:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2128707593/a-perfect-day-music-on-a-mission-to-help-kids-live/posts/914774

News News Business Online

Animoca Brands Corporation Becomes a Public Company on the Australian Stock Exchange

June 26, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

Animoca Brands and Black Fire Minerals ( BFE) have announced an interesting development for both companies. BFE will be acquiring 100 percent of Animoca Brand’s issued capital, and will change its name to Animoca Brands Corporation, with significant change to the scale and scope of the BFE business activity. The terms of the agreement include the issuing of 1,000,000,000 ordinary BFE shares for a consideration of $5,000,000, as well as issuing 600,000,000 performance shares to Animoca Brands, which will be converted to ordinary shares at $0.005 per share if the company achieves certain revenues for the year ending June 2015 and June 2016. The terms of the proposed performance shares must be approved by the Australian Securities Exchange.

Animoca_Large_White-300x81 — BFE will be acquiring 100 percent of Animoca Brand’s issued capital, and will change its name to Animoca Brands Corporation, with significant change to the scale and scope of the BFE business activity.

As well as the name change, BFE will undergo a capital consolidation and then raise additional capital of at least $3,000,000 but no more than $5,000,000, with Taylor Collison Limited as lead manager. The company expects to have net tangible assets in excess of $3 million.

Prior to issuing the shares to acquire Animoca Brands, BFE will divest its core assets and projects with a sale that may result in a distribution in specie to its shareholders. This divestment must be approved by the shareholders. The BFE Board believes the proposed acquisition of Animoca Brands and the change of business which follows will be positive and in the best interests of the shareholders.

The funds raised under the leadership of Taylor Collison will be used in four ways: for working capital, to advertise and market the company’s games, acquiring the intellectual rights needed to create more games, and acquiring the rights to publish promising titles from third party studios.

Because there will be significant changes to the nature and scale of the company’s main business through acquiring Animoca Brands, re-compliance with the admission requirements of ASX, including lodgement of a prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, is required. This will facilitate, among other things, the planned capital raising.

The BFE Board believes the proposed acquisition of Animoca Brands and the change of business which follows will be positive and in the best interests of the shareholders.

Animoca Brands is a 2014 spin-off from Appionics, commonly known by the consumer name, Animoca. Their focus is on creating mobile games using licensed intellectual properties and publishing games developed by third parties. They distribute games globally on a variety of platforms, including the Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon and the Samsung App Store. The majority of their games are free-to-play, generating revenue with in-game purchases of virtual items and with in-game advertising. Animoca Brands’ games have been downloaded over 80,000,000 times and are played by millions around the globe.

Animoca Brands will continue to launch new products, including new mobile games based on the characters from the licensed intellectual properties in its portfolio, new, original Animoca Brands games, and new titles developed by third parties. They will also continue to seek to secure additional licenses for popular characters on which to base new games.

This proposed transaction will include the resignation of two directors and the addition of five new directors. Mick Billing and Matthew Sheldrick will resign as directors and Martin Green will continue as a director. New directors are David Kim, Yat Siu, Robert Yung, David Brickler, and Richard Kuo.

Animoca Brands’ focus is on creating mobile games using licensed intellectual properties and publishing games developed by third parties.

David Kim and Yat Siu are co-founders of Animoca Brands and Appionics, known by its consumer name, Animoca. Kim is CEO of Appionics, and was previously CEO of mail.com Corporation, a personalized email and messenger service. He also manages several independent financing and advisory projects. He has served on the boards of a variety of Pacific Rim companies, including Bamboo Networks in Hong Kong, Viztel of Malaysia, and Daum Corporation of Korea. In 1999, after leading China.com to its Initial Public Offering, he became the youngest CFO of a company listed on the NASDAQ.

Yat Siu is founder and CEO of OutBlaze, a digital media company specializing in gaming, cloud technology and smartphone/tablet software development. In 2009, he successfully pivoted OutBlaze from B2B messaging services to B2C entertainment. He is a director for TurnOut, a partnership between Outblaze and Turner Entertainment. In 2012, he originated ThinkBlaze, the research entity of OutBlaze, focused on investigation socially meaningful issues related to technology.

Robert Yung is CEO of Animoca Brands and a director of Appionics. Prior to this, he was founder and CFO of Redgate Media, a venture-based Chinese television and outdoor media holding company. He was also co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of One Media Group, a Hong Kong-based magazine company, overseeing its IPO in 2005. He was also CEO of One Studio, a Hong Kong venture-backed web development company and OS Media, a Chinese television advertising sales company.

