What makes the Finland games scene special, Space Ape Games on making hits and Idle Factory Tycoon hits 4m downloads
The past week saw the Games First Helsinki 2018 conference take place in Finland with Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen on hand to make an opening speech.
According to the Supercell supremo, an open and friendly community is what makes the Finnish games industry special. Clearly there is some weight behind the sentiment as highlights of his speech gave us our most read article of the week.
Keeping with the Games First Helsinki 2018 theme, our second most read article came from a talk by Space Ape product owner Nick Mansdorf. He spoke about how the company now actively empowers small teams to have the freedom they need to make great games.
Tycoons, Angry Birds and IAPs
Elsewhere, Fluffy Fairy’s Idle Factory Tycoon surpassed four million downloads in two weeks.
Also on our Hot Five was the news that Facebook Instant Games bagged the Angry Birds IP and Jam City’s decision to slash the price of its IAPs for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery following an apparent vocal backlash.
#5: Jam City slashes Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery IAPs following player backlash
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Jam City slashes Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery IAPs following player backlash »Jam City’s monetisation model for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery has landed it in a jam indeed, with an apparent wave of vocal negative player-feedback and press attention.
To offset the ill-will, the mobile games developer has begun A/B testing different pricing models.
Players have reported the 130 gems bundle going down to 99p down from £4.99, while others are seeing a drop from £2.99 to 79p for the bundle.
However, some have not been offered a discount at all.
#4: Angry Birds the latest big IP to flock to Facebook Instant Games
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Angry Birds the latest big IP to flock to Facebook Instant Games »As Facebook Instant Games grows, Rovio is the latest company to bring its big IP to the exciting new chat app platform.
The new Angry Birds title was developed by chap app games specialist CoolGames, in partnership with Rovio.
Gameplay features the classic Angry Birds slingshot gameplay with added asynchronous multiplayer functionality built in.
Additionally, the title has a number of game modes and levels and is expected to receive a bunch of new social features over the next few months.
#3: Fluffy Fairy’s Idle Factory Tycoon surpasses four million downloads in two weeks
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Fluffy Fairy’s Idle Factory Tycoon surpasses four million downloads in two weeks »Idle Factory Tycoon has whipped up four million downloads in just two weeks since it launched on mobile.
The factory simulation game allows players to build up their own supply and product chains and is a follow-up to the studio’s previous title Idle Miner Tycoon, which in itself has generated more than 30 million downloads to date.
"We’re overjoyed that players all around the world love Idle Factory Tycoon and are willing to show their love through App Store reviews, direct feedback and social media posts," said Fluffy Fairy co-CEOs Janosch Sadowski and Daniel Stammler.
The game is available on iOS and Android.
#2: Space Ape’s mobile games production funnel: Creating a genre-defining hit
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Space Ape’s mobile games production funnel: Creating a genre-defining hit »Space Ape Games is arguably already a successful studio indeed with more than $70 million in revenue coming in from Rival Kingdoms, Transformers: Earth Wars and Fastlane: Road to Revenge.
But the developer is still out to improve in order to capture that career-defining hit it's been chasing.
In order to do that it has changed how they go about designing titles and now has around 25 per cent of its staff working on live games with the rest are working on six titles across six different genres.
According to Space Ape product owner Nick Mansdorf, this production funnel effectively comes in three phases. Which is; Idea generation and prototyping, proof of concept and agile production.
#1: Ilkka Paananen: Open and friendly community is what makes Finnish games industry special
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Ilkka Paananen: Open and friendly community is what makes Finnish games industry special »According to Supercell boss Ilkka Paananen an open and friendly community is what makes Finlands games industry "really special".
In an opening speech to the sixth annual Games First Helsinki 2018 conference, Paananen said the idea of starting the event was to create a place where people can help each other out and share things they’ve learned.
More specifically, it’s “open to people, new types of ideas and new types of games”.
“Fundamentally I think this results in better games,” he said.