Interview

Speaker Spotlight: JoyPac's Jeppe Bisbjerg on the future of hyper-casual games in APAC

"Hyper-casual is not going anywhere, but the genre is morphing quickly and will probably start to incorporate more mature meta-systems to sustain super fans for longer periods"

Speaker Spotlight: JoyPac's Jeppe Bisbjerg on the future of hyper-casual games in APAC

Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019 will take place on January 21st to 22nd. To give you a taste of what to expect, we'll regularly be publishing interviews with the speakers at the show.

For more details on PGC London and to book a ticket, head to the website here.

In today’s speaker spotlight, we’re talking to JoyPac VP of publishing Jeppe Bisbjerg, who will be giving a talk about the past year in the hyper-casual genre in the Asia-Pacific region.

Bisbjerg has over 10 years of industry experience and previously served as head of product on several major titles, such as casual games studio Kiloo’s Subway Surfers, Smash Champs and Spellbinders.

PocketGamer.Biz: Can you tell us a bit about your company?

Jeppe Bisbjerg: JoyPac is a mobile games publisher with offices in Copenhagen and Beijing focusing exclusively on bringing western hyper-casual games to APAC and China.

We offer a transparent and direct full publishing service with localisation,culturalisation, marketing guarantees, monetisation optimisation, tech support, QA, customer relations and reporting.

What does your role entail?

As VP of publishing at JoyPac, I’m tasked with building the best possible publisher experience for western developers bringing their games to market in APAC countries easy, efficiently and with the most exposure possible.

I work on our overall games strategy and publishing pipeline directly with our COO, scouting for new great collaborators and awesome opportunities in the mobile games industry.

Why did you want to work in the games industry?

Games at heart tie together every other entertainment industry into one glorious medium of interaction and audio-visual experiences.

Mobile games specifically offer a platform and market distribution bigger than anything seen previously.

You literally reach the entire world by working in this industry and to me, that's the biggest motivator possible.

What advice would you give to anyone looking to get into it?

Start building games early, even if it is just paper prototypes. Think about your audience, your style and your business.

The process of developing fun games mechanics and prototypes prepares you for the business better than anything else.

What are your thoughts on the industry in the last 12 months?

2018 has been a very interesting year, mostly due to the rapid development pace of hypercasual and casual games.

When developers are releasing new titles every week, it means that new mechanics emerge much, much faster than they used to.

New publishers have been jumping into the fray, but more and more developers are starting to consider self-publishing in the west and looking for distribution in the east.

Other than that, mobile has also turned out to be a very varied platform with hardcore battle-royale games and idle/merging games on one side, and the lightweight ad-monetised games on the other.

What significant trends do you predict in the next 12 months?

Obviously, I believe that there will be a hyper-casual trend in APAC, as mobile advertising matures in these markets as well.

From a publisher perspective, I believe more and more studios will look to self-publish in markets that they know and understand while using publishers to broaden their reach everywhere else.

Hyper-casual is not going anywhere, but the genre is morphing quickly and will probably start to incorporate more mature meta-systems to sustain super fans for longer periods.

Other than that, the platforms and stores need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and decide on how they best want to support the rapidly changing market.

How has the games industry changed since you first started?

In many ways it's the same and in many ways it's completely different.

When I started, free-to-play wasn't a thing yet and every launch was about building momentum and word-of-mouth, hoping for that elusive feature from Apple or Google.

Data-driven design and the maturation of the eco-systems has inherently changed how developers view the market and in turn, what experiences they are designing.

Which part of the Connects event are you most looking forward to and why?

I am looking forward to meeting with old faces as well as new. This industry is filled with creative, fun people and the events are the best place to meet and catch up on current trends.

Find out more about Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019 on the website.