Appcharge VP of business development Miikka Luotio has worked in the industry since 2005, shipping more than 16 games to date. He's previously held roles at Xsolla, SuperScale, Tilting Point, Flaregames, Rovio, Popcap, Wooga and Digital Chocolate. He's currently helping build and scale Appcharge's direct-to-consumer, white-label sales platform.
Luotio is one of more than 250 expert speakers delivering 29 conference tracks at Pocket Gamer Connects London on January 22nd to 23rd, and will be hosting a session on the Global Trends track entitled 'The Future of web Stores: AI Personalisation & Gamified Sales'. He'll also be a panelist for the Webstore Wizadry session 'Web Stores - The Next Stage of Growth for Mobile Games'.
Ahead of his appearance at Pocket Gamer Connects, we asked Luotio to tell us more about his upcoming session and get his opinions on the latest industry trends.
PocketGamer.biz: If you could give other mobile games companies one piece of advice, what would it be?
Miikka Luotio: Start planning and developing your own Publisher ID system, this will help prepare your games for direct to consumer sales and future proof your business overall.
Owning your player base will become key in the future as this will also make it easier to attribute revenue for things such as user acquisition and more.
What do you think the next big disruptor in mobile games will be?
Revenue transitioning off mobile platforms to direct-to-consumer sales. Many of the largest mobile publishers are forecasting transition of up to 30% to 40% of their revenues outside the app stores and some are already seeing these numbers from last year.
What is the single biggest challenge facing the mobile games industry today?
Narrowing of publisher margins. This can be attributed to rising costs of UA, difficulty of attribution, non-flexible platform fees & economic situation / inflation. All these aspects are driving publishers to look into direct-to-consumer now more than ever.
What is the most overhyped trend from the last 12 months - and why?
Web3 economics in mobile games. The mass market is just not ready for the complexities of NFTs and blockchain and thus for the timebeing still remain as high friction mechanics, which narrow the audience of web3 games significantly, preventing from reaching the scale mobile games enjoy today.
What do you enjoy most about working in the mobile games industry?
Just when you think we've reached an innovation plateau, a new trend pops up. Working in mobile games is and was never boring. It’s the fastest moving games segment in the industry.
Also, mobile devices are evolving and so are the ways people use their mobile devices - that makes it hard to predict the future, but also fun at the same time.
Can people get in touch with you at the event?
Yes, they can find me at the event and in the meet to match system. My email is also a good way to contact me to arrange a chat: miikka@appcharge.com.
What sort of people would you like to connect with?
Mobile game publisher executives that are interested in learning more about direct-to-consumer sales or already have an existing D2C strategy in place.
I am here to share my thoughts and experience openly with the mobile game community. We could all benefit from more knowledge sharing especially with new trends such as web stores.
Meet Luotio at PG Connects London
Not only will you have the chance to see Luotio take part in one of our sessions, but you can also arrange to meet him at PG Connects London. Our online organiser MeetToMatch is free to all event attendees, connecting you directly with more than 2,500 decision makers from the global games industry.
As well as the 29-track conference schedule, the two-day event also features a series of side-events like The Very Big Indie Pitch, Publisher SpeedMatch, Investor Connector and a host of other networking opportunities all aimed at helping you level up your skills and business.