David Brickler is the senior director of applications for World Television International, one of the world’s largest non-profit organizations. Prior to that, he served as CIO for Mizuho Securities Asia Limited, executive director of Ernst & Young in Hong Kong, and global CIO for the Noble Group, one of the largest commodity traders in the world. He was also founder and CEO of Emergent Technology, a venture-backed supply chain company in Hong Kong and VP of Information Technology at Caspian Securities.

Richard Kuo is founder and CEO of Pier Capital, a boutique investment banking firm specializing in technology services. He is a non-executive director of Probiotic Limited, Favourit.com, and the Australian Art Event Foundation; he has also held directorships of Equity Capital Markets Limited and Glenorchy Arts & Sculpture Park. Prior to founding Pier Capital, he practiced as a lawyer, specializing in corporate law and then moved to investment banking as a corporate adviser. He has advised on a wide range of domestic and cross-border transactions involving technology and digital media companies.

Asia 2014 Video Coverage

Robby Yung: The Power of Mobile Distribution | Casual Connect Video

June 10, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“Looking at the US market overall, obviously it’s the biggest gaming market in the world for mobile games,” said Robby Yung during Casual Connect Asia 2014. “I think if you separate it out by platform, a lot of people think of the US as really an iOS-driven market, but in fact the US is number 1 for downloads on both iOS and Android.”

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RY_Aug2012 — Robby Yung, CEO, Animoca Brands

Robby Yung, CEO of Animoca Brands, says this adventure grew out of a long friendship he has had with Yat Siu and David Kim, the founders of Animoca. All three have much in common as serial entrepreneurs. As CEO, Yung oversees the day-to-day operations of Animoca Brands, spending much of his time on licensing, M&A, and corporate development, all of which he has previously done at other media and technology companies he started.

The most satisfying aspect of his work is closing rounds of funding, whether private or public. He claims, “From the first time in 1999 or the twelfth time in 2014, it just never gets old.” And how has he become so successful doing this? “Practice, practice, practice!”

Mobile Distribution

A tipping point in his career came in March 2013 with the adoption of Candy Crush in Hong Kong. He describes the phenomenon, “Literally a quarter of the population was playing it, and you couldn’t sit in a restaurant or ride on public transport without seeing someone feverishly crushing those virtual candies. The user demographic seemed indefinable, it was just ‘everyone’. It’s moments like that when you are staggered by the power of mobile distribution.” He states that the massive success of apps like Candy Crush validated for him Animoca’s strategy: focus on casual mobile titles for all audiences, including women, children and adults.

Believing in F2P

Yung is a proponent of F2P, believing it is the logical transactional format in the app world. He points out that allowing consumers to try the product is far more compelling than advertisements, game trailers, and reviews, and says, “I love the fact that F2P allows everyone to enjoy our titles, whether or not they choose to play.” He does dislike the automatic negative comments that F2P seems to generate in the app industry. While some F2P implementations can be obnoxious and greedy, he insists that overall it has hugely expanded the market for countless developers and publishers. Because of that, he considers F2P a positive force in the games industry.

For his own gaming, Yung prefers to use his smartphone. Currently, he is playing Doraemon Repair Shop Seasons, one of Animoca’s brand-based time management games. He says, “It’s driving me nuts—it gets quite hard—but I will not admit defeat.”

He does not own a console; he would rather be gaming on his smartphone or tablets. However, he does take the opportunity to play console titles from time to time at work or at friend’s homes.

When at home, Yung spends his time in the physical world, with his family, and finds his young daughter takes up most of his time. He also likes to run, including the occasional marathon, something he claims is necessary to offset his other hobby of eating.

Smartphone Growth

In the next few years, Yung believes we will see the “next five billion” get onto smartphones and smartphone gaming, saying, “Seeing how this audience and these gamers will shape the future of the games industry will be interesting indeed.” He emphasizes that Animoca have always seen themselves as a gaming company for everyone; they were one of the first Android game developers, and they were one of the first to establish a strong foothold in developing markets. And he maintains, “We will keep trying our best to stay on top of trends as they arise.”

