Mobile Mavens

Our panel of experts drawn from all sectors of the mobile gaming industry

Featured

How do you know when your game is ready to launch? GOOD ENOUGH TO GO Apr 10th, 2015

How do you know when your game is ready to launch?

Advice, tricks and tips from the Indie Mavens

Andrew Armstrong Founder Fermenter Games
Andy Sum Co-founder Hipster Whale
Ben Murch Co-Founder Perchang
Chris Savory Designer Savory Games
Constantin Graf Designer Rebus Mind
Dan Menard CEO Double Stallion
Francois Alliot Designer Nerial
Graham Reid Designer Graham Reid
Greg Dawson PR PagodaWest Games
Jon Ingold Creative Director Inkle Studios

Jon's focus is on content, working from the initial outline, through the development of the authoring tools, to the writing and scripting of final content.

Previously, Jon was a lead designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and before that a secondary school teacher, so he loves to talk. He's a published author of short stories and over a decade's worth of award-winning interactive fiction.

 

Jyri Kilpelainen Designer Jyri Kilpelainen
Kepa Auwae Business / Design RocketCat Games
Nathan Fouts Founder Mommy's Best Games
Niels Monshouwer Business Developer WeirdBeard
Paul Kilduff-Taylor Managing Director Mode 7 Games
Pontus Lunden CEO Double Zero One Zero
Richard Perrin Owner Locked Door Puzzle
Shawn Allen Founder Nuchallenger
Vadim Starygin Founder Elite Games

Recent articles

Is the mobile games industry now mature? PRESENT TENSE Mar 30th, 2015

Is the mobile games industry now mature?

Mobile Mavens consider the case for future disruption

Christopher Kassulke CEO HandyGames
David MacQueen Executive Director Strategy Analytics
Harry Holmwood CEO Marvelous Europe

A games programmer before joining Sony’s early PlayStation team in 1994, he then founded developer Pure Entertainment, which IPO’d and launched a free-to-play online gaming service way back in 1999.

He was also a director of pioneering motion gaming startup In2Games, which was sold to a US group in 2008.

Along the way, he’s been a corporate VP, troubleshooter, and non-exec to a variety of companies and investors in and around the games sector.

Harry was European CEO of Marvelous AQL, a Japanese developer and publisher of social, mobile and console games, known for console games like No More Heroes and Harvest Moon, but now highly successful in the free-to-play mobile and web space in Japan and Asia.

Harry is CEO of Magicave.

Jas Purewal Lawyer & Partner Purewal & Partners
Jon Hare Owner Tower Studios

Jon Hare is one of Europe's best known creative directors and game designers with over 10 international number one games to his name and nearly 30 years of experience in the games industry.

Jon co-founded and managed the legendary 1980/90s development company Sensible Software, creating games such as Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder and Wizball to great critical acclaim and commercial success and has also worked in senior posts in two of the UK's biggest games developer/publishers Codemasters and Jagex.

Since 1999 Jon has been one of the top game design and business development consultants in Europe working for many different publishing and development clients.

His own new company Tower Studios specializes in developing, publishing and licensing games on mobile and digital formats enjoying recent international success with the release of Speedball 2 Evolution and Word Explorer across numerous mobile and digital platforms.

Jon has also been a full BAFTA member for over 10 years, serving on the BAFTA Games Committee and is a regular Chairman of juries for BAFTA Games awards, as well as acting in a mentor capacity for both BAFTA and NESTA.

Kevin Corti Principal Spidershed Media
Oscar Clark Chief Strategy Officer Fundamentally Games

Oscar Clark has been a pioneer in online, mobile, and console social games services since 1998. He is also author of the book, Games As A Service – How Free To Play Design Can Make Better Games.

Paul Farley CEO / Founder Firestoke Games

Since founding Tag Games in 2006 Paul has built the studio from humble beginnings to become one of the most respected and successful mobile and handheld developers in Europe.

He began a long, and some might say, distinguished, games industry career at legendary developer DMA Design, playing a key role in the development of the GTA series

Scott Foe Chief Product Officer Ignited Artists
William D. Volk Chief Futurist Forward Reality
Indies Mavens debate whether Nintendo should go paid or F2P? NO NICKLES, NO DIMES Mar 27th, 2015

Indies Mavens debate whether Nintendo should go paid or F2P?

How to revive a classic business?

