In the world of mobile games, is specialisation a good idea? In the enormous (and still growing) global mobile games market, the success of hypercasual games can be seen as a way to reach the widest possible audience. ultra-low barriers to entry, simple mechanics, topics and trends sourced from social media.
Despite this, there are studios around the world that take a far more focused approach - and can find both commercial success and a loyal user base as a result.
In this week's podcast
In this episode of the PocketGamer.biz podcast, hosts Brian Baglow and Peggy Anne Salz speak to Thomas Jonasson, the head of publishing for Gold Town Games.
Gold Town Games is a Swedish game development studio, based in the town of Skellefteå (which is nicknamed 'gold town' hence the name...) which has found its own niche, with a series of sports management games.
Starting with ice hockey, the studio has gone on to release titles based upon hockey (the non-ice kind), football (as in soccer) and football (as in the American version) and baseball. From a mobile beginning, the studio has taken its success in the sports world into areas including NFTs and Web3.
Thomas explains the studio's approach to design, development, and successfully running their catalogue of games - as well as how the studio explores new sports, the issues around licensing and IP and its approach to keeping players happy and engaged.
About our guest
Depite being a lifelong gamer, Thomas Jonasson is a relatively recent member of the games sector. He studied marketing and economics before moving into web development, SEO and user acquisition within the e-commerce sector.
He joined the games sector around four years ago. His first role in the games sector was with a small Swedish developer, which was acquired by Gold Town Games before it had released its first title.
After joining Gold Town, Thomas was responsible for setting up the publishing division to handle both internal and external titles.
Listen. Learn. Love.
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