Elite Game Developers Podcast

In this episode I'm talking with Elad Levy, who is the founder and CEO of Dive, who are a new kind of game analytics provider. As many of you know, I've previously worked at Supercell as Director of Analytics in 2011 and 2012, before I went on to found Next Games in 2013. I've worked with data in gaming for over ten years, and I was thrilled to have this discussion with Elad. His company Dive is operating in free-to-play gaming, especially with mobile developers, and they are now also providing analytics for Roblox games. In this first episode with Elad, we talk about how game studios are embracing and how studios are building data into their decision-making.

In this episode, I have Logan Dwight on the podcast. Logan is the co-founder and CEO of Role, a tabletop role-playing company that is taking tabletop RPGs online. In this discussion with Logan, we talk about his founding journey to build Role, how tabletop RPGs are transitioning online, through the rise of online platforms, and his experiences from building Role as a startup, building the team, fundraising, and many other topics.

Welcome back everybody for another set of Ask Me Anything questions. This is the fourth AMA episode, where I answer people's questions related to game studios, fundraising, and all other entrepreneurship-related stuff.

Before we go to the first question, I'd like to share the URL where you can submit your questions. To do that, you can go to this URL and I'll get your question answered in one of my upcoming episodes.

I recently did a webinar with Anton Gorodetsky from InvestGame and Micha Katz from Aream & Co and we talked about the numbers from H1 of 2021 for the games industry. The industry saw explosive growth in terms of volume and size of M&As, private investments, and IPOs.

Martin Macmillan is the founder and CEO of Pollen VC, a financing company that provides flexible credit facilities for mobile game developers who are doing user acquisition. With Martin, we talk about the evolution of UA funding in mobile games, how debt financing is becoming the norm for marketing and we hear Martin's views on the boom of the games industry and how that is affecting everything.

I'm talking with Klaas Kersting, who is the Founder and CEO of Phoenix Games, a new kind of European gaming conglomerate, with six games studios under its belt. In this discussion with Klaas, we talk about luck and taking advantage of lucky moments, how the mobile games industry has evolved, what characterizes teams that can go from broke to hugely profitable, and what well-done mergers and acquisitions look like in gaming.

I've known KooPee Hiltunen for close to twenty years now, ever since I started building games companies. KooPee is The Guy in the Finnish games industry, he knows everybody and has knowledge of everything when it comes to the Finnish games industry. He represents Neogames, which is a non-profit association, whose mission is to coordinate and support the growth and development of the Finnish game industry and its ecosystem. In this discussion with KooPee, we talk about a recent 2020 report on the Finnish games industry, how we got to this impressive size, and what things look like for the Finnish games industry?

This week I published my third Ask Me Anything podcast episode, where I answer people's questions related to game studios, fundraising, and all other entrepreneurship-related stuff. I will be recording another episode quite soon, so please submit your questions by filling out this form.

Cordel Robbin-Coker is the co-founder and CEO of Carry1st, a mobile games publisher that is focusing on the content of Africa. Africa is the last frontier for basically anything. Mobile gaming is no exception. For a continent that is home to more than 1 billion millennials and Gen Zers, mobile gaming has never really picked up, despite the continent witnessing rapid economic growth and smartphone adoption. Carry1st is changing that with it's new approach for distribution and payments, custom made for Africa. In this episode, we talk about mobile gaming in Africa and about Cordel's entrepreneur journey.

Today I'm talking with Jon Hook, who is an angel investor and VP of Publishing at Boombit. With Jon, we talk about the current state of mobile gaming, what is happening to hyper-casual and how Jon looks at angel investing in gaming.