Fingersoft’s Otto Simola on a decade of Hill Climb Racing 2

• PG Connects Nordics takes place in Helsinki on October 20th and 21st.
• Simola will look back at a decade of developing Hill Climb Racing 2 as a live game.
• His talk will explore the move from standalone content towards scalable systems for long-term engagement and monetisation.

The mobile games industry will gather in Helsinki for PG Connects Nordics on October 20th and 21st, with developers, publishers and industry experts sharing insights across the two-day event.

Otto Simola, product marketing manager for Hill Climb Racing 2 at Fingersoft, will speak at the event. In his talk, "Hill Climb Racing 2- Ten Years of Dead Ends and Detours," Simola will look back at a decade of evolving the mobile game as a live title.

PocketGamer.biz: Please give us a summary of what you’re speaking about and why it’s important

Otto Simola: In my talk, Hill Climb Racing 2 - Ten Years of Dead Ends and Detours, I’m looking in the rearview mirror at a decade of evolving Hill Climb Racing 2 as a live game.

You'll hear how we moved from building standalone content to scalable systems designed for long-term engagement and monetisation, how identifying growth bottlenecks pushed us to take bigger creative risks, and how understanding the balance between player demand and the game’s supply of meaningful experiences is revealing new directions for the roadmap.

There are some valuable learnings I want to share with the audience about how to keep a mobile game title interesting and living in this ever-changing landscape of the mobile game industry.

What do you think the next big disruptor in mobile games will be?

Geographically very fragmented legislation around mobile games.

Especially for smaller companies, it's getting harder and harder to follow different countries' or areas' regulatory environments, adjust accordingly and find resources to implement all the changes so that the actual game experience won't get altered or completely broken for some users.

What was the fundamental appeal of the mobile games industry that brought you to it?

Like so many others here, I also got into the mobile game industry by a series of accidents, but then I noticed that I get to work in an industry that is always riding on top of a technological wave.

The industry is adopting the new tech and applying it in the most efficient way. Great examples are rewarded videos, which have been around in mobile games for over a decade, but only recently have app businesses learned how efficient these mechanics are at unlocking content for users, keeping them around, and maybe later on getting them to spend real money.

What game from another company do you wish you had worked on?

I'm very much a casual type of player and enjoy simple games like match-three, so that's why I'd say Candy Crush or Royal Match.

It's fascinating how one is able to make hugely engaging mobile games around such a simple game mechanic and actually make it scale in size to what King and Dream Games have been able to do.

What is one way attendees can prepare for your discussion?

First of all, I'm easy to approach and happy to jump into a discussion if by any chance I have time. The chances of a meeting are much better if you know of a bit more calm and quiet place than the main lobby of the venue.

The best way to prepare is to share information openly on what you are offering, how it relates to mobile game marketing (I'm happy to discuss about monetisation as well, but I'm not a decision-maker on that side at the moment), good use cases are always valuable, and also feel free to share good industry insights and trends and you will get the same back from me.