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Europe 2014Video Coverage

Henry Hoffman: The Yin and Yang of Creativity and Logical Thinking | Casual Connect Video

February 27, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“Probably the most valuable thing of all from an open beta on a new platform is just the huge amount of user feedback we got,” Henry Hoffman said at Casual Connect Europe. “It was insane.”

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Henry Hoffman
Henry Hoffman, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Mudvark

Henry Hoffman is Co-Founder and Creative Director of Mudvark, a company that develops multi-platform games and offers game marketing services for other developers. Hoffman’s role in the company is art, design, and HTML5/JS for casual cross-platform games. He focuses on the art, development, design, and sound for their game, Mortar Melon, as well as overseeing any additional projects.

When not working, Hoffman uses his creativity in an entirely different direction: in the kitchen. He hopes to start a blog soon and share some of his more creative recipes. He also enjoys music, theater, and dance. Someday, he would like to merge some of these interests with games, perhaps with a cooking game or working with performance practitioners to offer new perspectives into game space and movement.

Yin and Yang

Hoffman and Dan Da Rocha founded Mudvark using the dividends from the hit game Q.U.B.E., which they had both worked on at university. Before that, he was Director at Angry Mango, but felt his creativity was beginning to be stifled by the management and organizational aspects of the job. Fortunately, his present job is a perfect fit, with Da Rocha responsible for business, accounts and paperwork, while Hoffman retains creative control and is able to use his abilities in art, design, and development. He says, “The yin and yang of creativity and logical thinking is really key to keeping focused on projects over a long period of time.”

Dan and Henry
Dan Da Rocha and Henry

One of the elements in Mudvark’s success is Hoffman’s attention to detail, which he admits can border on the obsessive. An example is when he subtly redesigned the icon for Mortar Melon twice during the week of its launch. But the redesign helped it move twenty places higher in the Top Fifty. Overall, he feels it is a positive quality that helps them achieve the level of polish needed to succeed in various marketplaces.

Connecting is the Best Part

The most enjoyable part of being in the game industry, Hoffman claims, is connecting with other people in the industry, “The conferences, events, and parties that take place are home to some of the nicest, most talented people I have ever met.” He also finds it exciting to present at the conferences, although, since he offers different insights, it can be a bit risky. But he says, “All the crazy things that can come out of these events, from the funny press coverage to even huge publishing deals, are really what makes it great fun to work in the game industry.”

A key moment in Hoffman’s career came when he won a BAFTA award for a game he led while in university. However, it was actually the nomination, not the win, that was his proudest moment. Hoffman was incredibly proud of the team, who had had disagreements, but managed to work through them.

Be Diverse and Discoverable

MortarMelonScreenshot1
Mortar Melon for Windows 8 and Windows Phone

Hoffman considers that the greatest challenge facing the game industry is discoverability. He believes this has less to do with the marketplace UX, and more a result of saturation. He suggests some sort of web marketplace could offer a viable solution for developers and huge benefits for consumers, such as sharing purchases and progress across mobile and web. As long as platform holders insist on platform exclusivity, it will remain a challenge.

He points out that building and launching a game is very much an investment, so the way to mitigate the risk of the investment is to diversify the portfolio. He emphasizes, “There needs to be very conscious development decisions and pipelines in place to either target multiple platforms at once or to have the capability of doing so easily after launch.” Mudvark has ensured that they have a cross-platform strategy that very effectively sustains the business through any managing contingency. Although it is possible for platform exclusivity to work for some developers, Hoffman believes it is wise to keep potential platforms in mind in case the primary release doesn’t go according to plan.

The next few years will see wearable technology playing a part in the future of games and technology in general, according to Hoffman. However, he doesn’t yet see a market for games beyond simple toys. He tells us The Rift and Glyph both look good for immersive experiences, but are not suitable for casual play. So he still sees screens playing a large part in casual gaming, but supportive experiences will begin to take place using wearable peripherals. Mudvark is following these developments closely and when there is a good business case for it, they will implement supportive experiences into their existing and future titles.

Europe 2014Video Coverage

Braden Moulton: Innovation is Instrumental | Casual Connect Video

February 21, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

The next big trend coming to the games industry will be widespread cross-platform gaming experiences, according to Braden Moulton. Although everyone is talking about this, currently there are very few examples of it in the market. 5th Planet Games is incorporating cross-platform gaming into the present and future plans for their games. They recently released a cross-platform mobile version of Legacy of a Thousand Suns, and the reception from existing and new players has been overwhelmingly positive.

