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PGC Digital: East Side Games on how it handles live ops, even when working remotely

CEO Joshua Nilson outlines the company's strategy

PGC Digital: East Side Games on how it handles live ops, even when working remotely

As part of Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #1, East Side Games CEO Josh Nilson gave a talk on managing live ops when your team is working remotely.

He started by outlining how East Side Games handles live ops in general, noting that the studio's most popular game, Trailer Park Boys: Greasy Money, has found success because of their focus on building a narrative using idle mechanics.

"Don't follow rules, solves problems," said Nilson on the topic of using the right people in the right teams, with the East Side approach focusing on building small teams, building quickly, pivoting quickly, and launching games as early and often as possible - and always planning for live ops.

Games and hotels

Nilson also noted that "we have to treat our games like stores" by teaching the player why playing during live events has value, mostly through offering free bundles and content, which he compared to going to a hotel and receiving an upgrade.

When it comes to planning live ops, East Side tries to be six months in advance with their content plan, and also thinks weekly events are crucial, so plans plenty of those ahead of time.

As for handling all this remotely, Nilson noted that the studio uses constant meetings to keep everyone up to date, as well as extending its content as long as it can - "if you have to rerun content, that's OK", he added.

PG Connects Digital #1 is the best of our Pocket Gamer Connects conference in an online form, with an entire week of talks, meetings, and pitch events taking place from April 6th to the 10th. You can read up on all the tracks taking place through the week here.


Editor

Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.