Reko Ukko, co-founder and vice-president of game design at Seriously, admits that the company’s name is a great conversation starter. It denotes that they are serious about the work they do: games for mobile and for whatever will come next, such as wearables. They are also serious about free-to-play, a business model they are certain is here to stay.
Anders Evju’s colleague, John Golden, Playphone evangelist, spoke about paying attention to all markets on behalf of Evju during Casual Connect USA 2014. “Carriers can deliver a better mobile gaming experience,” he said.
Anders Evju, chief marketing officer for PlayPhone, has been involved with mobile entertainment services since its inception in the mid-90s, so he has seen it evolve over the years. He first became involved in the games industry in 2000 while co-founding and working for I-Play as their SVP and general manager and recognized early that the mobile industry was poised for massive growth. He believed that it was the future of communications and quickly discovered that it would be a major platform moving forward.
As chief marketing officer, Evju leads all business development and mobile social gaming partnership initiatives for PlayPhone. Prior to his work with PlayPhone and I-Play, he spent a number of years with MobileSpring and gained experience with US wireless carrier background with Omnipoint Communications. He also gained European telecom experience while working in Norway at NetCom BSN, where he was responsible for several major launches including Mother, one of the world’s first mobile portals.
The most fulfilling time in Evju’s career so far came with the launch of PlayPhone’s social game store on Verizon. PlayPhone has been a leader in mobile gaming and mobile content distribution for the past 10 years. During the feature phone era, they powered mobile entertainment portals for major brands like Disney, Sega, Walmart, and Best Buy, distributing games and content to almost 2 billion users and forming deep relationships with all leading carriers worldwide. The evolution from feature phone gaming to smartphone gaming was the natural next step; they love mobile gaming and wanted to create the next generation mobile gaming experience.
Evju says it has been exciting to see the evolution of mobile from flip phones to smartphones. He feels the best thing about his job is being a part of such an exciting industry, and a nice perk is that it involves playing all the new games that come onto PlayPhone’s mobile gaming network.
Mobile is naturally his favorite platform to play on. He plays everywhere, even while sailing in the Caribbean. He does not own any console, especially since he travels and likes to take his gaming with him, but he does reveal that his son got a PS4 for Christmas. Right now, along with everyone else, he is really enjoying Castle Clash. He owns an iPhone, but he doesn’t have a preference between iOS and Android. Both platforms have advantages in his opinion, but the main goal at PlayPhone is to connect gamers from both iOS and Android and let them play games with their friends regardless of the platform.
Evju insists, “Mobile gaming is on a steep incline, and we’ll continue to see aggressive global expansion of games, increased penetration and usage, faster phones and tablets, and better graphics in games that will entice even PC and console gamers.” He points out that we have already seen mobile gaming exploding globally, and it will continue to do so in regions like China, India and Indonesia. PlayPhone is hard at work to be sure their platform takes advantage of these trends, especially in a way that helps localize features so gamers have the most personalized, local gaming experience possible wherever they are in the world.
Besides being an avid gamer, Evju is a father of three children, so he spends a lot of free time with his family. He is also a swimmer and runner who has recently competed his first half-marathon.
