GameMakers

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I'm in India this year and had a Mexican burrito bowl in the office by myself. Lol.

As I sat in the office late at night, I recorded another cringe and weird video for my kids.

Too many people undervalue opportunity! I just wanted to let you know that I'm grateful this Thanksgiving for the opportunity to try to build something meaningful. It's not looking good right now, but that's what entrepreneurship is all about: how do we take a low-probability scenario and turn it into a high-probability outcome? 

LFG!

We deep dive on eSports. Current market and growth projections, what kinds of games do well, business model, structure, prize pools, key trends, geographic differences, and more! Join us with our esteemed group of speakers: Ilaria Caputo (EA), Matthew Kanterman (Ball Metaverse Research Partners), and Hugo Tristao (Newzoo). Speaker links below.

👇 EPISODE LINKS:

Ilaria Caputo, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilaria-caputo/

Matthew Kanterman, https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-kanterman-cfa-b6345133/

Hugo Tristao, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristaohugo/

Stoffer Touborg was a lead game designer on Eve Online at CCP, led Wild Rift at Riot, and currently acts as Executive Producer on Bitcraft Online for Clockwork Labs.  

Stoffer is one of the most thoughtful game industry executives I know, and I regularly ask Stoffer for advice on leadership, organizational principles, and recruiting.  

Today we talk about not just about coming up with a desired set of company values and culture, but how to actually implement or install these within a company.   

SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: 

- Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/34hfOtv

- Spotify Podcast: https://spoti.fi/3Cpyq7i

- Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

- Don't miss an episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio 

OUTLINE: 

0:00 Intro 

2:13 Stoffer Touborg Background 

3:07 Definition of Company Culture and Warning for New Employees 

6:06 Values vs. Culture Definition 

9:10 Employees Need to Confirm Cultural Fit, Values Need to be Good, Given Context, and Fair 

14:16 Installing Values/Culture in a Company, Communication vs. Implementation 

16:47 Values Manifestation Board 20:45 Why is Company Culture Critical? Sometimes Values Don't Matter 

25:40 How to Deal with Employee Cultural Misalignment 

31:34 Executive Accountability for Culture Mismatches 

32:15 Recruiting for Culture Fit 36:30 How to Deal with Culture Exceptions for a Specific Need - "The Dennis Rodman Rule"   

👇 EPISODE LINKS:  

Stoffer Touborg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristoffertouborg/

The Game Stoffer is Working on, Bitcraft Online: https://bitcraftonline.com/ 

😃 —CONNECT WITH ME! —  

• MY INSTAGRAM → @jokim1 

• TWITTER      → @jokim1 

• LINKEDIN      → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jokim/   

I speak to Rahul Chowdhri, an investor at Stellaris Venture Partners, about the venture capital market in India, the current state of investment here, and his outlook on investments in gaming in India.  

OUTLINE: 

0:00 General landscape of venture capital in India 

2:20 Specialist vs. generalist VCs, the definition of micro-VC 

3:35 Sudden investment interest in gaming in India 

4:48 Should investors invest early in gaming or wait for talent to emerge? 

5:17 Info on Stellaris and what they look for from a pitch? 

6:25 Typical funding for Seed vs. Series A in India 

7:13 Expectations for Series A 

8:09 What do you look for in an entrepreneur/CEO? 

12:11 How should entrepreneurs consider the global economy in their fundraising? 

14:36 Advice for entrepreneurs who want to pitch Stellaris   

👇 EPISODE LINKS:  

- Stellaris Venture Partners: https://www.stellarisvp.com/

- Rahul Chowdhri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulchowdhri/ 

SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: 

- Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

- Don't miss an episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio

Predicting a game's success during concept or development is an incredibly difficult problem. What are typical ways companies, especially big companies think about and manage their green light process?  

What kinds of corporate nonsense occurs that hurts game outcomes?

SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS:

- Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/34hfOtv

- Spotify Podcast: https://spoti.fi/3Cpyq7i

- Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

- Don't miss an episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio 😃

—CONNECT WITH ME! —

• MY INSTAGRAM → @jokim1

• TWITTER      → @jokim1

• LINKEDIN      → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jokim/

— POPULAR CONTENT —

🤑 Economy of the Metaverse with Tim Sweeney

https://youtu.be/h6ClJxjuRvw

ℹ️ How to Build the Amazon of Game Companies

https://youtu.be/bkd2TOpKt4I

🔮 Gaming Trends | A Look Ahead at 2021

https://youtu.be/NejFzHtpiZI

🖥️ The Future of PC Gaming

https://youtu.be/_QT7O3Wxi2s

🔴 Games Industry M&A

https://youtu.be/65nyPk6WNrs

🔴 Netcode for Multiplayer Games

https://youtu.be/tHq3PzmjhLw

🔴 IDFA Deprecation Product Impact

https://youtu.be/Ojec4wGKpso

🔴 Trip Hawkins on the New High Score

https://youtu.be/5egTSQ6AiRA

🔴 LiveOps F2P Best Practices

https://youtu.be/tmzqqnYbjNY

Today's focus will be on the F2P game design discipline. How it’s evolved, what does it take to be successful as a game designer, the tools and practice of a F2P game designer, and where does John think the future is headed for F2P game design.