Justin Smith Developer Justin Smith
Leanne Bayley Developer We Heart Dragons
Paul Kilduff-Taylor Managing Director Mode 7 Games
Pavel Ahafonau Co-founder Happymagenta
Richard Perrin Owner Locked Door Puzzle
Shawn Allen Founder Nuchallenger
Yann Seznec Founder Lucky Frame
The challenges and opportunities for Nintendo as it makes the great leap to mobile SWOT Mar 25th, 2015

The challenges and opportunities for Nintendo as it makes the great leap to mobile

The Monetization Mavens consider the u-turn

Ben Cousins Vice President, Studios FRVR

Ben is a 15-year veteran of the games industry - he's worked as a senior executive, studio head, project lead, creative director and game designer at companies like DeNA, EA, Sony and Lionhead.

He started working on traditional games, but has been focussed on the free-to-play business model since 2006 - an extremely long time by western standards. During that time He's worked on a total of ten separate free-to-play games across five different platforms reaching over 50 million users.

Ethan Levy Monetization design consultant, writer of FamousAspect.com
Jon Walsh President Upsight
Jordan Blackman CEO Bright Black Associates

Jordan Blackman is a lead designer and producer with over ten years of experience designing, producing, and managing hit content for companies like Zynga, Ubisoft, NovaLogic, & Disney.

Over 80 million people have played games that Jordan worked on as either a producer or designer.

Jordan’s credits include Lead Designer on FrontierVille & CastleVille, Senior Producer and Original Concept on CSI: Crime City (Facebook), Producer on Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, and Writer on Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising.

Kevin Oke F2P Design and Production Consultant
Mark Robinson CEO DeltaDNA

With over 15 years’ data mining experience, Mark co-founded deltaDNA, formerly GamesAnalytics, to unlock big data to drive player understanding, introducing the concept of Player Relationship Management to build better games.

Tim Rachor Creative Director Evil Grog Games GmbH
Tom Farrell Marketing director Swrve
How will Nintendo's beloved franchises go F2P? IT'S ME MARIO! Mar 17th, 2015

How will Nintendo's beloved franchises go F2P?

Mobile Mavens debate Nintendo's entry to mobile games

Andreas Vahsen CEO / CCO / Game Economist MachineWorks Northwest
Christopher Kassulke CEO HandyGames
Dan Gray Chief Creative Officer Ustwo games
Dave Castelnuovo Owner Bolt Creative
David MacQueen Executive Director Strategy Analytics
Eros Resmini Head of Marketing The Mini Fund
Harry Holmwood CEO Marvelous Europe

A games programmer before joining Sony’s early PlayStation team in 1994, he then founded developer Pure Entertainment, which IPO’d and launched a free-to-play online gaming service way back in 1999.

He was also a director of pioneering motion gaming startup In2Games, which was sold to a US group in 2008.

Along the way, he’s been a corporate VP, troubleshooter, and non-exec to a variety of companies and investors in and around the games sector.

Harry was European CEO of Marvelous AQL, a Japanese developer and publisher of social, mobile and console games, known for console games like No More Heroes and Harvest Moon, but now highly successful in the free-to-play mobile and web space in Japan and Asia.

Harry is CEO of Magicave.

Jared Steffes Co-founder Muxy
Jason Citron CEO Discord
John Ozimek Co-founder Big Games Machine

John is co-founder of PR and marketing company Big Ideas Machine. Also an all-round nice guy...

Paul Farley CEO / Founder Firestoke Games

Since founding Tag Games in 2006 Paul has built the studio from humble beginnings to become one of the most respected and successful mobile and handheld developers in Europe.

He began a long, and some might say, distinguished, games industry career at legendary developer DMA Design, playing a key role in the development of the GTA series

Phil Larsen MD Prettygreat
Scott Foe Chief Product Officer Ignited Artists
Thomas Nielsen Osao Games
Will Luton Founder/CPO Village Studio Games Village Studio
William D. Volk Chief Futurist Forward Reality
Forget monetisation - F2P success is all about retention and engagement HEART OF THE MATTER Mar 17th, 2015

Forget monetisation - F2P success is all about retention and engagement

Monetizer Mavens rethink their core

Adrian Crook Founder Adrian Crook & Associates
Ben Cousins Vice President, Studios FRVR

Ben is a 15-year veteran of the games industry - he's worked as a senior executive, studio head, project lead, creative director and game designer at companies like DeNA, EA, Sony and Lionhead.

He started working on traditional games, but has been focussed on the free-to-play business model since 2006 - an extremely long time by western standards. During that time He's worked on a total of ten separate free-to-play games across five different platforms reaching over 50 million users.

Dimitar Draganov Director Product BoomBit Games

A game design and monetization analyst with professional gaming background and degrees in Social Sciences, Economics and Probabilities and Statistics, Dimitar also writes the Freemium Game Designs blog.

