A common theme repeated by many of the speakers at Pocket Gamer Connect San Francisco 2015 was the ever increasing need for developers to partner with existing and identifiable brands.
Jeremy Horn is the General Manager of US developer TinyCo, which is best known for its work on Fox's Family Guy: Quest for Stuff games.
During his talk on "How to stand out in the Free-to-Play market", Horn explained why finding a brand to partner with is not only good for developers but also good for consumers.
Some hard truths
"If you want to be found, you are going to have to pay a lot in UA," Horn started.
The number commonly thrown around is the cost of $3 per install. On top of that Horn added, the branded games market is also now saturated
Faced with such mountains to overcome, finding a partner is now the key to success, he argued.
The first step in finding a brand starts with some internal soul searching. What are the brands you and your co-workers love?
Horn stressed that IP holders need to believe that you care about their brand. Horn asked "Why should they trust you?"
You need to have people on staff who can answer that question, who love the brand. If you don't, Horn urged, "...hire that person."
Best of brands
Horn then identified the various tiers of brands and how to handle them.
What are the brands you and your co-workers love?
First was the "Top Tier - Saturated": a market of well-know branded games that already has 20-30 live titles.
He then remarked on what he called was "Top Tier - Unserved".
His example was to take the success of Kim Kardashian and say, create a game for male audiences modeled around a celebrity like Vin Diesel.
Finally he mentioned the brands living in "Low Tier - Unserved".
These are smaller brands but ones that have cult followings and rabid audiences. Horn wagered such audiences would gather around the right product, thus providing the potential for strong Lifetime Value.
Spooky prediction
Horn then made a bet with the audience.
"Supernatural has 2.5-3 million viewers, with no mobile presence," he told the crowd.
He believes the long-running show has true untapped potential for mobile games and whoever gets this brand will be able to have success.
After securing a brand, Horn pointed out there's then the small issue of building a great game.
However, he warns, "You only have nine months to get a game from the start to in your hands of the player".
Many other speakers shared this view on the acceptable time-to-market. Any longer and all your prediction and models will no longer be applicable.