👇 EPISODE LINKS:  

- PlaySimple Games: https://playsimple.in/

- John Kelly LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-kelly-99b3966/ 

SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: 

- Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

- Don't miss an episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio

I interview Matthew Emery aka "The Games Consultant" about what it means to build a F2P liveops "Playbook."  

Listen to this Q&A between me and Matt!  

SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: 

- Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/34hfOtv

- Spotify Podcast: https://spoti.fi/3Cpyq7i

- Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

- Don't miss an episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio 

OUTLINE: 

0:00 Intro 

1:01 Matt's 19-Year Background & Current Business 

2:24 High-Level Framework for Thinking About LiveOps: How to Survive?

12:57 Coming Up With Improvement Initiatives 

15:39 How to Gauge Initiative Impact Through Multi-Variate/Split Testing? Stat-sig or Not? 

19:00 New Game Dev vs. Live Operated Games 

21:50 What Should a Live-ops "Playbook" Include? 

27:12 Biggest Mistakes & Learnings from Matt's Experience 

30:10 Recommendations on Critical Best Practices / High ROI Areas 

33:48 Why Aggressiveness is Critical in Multivariate Testing? 

37:38 Final Recommendations - Need to Understand UA, Why CPI Goes Up?  

👇 EPISODE LINKS:  

- Matt Emery: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewemery/

- IAP Merchandising Playbook #1| Special Offers that Sizzle: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iap-merchandising-playbook-part-1-special-offers-matthew/

- IAP Merchandising Playbook #2| Visual Hierarchy: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iap-merchandising-playbook-part-2-visual-hierarchy-matthew/

- IAP Merchandising Playbook #3| MVP Store Design: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iap-merchandising-playbook-part-3-mvp-store-design-matthew/?trackingId=vtcxmGEzQWK04H3PDuD2lw%3D%3D 

😃 —CONNECT WITH ME! —  

• MY INSTAGRAM → @jokim1 

• TWITTER      → @jokim1 

• LINKEDIN      → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jokim/

Drew Levin is currently Director of Product at Riot Games and before that a Director of Product Management at Zynga.  

Zynga vs. Riot: two companies with wildly different approaches to game development, decision-making, and a culture of debate and discussion. Even more, Drew worked as a political campaign manager before game development.  

I believe Drew is uniquely experienced in speaking very deeply about different cultures and approaches to having constructive debates within a corporate context.  However, more broadly, in our talk today, we discuss the following:     

- #1. The problem at many companies focused on winning vs. discussion and seeking truth     

- #2. Impact of company culture      

- #3. Specific techniques to facilitate more constructive discussions     

- #4. Ideas and ways in which we can improve discussions

👇 EPISODE LINKS:  

- Drew Levin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-levin-7a225626/

- Adam Grant, "How to Argue about Abortion": https://adamgrant.bulletin.com/how-to-argue-about-abortion/

- Paul Saffo on Strong Opinions, Weakly Held: https://www.saffo.com/02008/07/26/strong-opinions-weakly-held/

- AORs by Asana: https://wavelength.asana.com/workstyle-aors/ 

SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: 

- Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/34hfOtv

- Spotify Podcast: https://spoti.fi/3Cpyq7i

- Newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

- Don't miss an episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio

Get the data and read the more in-depth take here: https://gamemakers.substack.com/p/will-dislyte-be-liliths-next-big

We talk about Lilith Games' latest mobile game: Dislyte. It's a "team battle" (game sub-genre) based mobile game that started strong but has recently slowed down. What are the chances of success?  

We bring on two experts who recently covered Dislyte 

#1. Harshal Karvande, Lead Game Designer at Rovio & Naavik Pro Contributor who wrote a deconstruction report on Dislyte and 

#2. Teemu Palomaki, Chief Game Analyst at GameRefinery who recently hosted a webinar on Dislyte. 

Finally, I asked Junde Yu from data.ai to show us the data associated with the game.  

OUTLINE: 

0:00 Intro 

1:33 Dislyte Data Report 

9:19 Performance Drivers 

21:12 IP & Other Risks  

29:02 Lilith Games Backstory  

33:24 Tech & Battle Mechanics 

38:42 PVE vs. PVP 

44:38 Longer Term Outlook 

50:00 Future Expectations   

😃 —CONNECT WITH ME! —  

• MY INSTAGRAM → @jokim1 

• TWITTER      → @jokim1 

• LINKEDIN      → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jokim/