Jon Walsh President Upsight
Justin Stolzenberg Director, Product & Monetization Flaregames
Mark Robinson CEO DeltaDNA

With over 15 years’ data mining experience, Mark co-founded deltaDNA, formerly GamesAnalytics, to unlock big data to drive player understanding, introducing the concept of Player Relationship Management to build better games.

Mark Sorrell Consultant
Michail Katkoff Founder of DeconstructorofFun.com
Nicholas Lovell Director Gamesbrief
Devs debate Unity 5 vs Unreal Engine 4 and Source 2 REVVED UP Mar 13th, 2015

Devs debate Unity 5 vs Unreal Engine 4 and Source 2

The Indie Mavens talk engines

Andy Wallace Developer Andy Wallace
Avetis Zakharyan CEO UnderwaterApps
Dan Menard CEO Double Stallion
Kepa Auwae Business / Design RocketCat Games
Pavel Ahafonau Co-founder Happymagenta
Richard Perrin Owner Locked Door Puzzle
Shawn Allen Founder Nuchallenger
Vadim Starygin Founder Elite Games
Burberry, Lamborghini, Hairdressers... It's the $10,000 Apple Watch question SENDING A MESSAGE Mar 11th, 2015

Burberry, Lamborghini, Hairdressers... It's the $10,000 Apple Watch question

How bling our the Mobile Mavens?

Andreas Vahsen CEO / CCO / Game Economist MachineWorks Northwest
Christopher Kassulke CEO HandyGames
Dave Castelnuovo Owner Bolt Creative
Harry Holmwood CEO Marvelous Europe

A games programmer before joining Sony’s early PlayStation team in 1994, he then founded developer Pure Entertainment, which IPO’d and launched a free-to-play online gaming service way back in 1999.

He was also a director of pioneering motion gaming startup In2Games, which was sold to a US group in 2008.

Along the way, he’s been a corporate VP, troubleshooter, and non-exec to a variety of companies and investors in and around the games sector.

Harry was European CEO of Marvelous AQL, a Japanese developer and publisher of social, mobile and console games, known for console games like No More Heroes and Harvest Moon, but now highly successful in the free-to-play mobile and web space in Japan and Asia.

Harry is CEO of Magicave.

John Ozimek Co-founder Big Games Machine

John is co-founder of PR and marketing company Big Ideas Machine. Also an all-round nice guy...

Kevin Corti Principal Spidershed Media
Oscar Clark Chief Strategy Officer Fundamentally Games

Oscar Clark has been a pioneer in online, mobile, and console social games services since 1998. He is also author of the book, Games As A Service – How Free To Play Design Can Make Better Games.

Vladimir Funtikov Co-Founder Creative Mobile
William D. Volk Chief Futurist Forward Reality
Indie Mavens on the value of GDC for contacts, trends and great burritos BIG SHOW Feb 27th, 2015

Indie Mavens on the value of GDC for contacts, trends and great burritos

Time for San Francisco

Avetis Zakharyan CEO UnderwaterApps
Dan Menard CEO Double Stallion
Eline Muijres Producer Game Oven
Justin Smith Developer Justin Smith
Mike Rose PR Manager and Developer Relations Ripstone
Nicolas Barrière Designer Double Stallion
Richard Perrin Owner Locked Door Puzzle
Why indies should be more open about personal finance and development costs MOBILE MAVENS Feb 17th, 2015

Why indies should be more open about personal finance and development costs

It's not all about success stories

Avetis Zakharyan CEO UnderwaterApps
Christian West Developer Christian West
Dan Menard CEO Double Stallion
Leanne Bayley Developer We Heart Dragons
Paul Kilduff-Taylor Managing Director Mode 7 Games
Pavel Ahafonau Co-founder Happymagenta
Richard Perrin Owner Locked Door Puzzle
Shawn Allen Founder Nuchallenger
Vadim Starygin Founder Elite Games
What advice would you give a F2P developer without $500,000 for UA? THE ROAD AHEAD Feb 9th, 2015

What advice would you give a F2P developer without $500,000 for UA?

Our Mavens debate broken app stores, crippling UA costs and a misguided bar for success

Adam Telfer Consultant MobileFreeToPlay

Adam has been in the mobile game industry since 2007, creating games independently. He's since grown into a full 50+ person studio manager.

Recently he's taken a position at Wooga in Berlin to sharpen his design skills and work with the world's best to create amazing, well-crafted products onto the mobile marketplace.