News News Business

Animoca Creates Animoca Brands to Develop and Distribute Games

May 26, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

At Casual Connect Asia, David Kim, CEO of Animoca, announced the latest exciting news from Animoca: a new spin-off company Animoca Brands, with Robby Yung, previously the executive director at Animoca, as the chief executive officer. The mission of this new company is to create and publish globally a broad portfolio of mobile games for smartphones and tablets. Animoca Brands will develop and distribute games based on licensed content as well as building a portfolio of original titles and publishing third party games.

Animoca has transferred to Animoca Brands the licenses and rights to such games as Garfield, Ben 10, Doraemon, Ragnarok Online, and Ultraman, as well as other well-known IPs. As a separate entity, Animoca Brands will be able to pursue more licensing opportunities and accelerate the production and launch of their games. They will leverage their user base to distribute new app releases, benefiting not only branded games, but also their original games and the third party titles they publish.

The branded games in Animoca Brands’ portfolio include Ben 10 Ultimate Alien Xenodrome, Garfield Tycoon, Garfield’s Escape, Doraemon Repair Shop, Ultraman Galaxy, Ragnarok: War of Gods and several others.

New CEO Robby Yung says, “I am thrilled by the opportunity to head this important initiative. I look forward to growing the new business and working with our current and new partners to create games that honor and expand their IP.”

Along with branded titles such as Ultraman Galaxy, Animoca Brands will also be building a portfolio of original titles and publishing third party games.

According to David Kim, this is their next logical step. “With the original Animoca, we established a successful side business helping famous brands enter the exciting world of mobile gaming. Now Animoca Brands will take over that business, while Animoca continues to pursue a strategy of wide and varied mass market offerings.”

Animoca is a leading developer and publisher of mobile games and edutainment apps for global audiences. They have now released more than 300 apps across multiple platforms and have more than 200 million game downloads since the company was launched in 2011. Among their most successful offerings are the Pretty Pet Salon franchise and the Star Girl series, which have become wildly popular with audiences across the globe and have been acclaimed by both gamers and reviewers. Animoca also publishes edutainment apps under the Baby Cortex label.

The spin-off, Animoca Brands, with its emphasis on mobile games, has multiple titles that leverage internationally recognized intellectual properties, all of which are fully licensed by their IP owners. They will also serve as global or regional publishers for third party titles and will develop and publish a wide range of original games. Animoca Brands is based in Hong Kong.

More information about Animoca is available at their website.

Development Exclusive Interviews Industry Online

Yat Siu on Succeeding in the Asian Market

April 23, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

Yat Siu, Co-Founder of Animoca, as well as Founder and CEO of its parent company Outblaze, has always been attracted to technology, although his educational background is in music. His interest in gaming began as a child playing on his Commodore 64, but he never expected to work primarily with games, simply because it was such a fledgling industry at the time. But as he followed his interests, his career included various technology areas, such as lifestyle, Internet, Web, social media, and games.

Yat Siu, Co-Founder of Animoca

Creating Animoca

When Siu co-founded Animoca, he recognized the high investment necessary in publishing and marketing a hit game as a formidable problem. The games industry is a crowded and competitive market, and with so many people focused on creating the next big hit, the chances of succeeding are limited. So Siu went a different direction, with what he calls a “supermarket approach.” Animoca offered a broad selection of titles that would appeal to a wide range of the global market, including the underserved female audience.

This plan, particularly catering to girl gaming and the “cute” niche, allowed them to become profitable in their first year. The strategy also allows them to distribute apps very effectively because their games are played by a broad range of people over the globe, with 220 million downloads by early 2014. For the future of Animoca, Siu expects to continue growing the business, but equally important, he wants them to continue having fun, learning, unlearning, and learning even more.

Star Girl — This plan, particularly catering to girl gaming and the “cute” niche, allowed them to become profitable in their first year.

To navigate the inevitable crises in this business, Siu uses negotiation skills and a logical, information-based decision-making process. And he insists, “Develop the ability to avoid panic!”

Keys to Success

Siu emphasizes that the most challenging aspect of working in the games industry is its ever-changing nature. To be successful, you must identify trends early, before they become established. It is essential to be constantly learning and observing, while discarding outdated information and modes of thinking. He says, “Running tech companies is a mountain of hard work, and often your efforts don’t succeed at first, but the key is to adapt, persevere, and follow your vision.”

