As part of Pocket Gamer Connects London 2018, PlayFab general manager for Europe Mark Val led a panel of developers in a discussion on live ops.

Joining him were:

GameSparks producer Paul Conway;
Space Ape live operations director Andrew Munden;
Sybo head of games Daniel Persson;
I Teut You So founder Teut Weidemann, and;
UpCloud CEO Antti Vilpponen.

 On the topic of Facebook Instant Games and whether it can be "the new WeChat", Conway noted that "Messenger is a bit of a hodgepodge", and the games platform is unlikely to take off in the same way in the app's current form.

Burnout

As for building a live ops team without burning out, Persson suggested changing up the teams to keep ideas fresh – he recommended "swapping out leaders" to avoid them burning out, and giving them the chance to refresh another team with their thoughts.

But Weidemann warned that it can be difficult ensuring the new staff and teams coming into live ops have the knowledge of the game, so that there's no change in service and the game remains at the highest possible quality.

Munden warned that despite having plans for the next year on some games at Space Ape, "things are going to change," and he is keen to hammer this home to the rest of the team so that they can quickly adapt to a sudden shift.