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Braden Moulton
Braden Moulton, President and COO, 5th Planet Games

Braden Moulton, President and COO of 5th Planet Games, sees a wide variety of challenges facing the games industry. As both a game creator and consumer, Moulton believes the most glaring of these is innovation. At 5th Planet Games, they work to meet this challenge by rapidly prototyping multiple games. They have a company full of gamers who then scrutinize and improve on the prototypes; everyone in the company plays a part in innovation.

Skills to Succeed

Moulton manages the wide variety of dynamic elements that make up the day-to-day business of 5th Planet Games. His previous experience is in consulting, tech, and project management—all skills he finds advantageous to succeed. He also finds the ability to control chaos absolutely essential. Fortunately, parenthood has helped with this specialized skill!

He feels that the most fun in the games industry comes from working with people who share the same experiences, passion, and creativity. “I can’t wait to get to work each day!” Moulton said. His greatest satisfaction comes from the overall success of 5th Planet Games because it is the sum of everyone’s efforts. “Playing an instrumental part in that is very special,” he said.

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A cross-platform mobile version of Legacy of a Thousand Suns is now available, and has received a positive reception

Time Away From Work

In Moulton’s free time, he is an avid online and board gamer. He grew up with PC and still prefers it. He claims the best RPGs and MMOs are found there and says he is currently losing frequently on Magic Online. He owns an Xbox One, but tells us he hasn’t played more than a couple of hours on it, insisting that both Xbox One and PS4 severely need must-have games such as Halo or Destiny.

When he is not gaming, he spends as much time as possible with his family and coaches youth sports. He also admitted, “I invest way too much of myself into the NFL season.”

Video Coverage

Roxanne Gibert: Behavior Analytics | Casual Connect Video

September 5, 2013 — by Catherine Quinton

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“The framework for analysis that I use when I go into any game is taking a look at what is the metric that is suffering the most right now that can contribute the most to my gross revenue,” Roxanne Gibert told her audience during her session, Monetization Toolkit: Tuning Game Design Using Analytics, at Casual Connect USA.

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Facing Distribution Challenges

Roxanne Gibert is a Product Manager of User Acquisition for DeNA. She is currently working on driving new viral, cross-promo, and user acquisition targeting features for the Mobage platform. She believes the biggest challenge the games industry currently faces is becoming truly cross-platform and finding new distribution sources outside of the social networks. The industry needs to create new networks that can connect developers with distribution sources other than Facebook and the Apple store.

Mobage
Roxanne currently works on driving new viral, cross-promo, and user acquisition targeting features for the Mobage platform.

Her previous experience as a developer with an emphasis on user behavior analytics will help her create more seamless discovery experiences for players on the Mobage platform.

In Roxanne’s free time, she enjoys spending time with various activities around San Francisco, a city where she loves living. She takes urban hikes through the city or Golden Gate Park, explores the restaurants and lounges and drives around Lake Tahoe and Napa Valley. She also enjoys wine tasting, playing poker, and cooking for her friends and family. She occasionally likes to dabble with playing the piano and guitar.

When you realize what flying blind really looks like, you want to find the answers, and the process of coming up with those solutions is really enlightening.

Analytics from Scratch

When Roxanne tells us about the greatest moments of her career, she describes starting a mobile gaming studio two years ago. They published a midcore strategy game that wound up hitting Top Ten Strategy in US and Canada, and they make their own analytics platform. She describes this time as an incredible learning experience.

Roxanne Gibert
Roxanne Gibert

Creativity vs. Data

The biggest challenge Roxanne has had in her career was trying to merge a culture of creative design with a metric-driven business strategy. Although she doesn’t claim to have overcome this challenge without a few bumps in the road, she did learn how to merge the two over time. She tells us, “This process led me down the path of diving really deeper into user behavior analytics and forecasting than I had in my career. When you realize what flying blind really looks like, you want to find the answers, and the process of coming up with those solutions is really enlightening.”

Android Emergent

Roxanne believes the next important trend in the games industry will emerge as Android opens up a whole new way of looking at app development and discovery. She says, “I am excited to see how developers grow on Android.”

Video Coverage

Kristin Fitch: Creativity and Kids | Casual Connect Video

August 15, 2013 — by Catherine Quinton

Kristin Fitch, presenting a session entitled Updates and New Releases: The Lifeblood of your App at Casual Connect in San Francisco, advised her audience, “Do updates regularly, so your users can anticipate them…and can spread the word.”

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Kristin Fitch, ZiggityZoom and developer Kris Wright
Kristin Fitch, ZiggityZoom and developer Kris Wright

Games and Learning Go Hand-in-Hand

Kristin Fitch is Co-Founder and CEO of ZiggityZoom, a multi-media company that produces creative media content for families and children. Prior to the 2008 co-founding of a family/kids site, Kristin exhibited regularly at the Licensing Show and Kidscreen. Among their frequent offerings were games for preschool and kindergarten children. The team was attracted to the game space because of the way play and learning can come together for children through games. Kristin says, “Playing games is in our blood. We love all sorts of games, from traditional and outdoor to games for devices and online games.”