For a game’s success, Siu feels the most important factor is player engagement. He insists, “Whether it is the story, the art, the difficulty, the game play, or the social features, what you want is for your game to engage players.”

“Whether it is the story, the art, the difficulty, the game play, or the social features, what you want is for your game to engage players.”

Dramatic Differences

Siu emphasizes that the Asian market is far from being a single market. In fact, it is a multi-market with dramatic cultural and language differences between countries, and a game can succeed in one country while failing miserably in another. There are dramatic cultural and language differences between countries, even such geographically close ones as China and Japan. An example of these differences is the strong trend toward portrait-based, one-handed game play in Japan, something which is not evident anywhere else.

Asia, he tells us, is fragmented with many markets at different stages of development, affluence, and hardware penetration. For instance, China is a fast-growing smartphone market; Korea is a mature one. And in South Korea, China, and Japan, ecosystems are emerging and interacting with hardware companies and telecoms to provide new methods of distribution.

In Asia, the vast population is localized into single markets; being successful in one market is not considered a problem.

In contrast, in the West, the USA is a single enormous market and no European market is even close to its size. App developers focus on what will be popular in the US. In Asia, the vast population is localized into single markets; being successful in one market is not considered a problem. The West concentrates on a global market while developers in Asia localize for a single market. Asia is moving toward localized, culturally relevant content rather than emphasizing products which will be easily transferable to other markets and cultures.

Asia’s Influence on the Industry

Over the years, Siu has seen the games industry become more mainstream and accessible to everyone; focused on delivering a personal experience. In the past, games were experienced on a special shared device, a console, or gaming computer. Now games are played primarily on the device you use to communicate, to manage your contacts, and to connect to the internet, your social circle, and your social networks. Gaming is now moving toward the personal and the personalized with Siri-like services in games and more portable or wearable computing devices.

Siu has noted that the games industry thrives on borrowing and adapting, and the influence of Asian models and innovations continues to increase. For example, free-to-play came out of South Korea, and Asian game titans are now starting to dominate. He expects to see continued cultural exchange and assimilation of games, and at Animoca, the emphasis is on finding the appropriate market or niche for a title. Another trend in the Asian market is the focus on producing hardcore games that require significant investment in player time and effort, a trend which is now spreading to the US.

PPJT Header Image — He expects to see continued cultural exchange and assimilation of games, and at Animoca, the emphasis is on finding the appropriate market or niche for a title.

Breaking into the Asian Market

As developers attempt to break into the Asian market, the most frequent mistakes he sees come from allowing personal bias and experience to get in the way when making decisions. He points out that you can’t take your intuition and habits for granted in a new market. It is critical to study the environment, the opportunities, and the obstacles and use them to make sensible, data-driven decisions.

The most important advice he gives for making a game stand out in the Asian market? “Move to Asia!” Or at least work with good local partners.

Yat Siu will be speaking about what it takes for Asian mobile game developers to break into the US market at Casual Connect Asia 2014 in Singapore next month. Find out more about his session on the conference website.

Europe 2014 Video Coverage

David Kim: Staying Ahead Means Moving Fast in the Games Industry | Casual Connect Video

February 17, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

David Kim claims that the mobile games industry moves so fast that the environment actually morphs into a new industry every other year. Within the last two years, an entirely new crop of companies and people have emerged. He insists, “I’m not in the same industry just because I’m in the same company.”

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David Kim, CEO of Animoca, has been doing games, online content, and services since the 90s. By the time he and his business partner started on mobile gaming, they had already published games for PC and consoles such as Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo. By this time, he says, “The mentality and the operations behind Animoca are established and part of our group’s DNA.” But he emphasizes that there is no industry like the games industry in terms of its pace of change and dynamism, saying, “The constant learning process that is required to stay ahead of the market is exhilarating, if a bit tiring at times.”

Making Work Fun

The achievement Kim is most proud of in his career started ten years ago with a company called mail.com, which he bought and then sold. In the process, he collaborated with his current business partner and friends with whom he runs Animoca. Working with these close friends brings him his greatest satisfaction; as he points out, “Work doesn’t feel quite as much like work when your co-workers are also your friends.”

