Unlocking The Audience
Unlocking the power of gaming's resilient audience
Unity Operate Solutions VP of revenue Julie Shumkaer digs into the data on "pandemic players"
Pgc Careers Week
Catch up on Careers Week ahead of Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital
Talks and roundtables to help you get a job or find your next great hire
Diversity Matters
POC in Mobile: KingsIsle Entertainment games designer Victoria Brown on the importance of networking
"The more connections and relations that you can build will help open up more opportunities in any job that you would want to pursue"
Past Experience
Opinion: Fall Guys owes some of its explosive success to Mediatonic's mobile expertise
How understanding mass audiences and player retention helped launch 2020's surprise hit
Ai Monetisation
How to improve your mobile game monetization strategy with AI
Yodo1 explains the benefits of using AI in your monetisation
Smiley Face
Live and Kicking: Why retention is key to the success of Disney Emoji Blitz four years on
"If we don't listen to our players and create something worth playing and investing in, we don't deserve them"
Community Engagement
The art of improving your community engagement
Yodo1 looks at getting your players even more involved
Big Better
Zynga on the post-IDFA value of hypercasual mobile games
President of publishing Bernard Kim on market dynamics
Night And Day
Indie Spotlight: Why Cleaversoft founder Rich Siegel thinks going console first is the best route to mobile
"If we had finished one year later, E3 would have been cancelled and EarthNight would not have reached even a fraction of its current audience"
Jobs In Games
Remote Working: Marmalade's CEO Mike Willis and COO Cristina Mereuta discuss balancing work and home life
"Last year, we wouldn't have even tried to have a long strategy debate over the phone"
Meet The Investor
SEGA Europe’s head of content Bobby Wertheim on the advantages of working with SEGA and the potential they bring when raising investment
“Games that have a social element that will allow forging of new relationships as well as deepening existing relationships will likely help people with shielding from the pandemic.”
Diversity Matters
POC in Mobile: Facebook director of games partnerships Leo Olebe explains why it's "everyone’s job to find great and diverse talent"
"It’s like the old saying: 'you have to fish where the fish are'."
Above And Beyond
Making Of: Revolution co-founder Charles Cecil details why a sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky took 26 years to get made
"The game has kept the most extraordinary level of enthusiasm and became a cult adventure game"
Local Servers
What game developers need to know about China's local server requirements
Yodo1 explores the world of local servers and breaks down the advantages of using them
Space And Time
Indie Spotlight: Matt Purchase on developing Interloper only one day a week
"I've always wanted to make games, but I guess you could say I got started via the scenic route"
Last Store Standing
How will Samsung play its new Fortnite exclusivity card?
Galaxy Store has an ace
Three Minutes With Nexon
Three minutes with Nexon
Bango speaks to Nexon team manager Lee WooChang about the studio's UA strategy
Meet The Investor
1Up Ventures’ general partner Ed Fries on their cycle of investment and how raising funds from 1Up Ventures can benefit you
“We like to call 1Up Ventures a community of game developers because we really focus on making strong connections between the founders of the game companies we invest in.”
Jobs In Games
Remote Working: AppLovin director Jerome Turnbull on Machine Zone being acquired in the middle of a pandemic
"At first, it was a challenge to merge two large teams into one cohesive unit in a remote environment"
All Your Bases
Why the best is yet to come for Asian powerhouse Nexon
CEO Owen Mahoney talks geopolitics and secular shifts
Roll With The Punches
Sports and Financial founder Alex Deacon on commiting to premium with Boxing Manager
"I feel like there is a real problem with the inflexibility of pricing options within the App Store"
Diversity Matters
POC in Mobile: Why Sumo Digital's Harinder Sangha believes "change needs to happen at every level of the industry"
"There is no role or level at Sumo where we would not benefit from having more women"
Hard Day's Fortnite
Why is Epic going to war with Apple and Google?
Untangling the mess of the Fortnite mobile debacle
Making Magic
Making match-3 magic: Elevating the genre with IP
Zynga director of product Peter Rosetti on what it takes to bring Harry Potter to match-3
Interview
Square Enix's Karla Reyes on how product management can bring value to your players
"The ‘games as a service’ model will further grow and console games will continue to adopt monetisation and Live Ops models that started in mobile."