 

A Woman of Many Talents

The team was attracted to the game space because of the way play and learning can come together for children through games.

Because ZiggityZoom is a relatively small team, Kristin is involved in everything from managing the sites to overseeing the process of creating online and mobile games and content by working with their developer and designer through every step of the process. She has worked in the online space since 1999, overseeing teams of web developers, designers, network admins and administrators. She had to determine and implement new technologies, run an entire ad system, oversee web and advertising programs for clients, and lead a large team. For many years, she led a niche licensing firm focused on designs and characters for kids. She has also done web strategy and marketing workshops. From these experiences, she learned many things useful in her present position, including how to identify strong team members or freelancers, leading a team of creatives, overcoming problems and pivoting when obstacles were put in the way. She also learned a great deal about the web and online marketing, and to identify trends on the horizon and move toward those trends.

Rojo Launch Event- a few friends of Rojo Word
Rojo Launch Event- a few friends of Rojo Word

Creativity in Entertainment

She remains in the games industry because it is full of creative people and ideas that come to life through games. She finds it exciting, challenging and always changing, with the payoff for creating a game users enjoy making it worthwhile. Kristin’s passions are inspiring and motivating others, teaching, taking photos, all things tech, food and family. If she were not in the games industry, she would certainly be working on something similar with perhaps a different product. Kristin is constantly online and would probably start another online/mobile company.

Kristin’s free time sees her cooking, entertaining, hitting the beach, paddle boarding and running. She enjoys many kinds of music; it varies based on whether she is working, running or relaxing.

One of the proudest moments in Kristin’s career occurred when she realized they were really growing an audience, after discovering they had reached over five million unique users to their website. Another great moment was getting RoJo WORD, a family dice game concept, launched as a mobile game app.

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RoJo WORD, a family dice game concept, was launched as a mobile game app.

Administrative Control Matters

One of ZiggityZoom’s first game apps was created by partnering with another company. Working with another team on the design and process was a great experience, but it was difficult not to have complete control over the app updates, releases and sales. They successfully worked through this, but Kristin now believes it is in their best interest to have both creative and administrative control. The experience was a learning opportunity.

When asked about upcoming trends, Kristin feels the same trend that has occurred online, with content being accessed cross-platform, will happen with casual games. Since users can now start a movie or book on one device and continue it on another, games must also become available in different formats. Many game companies still create games to stand alone from any other device offerings, but eventually it will be necessary to build games that follow the user no matter what device they connect from; the game will connect from their last login.

Another trend she expects is casual games following reality play, with users creating their games as they go by picking options

RoJo_WORD
At Casual Connect USA, Kristin announced a new RoJo WORD app update.

and creating parameters, which will allow games to be personalized and the experience unique. “I realize some of this is happening now,” she states, “but I believe all game developers will move toward this in the future.” She sees monetization moving toward a free to try system, much like free download trials of software. Players would be able to try a game for a period of time, perhaps one to seven days, and purchase the ones they find worthwhile. The result will be that better games and game companies stay in business, and others may merge or move into another space.

At Casual Connect USA, Kristin announced a new RoJo WORD app update. It features new “unlimited” play time in Relax mode as a solo option. There is also new scoring that shows for each new word built. An Android version of the game will be released later this year.

Video Coverage

Tom Sperry: Asian Gamers Love Cross-Platform Multiplayer | Casual Connect Video

July 1, 2013 — by David Nixon

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“With servers already available in the US, Europe, Korea, Singapore, our launch in Japan brings Exit Games one step closer to our goal of global low-latency Photon Cloud game servers to players all around the world.”

Exit Games, the technology company that builds Photon - a realtime, cross-platform multiplayer engine - has a passion for making the development of multiplayer, real-time, cross-platform games available to developers around the world. Photon powers some of the most contemporary high-profile online cross-platform realtime multiplayer games like Codemaster’s F1 Online - the Game, Cmune’s Überstrike and the hilarious Offensive Combat by U4IA. Tom Sperry, as Head of Business Development for Exit Games Inc., shares the passion for making great multiplayer game experiences available on any platform the players want to play.

Exit Games

Photon Cloud Servers now Available in Japan

At Casual Connect Asia, Tom announced that Exit Games that Photon Cloud was now live and hosted in Japan. With this new launch, Photon Cloud’s “forever free” platform for multiplayer online gameplay brings low-latency access to Northern Asia. Tom explains, “With servers already available in the US, Europe, Korea, Singapore, our launch in Japan brings Exit Games one step closer to our goal of global low-latency Photon Cloud game servers to players all around the world.”