Doraemon Repair Shop is one of the games in Animoca's portfolio — Doraemon Repair Shop is one of the games in Animoca’s portfolio

As CEO of Animoca, Kim makes decisions on the strategy and direction of the company. Because they are still in the growth stage, he must be involved with the forward planning, while his partners are responsible for the operational side. He has built, run, listed and sold many companies, mainly in the internet/tech industry, so he is cognizant of the aggressive growth nature of the games industry. Even so, he is constantly surprised by the rate of change, which seems to increase every year. He believes there is nothing more exciting professionally than this fast-paced business with life-changing technologies and content, combined with enormous financial opportunities.

Not a One-Hit Wonder

The biggest challenge Kim sees in the industry is an ecosystem with an unstable business model that is unprofitable for the majority of apps. Platform providers, advertising companies and publishers of big hits are all making money, but out of the millions of apps, only a small minority show a profit. He sees the majority of companies, both big and small, being built around the concept of making the next big hit, but that is unrealistic and unsustainable. This situation will see many developers and publishers wither away, investors lose money, and innovation suffer until equilibrium is reached.

Kim and his partners have responded to their analysis of this ecosystem by deliberately designing Animoca to not be a hit-driven business. Although they do have hits, such as Star Girl and Pretty Pet Salon, they rely instead on their hundreds of apps to provide a more reliable cash flow. Kim’s baseball analogy: “We don’t necessarily need to have a home run to keep scoring. All we need is a steady flow of singles and doubles with the occasional home run to push the score higher.”

An important trend Kim sees in the future of the games industry may be brand advertising, since this is a revenue source which has not yet been fully exploited. So Animoca has been building a proprietary system for their apps that will support ads and maximize activities of their millions of users. This system can also help developers and publishers promote brand advertising when they are ready to use it for a more mainstream revenue source. Until then, it allows Animoca’s apps and their partners’ apps to be more widely discovered and distributed.

Studio Spotlight

Animoca: Making Games on a Global Scale

November 21, 2013 — by Clelia Rivera

When mobile games exploded onto the market, many studios tried to cash in on this booming area. Animoca was built with the desire to develop and publish in this successful market. Founded in 2011 and incubated by Outblaze Ventures, they are a cross-platform app publisher and developer for smartphones and tablets. They have created over 300 apps with more than 170 million game downloads and reaches many different genres and demographics.

Where It All Began

Animoca was founded in January 2011 with a goal of making games for under-appreciated audience segments. Due to their past experiences with Outblaze Ventures and their companies, Animoca knew early what they needed to focus on. “For example, we knew that we needed a systematic, analytics-driven approach to allow us to understand user behavior,” says David Kim, CEO. “So we started tracking and measuring as much as we could from day one.” They started by creating games targeted towards women and girls. Their first game, Pretty Pet Salon, went on to be an international hit, and a top mobile time management game.

After their initial success, they went on to create many other games, such as Thor: Lord of Storms and Star Girl. They continue to pursue publishing great games, but they don’t let success go to their heads. “We have grown from a start-up into an established force in mobile games, but I wouldn’t say we have changed that much.”

Going Global

The company’s success is not limited to just the US, but has expanded into a larger scale. This was made possible due to how they approach their global work. Kim says, “We have a sophisticated process that we are always refining in order to help us translate apps, develop content for specific cultures, handle customer support in different regions, and do all the other things necessary to build a global audience.”

One of the details to pay attention to in a global market is regionalization. Kim believes that many developers work under the misconception that changing the language is all that is needed for a game to work in another country. “You also need to localize the app for different cultures, build in local payment options, develop a promotional calendar based on local events, find local distribution partners, hire local QA resources, offer customer service in local languages, develop content for the local culture, and more,” says Kim. He also advises people interested in other regions to take the time to understand the area they want to break into.

Ultraman is just one of the games in Animoca's portfolio — Ultraman Galaxy is just one of the games in Animoca’s portfolio

Building good relationships is also important to succeeding globally. Animoca learned “that it’s extremely important to have a very strong partnership in the regions you are targeting in order to help with distribution and monetization,” according to Kim. The company has had a lot of practice building relationships, both with distributors and developers. As a publisher and developer, Animoca learned a useful tip to keep in mind when starting a partnership with developers. “You can’t treat all developers the same, and there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to publishing games,” says Kim. They work to create a unique, custom partnership with everyone they work with to meet everyone’s goals.

Publishing Today

With the change in distribution and the rise of self-publishing, the role of a publisher has undergone a change as well (a panel at Casual Connect discussed this change). Kim explains that it has become “less about driving new users and more about providing expertise.” “While the main role of a publisher is still to help drive users to a game, there is also a large component of expertise sharing on topics such as user engagement, game design, development, etc,” says Kim.

