Oliver Kern is Chief Commercial Officer at Lockwood Publishing. At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki he'll be part of a panel discussion about the gold standard for Live Ops. Click here to get more info about the show and to buy your tickets.
Oliver is a noted growth hacker and mobile marketing guru and has helped app companies ranging from indies to market giants like Rovio and Wargaming. In his more than 20 years in marketing and advertising he has marketed hundreds of casual, core, and MMO games in the online and mobile space.
Currently he serves as Chief Commercial Officer at Nottingham-based Lockwood Publishing, the creator of the virtual 3D world AVAKIN LIFE. Next to that he is board advisor for a number of mobile games companies and blockchain startups. Previously he worked for many years as a consultant in mobile marketing where he kickstarted mobile UA for companies such as MAG Interactive, flaregames, and Hutch Games and worked with great teams at ProSieben, Rovio, Wargaming, Next Games and others. Before that he held leadership positions at iQU, JAGEX and IPlay/Oberon Media.
Q: What does your role at the company entail?
A: As Chief Commercial Officer, I work with the management team to define key growth opportunities for us as a company in the classic growth areas: acquisition, retention and monetisation. I work across teams with the various stakeholders to ensure that we keep focus on growth. Over the last few years it’s been an exciting ride with continuous growth to now >700k DAU around the world.
Q: What do you think have been the most exciting developments in gaming since the last Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki?
A: I am most excited about the continuous development towards being able to play games instantly. Instant Games on facebook and WeChat or Google Play Instant are only the beginning. I expect to see a breakthrough in stream technology, that will allow us to play any game instantly. And the rollout of 5G will accelerate that development.
Q: What are your thoughts on the way the industry has grown in the last 12 months?
A: I’m happy to see that our industry continues to see growth, but I think it’s dangerous to look at growth only on a macro level. It’s much more important to understand on a micro level where the growth is happening (markets/app genres/business models) in order to benefit from the sector growth as a developer.
Q: What do you think the next 12 months in mobile gaming are going to look like?
A: I guess we will see even more hypercasual games launching with more publishers trying to copy what Ketchapp started and Voodoo perfected. In order to compete in hypercasual, these games will start getting deeper experiences: a hypercasual onboarding with more to explore in terms of events and things to unlock. in terms of potential market changers, I hope that we will see a few more successful games/apps that will pave the way for games and apps using blockchain technology.
Q: Which part of Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki are you most looking forward to and why?
A: Pecha Kucha is always the highlight of the show for me.
About Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki
In a few short weeks the whole mobile gaming industry is set to descend on Helsinki for Pocket Gamer Connects. The event, which runs from September 11th to September 12th, is packed full of talks, tracks, networking opportunities, and more. You can read about the full conference schedule here.
There are still tickets available for the show, and if you click this link right here you'll get all the information you need on how to buy them, and what's going to be happening in Helsinki over the two days.