The Lightneer Approach
The Voodoo Approach: Lightneer on making the pivot to hyper-casual
"We really like that Lightneer and Voodoo are very aligned on the need to test as frequently as makes sense"
Masterclass
Code Coven's Tara Mustapha on how to get the most from your designers
"Creating elegant frameworks and common languages on a team gives everyone room to focus on the creative magic"
1.5 Million Users
Live and Kicking: How World of Tanks Blitz has battled its way up through the charts for six years
"If your project is successful it bestows some power on you"
China Ua
User Acquisition in China: Capturing the world's largest mobile gaming audience
Yodo1 explains the audience and channels you should be using
Bluff Plus
Interview: How Zynga mixed casual card gaming with strong social mechanics in Bluff Plus
Zynga Turkey general manager Buğra Koç talks us through the design and development
Apple Arcade
Indie Spotlight: How Amanita Design's Radim Jurda created the prototype for Creaks as his diploma thesis
"The games that have impacted me the most are usually indie games"
Jobs In Games
Remote Working: Playrix's Mikhail Klyuev on how to become a game producer
"Make the most of your peak productivity hours and spend this time working with no distractions"
#blacklivesmatter
POC in Mobile: Why Amanotes publishing manager Micke Joseph Moisa believes creative freedom is key to better diversity
"I don’t think people should go the extra mile to prove more than non-coloured people."
Post-idfa Winners
Who will be the winners and losers in the post-IDFA app industry?
Nativex head of sales EMEA Ilya Gitlin explores the potential outcomes of the death of the IDFA
Into The Unknown
Making Of: Glu SVP Mike Olsen on tackling the RPG genre with Disney Sorcerer's Arena
"The player community is critically important to the ongoing development and success"
Question Time
Teatime Games CEO Thor Fridriksson candidly reflects on the failures of QuizUp and Plain Vanilla
"We put a lot of our eggs into one basket and then that basket was squashed"
China Game Removals
Mass delisting by Apple China: Over 26,000 games without ISBN removed
Yodo1 looks at the impact of so many games suddenly disappearing from the App Store
Bringing Back The Dodo
Indie Spotlight: How Moving Pieces pitched Dodo Peak for Apple Arcade
"I think what's really exciting about mobile games right now is that the line is blurring between mobile gaming and games in general"
Masterclasses
GamesConsulting.net’s Nick Murray on game economy design and optimisation
"The balance and design of an economy has a significant impact on not only retention but monetization potential"
Post-idfa
Why are we bullish on contextual post-IDFA?
Fyber president Offer Yehudai looks at what's coming once the IDFA finally dies
Jobs In Games
Remote Working: How studying Creative Advertising inadvertently lead to Joy Marianowicz joining Facebook Gaming
"The course mainly helped me realise that looking at data and coming up with a concrete plan was much more my strength"
Master The Meta
Master the Meta: How Electronic Arts and Roblox are shattering records
News and insights from the Master the Meta team
Tapjoy Offerwall
The evolution of the Tapjoy offerwall on iOS
How Tapjoy has changed its offerwall following Apple's policy changes
#blacklivesmatter
POC in Mobile: Konsole Kingz founder Cj Peters on the need for more representation in games
"Companies big and small need to proactively seek out the diverse talent they desire to have."
Jiminy Cricket
Why Ludia CEO Alex Thabet believes Disney Wonderful Worlds is different from other match-three puzzlers
"Ludia worked closely with Disney in order to bring players a one-of-a-kind gaming experience"
Changing Ads
Interview: AdInMo CEO Kristan Rivers discusses how dynamic in-game advertising can improve revenue and retention
"For developers it's a no-brainer: the benefit of incremental revenue without driving users out of their games is huge."
Eeveelution
Live and Kicking: Four years after launching, Niantic is already planning for Pokémon GO Fest 2030
Niantic senior game designer Matt Ein discusses the mobile giant's four-year anniversary
Html5 Games
HTML5 games: a new way to enter the China market
Yodo1 explores the benefits of developing for HTML5
Big Indie Pitch Winner
Indie Spotlight: Why Mousetrap Games CEO Edward Mężyk believes indies have no boundaries
"I think that without brave indie studios, mobile gaming would be boring"
Indie View
The Big Indie Interviews: Robert Thomson tells us all about Gogogo!'s party game mechanics and being a part of The Big Indie Pitch
Robert Thomson discusses taking third at our recent Big Indie Pitch