Asia: A Key Multiplayer Games Market

Tom believes Asia to be a key global games opportunity in 2013 - “In Asia, multiplayer gaming is enormous, giving game developers and publishers equally large opportunities.” According to Tom, “Exit Games Photon multiplayer engine is the perfect solution, allowing them to make realtime cross-platform games. The launch of Photon Cloud is the single event that has changed my view of my company.” Using Photon Cloud, any developer or publisher of any size can now create multiplayer games for any device or platform without having to host any infrastructure. It has been successful far beyond their original forecasts.  “Multiplayer gaming is ingrained deeply into the gaming culture here in Asia,” he believes, “In combination, Photon Server and Photon Cloud coverage in Asia will vastly increasing a multiplayer game developer’s ability to serve this audience.”

“Asia has always been a key multiplayer games market for PC and console games.” Tom reminds us, “With the amazing growth of the smart phone and tablet market and high-speed cellular data infrastructures, there is an opportunity to let players compete and play in high-quality multiplayer game experiences even on the go. All a developer needs is the technology backbone, the server infrastructure, and the creative drive to make it happen.”

Great People Make Great Games

Tom’s experience with Exit Games inspires him to offer this advice to those who are striving to make a better product. “Understand your target customer and target market. Be super focused and build something different.” He also emphasizes the need to hire great people who believe in you and your vision. “Everyone has triumphs and mistakes in hiring. Be sure you reward your great people, and do not be afraid to ‘trim the fat’ if necessary. It sounds harsh, I realize, but in our hyper-competitive industry, your company needs the best of the best.”

Video Coverage

Alawar’s Alexander Dubrovin on NHN and the Importance of Free-to-Play | Casual Connect Video

May 30, 2013 — by Catherine Quinton

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At Casual Connect Asia, Alexander announced that they have formed a partnership with NHN, and will be releasing their first free-to-play game together. Alexander Dubrovin, VP, Sales and Marketing at Alawar Entertainment, has been in sales and marketing for the past 15 years for several companies, so this was the perspective he brought to Alawar when he joined the company in 2009 and became responsible for market research and analysis and promoting the company’s online resources and game brands. In 2011, he was appointed VP of Mobile Platforms, and in 2013, as the company was restructured, he was still responsible for iOS and Android mobile, but also became involved with leads and branding for the company.

The Effects of F2P

Alexander Dubrovin
Alexander Dubrovin

Alexander emphasizes the importance of the free-to-play model, since now one game can generate over one million dollars in revenue each day. He sees examples of this in Alawar, pointing out that, even though they do not as yet have cross-platform capabilities, when they release an iOS game in Android, they immediately see their sales in iOS begin to rise. Alexander tells us, “This is because if we release a game on two platforms, players can play each other simultaneously, growing more and more users for the game.
The most important emerging trend in the game industry, as he sees it, is “Google, the 24-hour company with free-to-play cross-platform games.” Alawar expects to become involved this year with ten new titles that Alexander hopes will be cross-platform free-to-play games. At Casual Connect Asia, Alexander announced that they have formed a partnership with NHN, and will be releasing their first free-to-play game together. At the last Casual Connect Asia, he met for the first time a guide from NHN. Soon after, Alawar and NHN signed the partnership contract, with the new game coming soon. Alexander expresses that he is excited to work with Casual Connect Asia and believes that it is one of the best events in the world. Every year, they find new partners, new projects and new ideas, so they really enjoy the event.

Challenges of the Mobile Market

The mobile market in Asia is very important to Alawar. China, Japan and Korea are among the top ten in their sales. Alexander tells us the market is huge and rapidly growing. The Japanese market in particular continues to increase in the app store and Google Play, until now it could be bigger than in the US. It has become one of the biggest and most important markets in the world.

Our Team makes a flashmob with blue balloons (Codefest Conference, Russia, 2012)
Alawar Team makes a flashmob with blue balloons (Codefest Conference, Russia, 2012)

He feels the biggest challenge he has faced in his career has been starting to work in the mobile game market. This market required making mobile games from scratch, although they now have big publishers in PC, Casual, and Mobile. They have now received solid reviews and have great games. Another tremendous challenge for Alexander has been meeting the company goal of doubling their sales each year, but he has been able to fulfill this expectation. During the last year alone, they released over one hundred games, a fact which definitely helps increase their sales. With the excitement of such a dynamic company, he believes the greatest fulfillment he will receive in his career is still in the future.

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