Christopher Kassulke CEO HandyGames
Dave Castelnuovo Owner Bolt Creative
David MacQueen Executive Director Strategy Analytics
Harry Holmwood CEO Marvelous Europe

A games programmer before joining Sony’s early PlayStation team in 1994, he then founded developer Pure Entertainment, which IPO’d and launched a free-to-play online gaming service way back in 1999.

He was also a director of pioneering motion gaming startup In2Games, which was sold to a US group in 2008.

Along the way, he’s been a corporate VP, troubleshooter, and non-exec to a variety of companies and investors in and around the games sector.

Harry was European CEO of Marvelous AQL, a Japanese developer and publisher of social, mobile and console games, known for console games like No More Heroes and Harvest Moon, but now highly successful in the free-to-play mobile and web space in Japan and Asia.

Harry is CEO of Magicave.

John Griffin CMO GameSparks
Jon Hare Owner Tower Studios

Jon Hare is one of Europe's best known creative directors and game designers with over 10 international number one games to his name and nearly 30 years of experience in the games industry.

Jon co-founded and managed the legendary 1980/90s development company Sensible Software, creating games such as Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder and Wizball to great critical acclaim and commercial success and has also worked in senior posts in two of the UK's biggest games developer/publishers Codemasters and Jagex.

Since 1999 Jon has been one of the top game design and business development consultants in Europe working for many different publishing and development clients.

His own new company Tower Studios specializes in developing, publishing and licensing games on mobile and digital formats enjoying recent international success with the release of Speedball 2 Evolution and Word Explorer across numerous mobile and digital platforms.

Jon has also been a full BAFTA member for over 10 years, serving on the BAFTA Games Committee and is a regular Chairman of juries for BAFTA Games awards, as well as acting in a mentor capacity for both BAFTA and NESTA.

Kevin Corti Principal Spidershed Media
Oscar Clark Chief Strategy Officer Fundamentally Games

Oscar Clark has been a pioneer in online, mobile, and console social games services since 1998. He is also author of the book, Games As A Service – How Free To Play Design Can Make Better Games.

Scott Foe Chief Product Officer Ignited Artists
Vladimir Funtikov Co-Founder Creative Mobile
Will Luton Founder/CPO Village Studio Games Village Studio
William D. Volk Chief Futurist Forward Reality
Do discovery issues mean Steam is now better than mobile for indies? HOT AIR Jan 29th, 2015

Do discovery issues mean Steam is now better than mobile for indies?

Our Indie Mavens debate price, community and impact

Asher Vollmer Asher Vollmer
Dan Menard CEO Double Stallion
Jon Ingold Creative Director Inkle Studios

Jon's focus is on content, working from the initial outline, through the development of the authoring tools, to the writing and scripting of final content.

Previously, Jon was a lead designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and before that a secondary school teacher, so he loves to talk. He's a published author of short stories and over a decade's worth of award-winning interactive fiction.

 

Kepa Auwae Business / Design RocketCat Games
Leanne Bayley Developer We Heart Dragons
Nathan Vella Co-founder / President Capy Games
Shawn Allen Founder Nuchallenger
[Updated] Mobile Mavens on their hopes and fears for 2015 MOBILE MAVENS Jan 21st, 2015

[Updated] Mobile Mavens on their hopes and fears for 2015

From smartwatches and YouTubers to UA, clones and HTML5

Christopher Kassulke CEO HandyGames
David MacQueen Executive Director Strategy Analytics
Dmitry Terekhin CEO Nekki

In 2002 Dmitry Terekhin founded Moscow-based Nekki with a focus on creating original, quality gaming content for mobile and social platforms.

The company has released the popular games Shadow Fight, Shadow Fight 2, Vector, and others, earning more than 160 million installs to date.

Dmitry graduated from the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute with a degree in mathematics and systematic programming, and received his MBA from the Skolkovo School of Management in 2014.

Harry Holmwood CEO Marvelous Europe

A games programmer before joining Sony’s early PlayStation team in 1994, he then founded developer Pure Entertainment, which IPO’d and launched a free-to-play online gaming service way back in 1999.

He was also a director of pioneering motion gaming startup In2Games, which was sold to a US group in 2008.

Along the way, he’s been a corporate VP, troubleshooter, and non-exec to a variety of companies and investors in and around the games sector.

Harry was European CEO of Marvelous AQL, a Japanese developer and publisher of social, mobile and console games, known for console games like No More Heroes and Harvest Moon, but now highly successful in the free-to-play mobile and web space in Japan and Asia.

Harry is CEO of Magicave.

Jared Steffes Co-founder Muxy
Jas Purewal Lawyer & Partner Purewal & Partners
John Griffin CMO GameSparks
John Ozimek Co-founder Big Games Machine

John is co-founder of PR and marketing company Big Ideas Machine. Also an all-round nice guy...

