Kongregate shakes up its management, King partners with Snapchat, and Adam Telfer talks deconstructing games
Breaking down games to determine why they're interesting is something that all game designers should be doing if they want to make a successful game, but Adam Telfer takes it to the next level.
Our interview with him on how he chooses what games to study and how he goes about it caught everyone's eye last week, making it the most read article of the week.
Second on our Hot Five is the news that King is offering Snapchat filters and lenses to Bubble Witch 3 Saga players in a mobile-first partnership deal.
Management, old guard and Conan O'Brien
Thirdly, Kongregate has made a number of hires and promotions to shake up its management, including former InnoGames CFO Markus Lipp as Kongregate's CFO.
Finally, we look at why Japan's mobile gaming market is stagnating, and Conan O'Brien is tapped by Netmarble to promote Lineage 2 Revolution.
Click the link below to find out more about the stories that caught our readers' attention over the last week.
#5: Netmarble taps Conan O'Brien for Lineage 2: Revolution Twitchcon promotion
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Netmarble taps Conan O'Brien for Lineage 2: Revolution Twitchcon promotion »Lineage 2 Revolution is a distinctly Asian MMORPG - the entire Lineage series is still one of the biggest in South Korea, so it makes sense that Netmarble would continute to design for that market.
Yet Netmarble is looking to push the game worldwide over the coming months and that needs some star power. And here's where Conan O'Brien steps in.
The TV show host showed up at TwitchCon to help promote the game for around 15 minutes, cracking jokes and generally drawing in a crowd that may not have been there or tuning in otherwise.
What was also interesting about the livestream overall was that it focused largely on the competitive multiplayer aspect of the game, rather than anything else, most likely to appeal to the Western audience.
#4: After another big year the old guard still dominate Japan's mobile games market
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After another big year the old guard still dominate Japan's mobile games market »Japan is one of the biggest mobile markets in the world, but it is notoriously hard to crack - even if you're an established local developer.
That's what Matt Suckley found during his investigation, in which he notes that the old guard of games are still holding strong years down the line.
"Of the 10 top-grossing Japanese mobile RPGs for the year ending June 2017, one was launched in 2012, three in 2013, three in 2014 and three in 2015," he wrote.
"While RPGs are obviously titles with a longer lifespan than most, especially in Japan where mobile gamers are playing twice as much than those in the US, it's a legitimate concern for the genre's longer-term future that no game in the past two years has managed to break in."
#3: Kongregate expands management team with key appointments
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Kongregate expands management team with key appointments »Cross-platform games publisher Kongregate has expanded its management team with the appointment of a new Chief Financial Officer, VP of Publishing and VP of Marketing and Ad Monetisation.
Former InnoGames CFO Markus Lipp has been named in the same position at Kongregate. He’ll be responsible for building the publisher’s finance and accounting department, as well as being tasked with forecasting and capitalisation modeling.
Kongregate has also promoted Tammy Levy to VP of Publishing. She’ll oversee the company’s cross-platform publishing program for mobile, PC, console and the web. Levy has been at the publisher since 2014, having previously worked at Zynga.
Jeff Gurian meanwhile has been promoted to VP of Marketing and Ad Monetisation. He’s been tasked with managing all aspects of marketing, including user acquisition, PR, CRM, app store optimisation and ad monetisation for mobile and web.
#2: King launches first ever Snapchat content partnership with latest Bubble Witch 3 Saga event
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King launches first ever Snapchat content partnership with latest Bubble Witch 3 Saga event »Cross-app promotions are nothing new - heck, some games actively encourage you to play others should you run out of lives.
But King has decided to do something entirely new and is unlocking new filters and lenses in Snapchat for players of Bubble Witch 3 Saga.
Simply playing the Halloween event in Bubble Witch 3 grants users access to the new filters in Snapchat, up until November 2nd.
These sound pretty nifty too - one features an AR game about popping bubbles with an imaginary wand, while another puts Bubble Witch characters in the real world to mess around with.
#1: How MobileFreeToPlay's Adam Telfer deconstructs games and why you should too
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How MobileFreeToPlay's Adam Telfer deconstructs games and why you should too »Adam Telfer is well known around these parts as the guy who likes to dig deep into the biggest mobile games and work out what actually makes them enjoyable.
So to find out more about his process, we sat him down and asked him a few questions about how he does it, why he does it and what other designers should be doing.
"Usually what I find with games is that my impression of the game's mechanics change over time. I try to challenge my first impressions as much as possible," he said.
"In many cases my first impression is completely changed later down the line. Either a game with amazing polish shows cracks later in playing or a game that I completely discount with a terrible onboarding process grows on me and becomes addictive."