Mobile Games Playbook

Social Games are the hot topic for Episode 8 of the Mobile GameDev Playbook, where we delve into understanding what the must-have features that help create global hits are. We are joined by the expertise of Teatime Games who will share the lessons learnt from their amazing success with mobile game 'QuizUp', which has now accumulated over 100 million downloads. 

As well as talking about feature-level specifics, Teatime Games uncovers how they reached the top of the US App Charts in only two weeks with 2 million users, as well as their recent success with their brand new game, Trivia Royale. From avatars and AR emoticons, to chat rooms and other social mechanics, this episode explores why social features in games could be the missing piece in the puzzle for developers looking to maximise their game's success and monetisation. 

Host Jon Jordan is joined by GameRefinery's Chief Analyst Erno Kiiski and special guest Thor Fridriksson, CEO of Teatime Games. 

Thanks for listening! 

Drawing from insights gained from Facebook and GameRefinery's brand new report on mobile gaming genres, this episode of the Mobile GameDev Playbook delves into the popular RPG Genre.  Titled 'Genre and great games - Understanding Audiences and Designing Better Mobile Games', the report provides valuable genre-level insight across mobile games in the US, UK, South Korea and Japan. With a specific eye on RPG’s, the podcast takes an in-depth look at genre fulfilment, community, monetisation and ad preferences for RPG’s. We’re joined by Facebook Gaming to explore the differences and similarities in RPG design across the four main markets as well as what RPG fans are looking for in their games. We'll also be exploring the winning features common to the most popular RPGs and how game developers can build games that their fans will genuinely love. 

GameRefinery's Chief Analyst Joel Julkunen joins host Jon Jordan along with special guest Deon Moh, Gaming Marketing Lead for APAC at Facebook. In this role, he not only drives the B2B marketing strategy for the region but also global gaming marketing initiatives for Facebook with the Genre and Great Games report being one of them.

Take a look at the live report on the GameRefinery website: https://www.gamerefinery.com/genre-and-great-games-report/

Thanks for listening!

Episode 6 of The Mobile GameDev Playbook looks at player archetypes and motivations and how these essential insights are being factored into game development. The podcast explores how game designers develop insight into their player types, as well as some of the most recent developments in player types and motivation metrics. Podcast guests are Rovio and Fundamentally Games, help provide further insight into their own experiences and what they’ve learnt when it comes to designing games for specific audiences. 

Host Jon Jordan is joined by GameRefinery's Chief Analyst Joel Julkunen as well as Kieran O'Leary, Director of Growth for Games at Rovio and Oscar Clark, Chief Strategy Officer at Fundamentally Games. Kieran has many years of experience marketing and growing mobile games, including five years at Gameloft before joining Rovio. Oscar is a well-known hat-wearer in the world of mobile games and is also the author of the book ‘Games as a Service’. 

Thanks for listening!

Join us for Episode 5 of The Mobile GameDev Playbook as we focus the Coronavirus pandemic, how it has impacted developers and how they’ve adapted their games during the last few difficult months. The podcast also examines how the virus has generally affected the mobile gaming industry. We’re also joined by GameAnalytics who unearth some fascinating insights around insights traffic rates, age-specific genre engagement, in-app spending levels, and more. 

Host Jon Jordan is joined by GameRefinery's Chief Analyst Joel Julkunen as well as Iona Hreninciuc, CEO of GameAnalytics. GameAnalytics is an analytics tool for games used by indie developers, games studios and publishers around the world, including 100,000 games which are played by more than 1.75 billion people.

Episode 4 of the Mobile GameDev Playbook takes on casual gaming. Joined by PeopleFun, we are taking a close look at the well-known free-to-play favourite, WordScapes. We delve into understanding what makes this mobile game so successful and what are the lessons learnt from generating over 5000 levels. What's more, we will also discuss how they managed to scale up their content and what their overall business strategy is from a mobile game development perspective.

Host Jon Jordan is joined by GameRefinery's Chief Analyst Joel Julkunen along with special guest Carol Miu, VP of Product & Analytics at US developer PeopleFun. PeopleFun is a US-based mobile game developer company, best known for its games such as Wordscapes, Wordstacks and Word Chums, which have over 29 million MAUs. 

Thanks for listening!

In this episode of the Mobile GameDev Playbook, we take a look into the challenges faced by game developers when working with licensed IP. With a specific focus on design and feature consideration, we also discuss how licenses have affected mobile game sales in different countries, such as the US and China.

Host Jon Jordan is joined by regular guest, GameRefinery's Chief Analyst Joel Julkunen along with special guests Rosemarie Sarno and Stephen Wark, Community specialist and Lead Game Designer at mobile developer Ludia. Ludia has published several titles around well-known IP including Jurassic Park, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dungeons & Dragons. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 2 of the Mobile GameDev Playbook. In this episode, we delve into the Chinese mobile game market, what some of the latest game feature trends are as well as what makes Chinese mobile players tick. This month, host Jon Jordan is joined by regular guest, GameRefinery’s Chief Analyst Joel Julkunen along with special guests Georges Dry and Dean Zhao from Chinese game publisher and developer Perfect World. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to the Mobile GameDev Playbook! In this first episode, we review the main game development trends in 2019 and what to expect in 2020! Host Jon Jordan is joined by Chief Game Analyst at GameRefinery Joel Julkunen, and a special guest from Square Enix, Albert Custodio Martinez, to provide insights into what makes a good mobile game.