Kevin Corti Principal Spidershed Media
Oscar Clark Chief Strategy Officer Fundamentally Games

Oscar Clark has been a pioneer in online, mobile, and console social games services since 1998. He is also author of the book, Games As A Service – How Free To Play Design Can Make Better Games.

Scott Foe Chief Product Officer Ignited Artists
Will Luton Founder/CPO Village Studio Games Village Studio
William D. Volk Chief Futurist Forward Reality
Indie Mavens debate Monument Valley and piracy levels on Google Play MOBILE MAVENS Jan 14th, 2015

Indie Mavens debate Monument Valley and piracy levels on Google Play

Dan Menard CEO Double Stallion
Jon Ingold Creative Director Inkle Studios

Jon's focus is on content, working from the initial outline, through the development of the authoring tools, to the writing and scripting of final content.

Previously, Jon was a lead designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and before that a secondary school teacher, so he loves to talk. He's a published author of short stories and over a decade's worth of award-winning interactive fiction.

 

Justin Smith Developer Justin Smith
Paul Kilduff-Taylor Managing Director Mode 7 Games
Pavel Ahafonau Co-founder Happymagenta
Simon Smith CEO / Owner thumbfood
Vadim Starygin Founder Elite Games
When it comes to monetization in 2015, we have all the questions... STATE OF PLAY Jan 13th, 2015

When it comes to monetization in 2015, we have all the questions...

Monetizer Mavens on the unknowns

Adrian Crook Founder Adrian Crook & Associates
Ben Cousins Vice President, Studios FRVR

Ben is a 15-year veteran of the games industry - he's worked as a senior executive, studio head, project lead, creative director and game designer at companies like DeNA, EA, Sony and Lionhead.

He started working on traditional games, but has been focussed on the free-to-play business model since 2006 - an extremely long time by western standards. During that time He's worked on a total of ten separate free-to-play games across five different platforms reaching over 50 million users.

Ethan Levy Monetization design consultant, writer of FamousAspect.com
Jordan Blackman CEO Bright Black Associates

Jordan Blackman is a lead designer and producer with over ten years of experience designing, producing, and managing hit content for companies like Zynga, Ubisoft, NovaLogic, & Disney.

Over 80 million people have played games that Jordan worked on as either a producer or designer.

Jordan’s credits include Lead Designer on FrontierVille & CastleVille, Senior Producer and Original Concept on CSI: Crime City (Facebook), Producer on Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, and Writer on Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising.

Justin Stolzenberg Director, Product & Monetization Flaregames
Mark Robinson CEO DeltaDNA

With over 15 years’ data mining experience, Mark co-founded deltaDNA, formerly GamesAnalytics, to unlock big data to drive player understanding, introducing the concept of Player Relationship Management to build better games.

Michail Katkoff Founder of DeconstructorofFun.com
Mitchell Smallman Next Games

Mitchell Smallman is a Product Manager for Rovio Entertainment and a veteran of the free

2014 in Review: Monetizer Mavens on Hearthstone, chart stasis, and waiting for the next big change MONETIZER MAVENS Dec 29th, 2014

2014 in Review: Monetizer Mavens on Hearthstone, chart stasis, and waiting for the next big change

Future trends from the remembrance of things past

Eric Seufert UA consultant

Author of Freemium Economics, published by Elsevier in 2014: http://amzn.to/19zaPQB

Owner / Editor at Mobile Dev Memo: http://mobiledevmemo.com

Ethan Levy Monetization design consultant, writer of FamousAspect.com
Jon Walsh President Upsight
Jordan Blackman CEO Bright Black Associates

Jordan Blackman is a lead designer and producer with over ten years of experience designing, producing, and managing hit content for companies like Zynga, Ubisoft, NovaLogic, & Disney.

Over 80 million people have played games that Jordan worked on as either a producer or designer.

Jordan’s credits include Lead Designer on FrontierVille & CastleVille, Senior Producer and Original Concept on CSI: Crime City (Facebook), Producer on Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, and Writer on Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising.

Mark Robinson CEO DeltaDNA

With over 15 years’ data mining experience, Mark co-founded deltaDNA, formerly GamesAnalytics, to unlock big data to drive player understanding, introducing the concept of Player Relationship Management to build better games.

Mark Sorrell Consultant
Michail Katkoff Founder of DeconstructorofFun.com
Mikkel Celinder Owner, AppCrimes.com
Nicholas Lovell Director Gamesbrief
Tim Rachor Creative Director Evil Grog Games GmbH
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