However, Kim says the usefulness of a publisher can vary from game to game. He believes there is not an exact way to decide if or when a publisher is useful. “For some games, a publisher may provide valuable assistance pre-launch, when the games is still in development, while other times, a publisher might make sense for an existing game that has launched, but was unable to achieve or sustain growth,” Kim says. It is important for a developer to consider their needs and decide what works for them.

Animoca is working to launch a lot of new games in many different genres. Follow their Facebook or Twitter to stay updated on their latest projects.

Business Contributions Online Research

The Most Popular Android Tablets Worldwide on the Animoca Network

April 30, 2013 — by Mariia Lototska

A guest post from Animoca describing research done on the Android tablets.

Our series about the most common smartphones and their OS versions in each country generated numerous requests for specific data (yes, we’ll get to Europe soon!). One of the most frequent requests was to issue something on the tablet market. In this post, we’ll break down the most popular tablets worldwide. You can check out our other posts describing individual Android smartphone markets: Hong Kong & India | Singapore | USA | Japan.

One in four Americans now owns a tablet device, according to Pew Research, and analyst firm IDC reports that the worldwide tablet market grew more than 78% year-on-year in 2012. IDC predicts that 190 million tablets will be shipped in 2013, with a forecast 48.7% growth over last year.

Pretty Pet Salon — All data obtained from individual users of Animoca games worldwide who used Google Play and who played an Animoca game on a tablet device between February 18 and March 20, 2013.

So with tablet sales not slowing down any time soon, let’s see which Android tablets are currently the most popular on the Animoca network of Android users.

All data obtained from individual users of Animoca games worldwide who used Google Play and who played an Animoca game on a tablet device between February 18 and March 20, 2013.

Top Android tablets worldwide (Animoca network, Feb 18 - Mar 20, 2013)

Rank	Device	Share	Screen Size (inches)
1	Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7 (includes p3100+p3113)	11.8%	7
2	Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1	8.3%	10.1
3	Amazon Kindle Fire	7.5%	7
4	Amazon Kindle Fire HD	4.9%	7
5	Samsung Galaxy Tab	4.8%	7
6	Asus Google Nexus 7	3.8%	7
7	Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1	3%	10.1
8	Asus Transformer TF101	0.9%	10.1
8	Asus TF300	0.9%	10.1
9	Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7	0.8%	7.7
10	Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9	0.7%	8.9
11	Motorola Xoom	0.6%	10.1
11	ONDA MID Tablet	0.6%	7
11	Acer Iconia Tab (A200)	0.6%	10.1
11	Sony Tablet S	0.6%	9.4
12	Toshiba Thrive AT100	0.5%	10.1

Error margin: +- 0.1%

Sample size: 978,000

Assumption: there are 75 million Android tablets in circulation worldwide

Immediately you’ll note that 4 of the top 5 tablets, and 6 out of the top 10, are of the smaller variety, featuring 7-inch screens. This should come as no surprise, given that one in every two tablets shipped last quarter had a screen size of less than 8 inches.

Once again, we note the prominence of Samsung devices; apparently, the Korea-based company dominates tablets as well as smartphones. Next up, the Amazon Kindle and Kindle HD account for more than 12% of the tablets on our network – quite remarkable for devices that are still not globally available. The popular and zippy Google Nexus 7 came in 6ᵗʰ place, suggesting that Google will be a significant player in the hardware wars.

Once we account for Samsung, Amazon, and Google, the rest of the field is wide open. After the top 7 tablets, the devices claiming under 1% of the Animoca Android network became too numerous to list here. In fact, given an error margin of 0.1% and the slight differences between tablets in 8th place and onwards, we cannot be entirely sure of the correct ordering.

What we can be confident of is that tablet sales won’t slow down any time soon, and that developers should be creating mobile apps built to suit their users. Knowing which tablet or tablets you are developing for is useful knowledge – not only screen size, but also other hardware specifications.

When we looked at Japan, we saw what seemed to be a preference for one-handed gaming on smartphones being used in portrait mode; perhaps the popularity of 7-inch tablets has something to do with a similar global trend. Of course, it could just be that the 7-inch tablets strike an ideal balance of price, portability, and form factor.

Join us next time for more Animoca data, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for additional insights!