Elina Arponen is CEO and co-founder at Quicksave Interactive. At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki on September 11th to 12th she'll be part of a panel discussing the Keys for Success in Hypercasual and Messenger Games.
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Arponen has been a serial entrepreneur since founding instant games development studio Quicksave in 2017.
Arponen's previous startup Tribe Studios was acquired by Palringo, where she worked as Head of Chat Games.
Tribe Studios created the Dramagame technology that enables an innovative combination of chatting and gameplay. Before Tribe Studios she worked at Digital Chocolate.
Arponen also has an M.Sc in Computer Science and has been on the Board of Finnish Game Studios Association for five years.
PocketGamer.biz: What does your role at the company entail?
Elina Arponen: My main concerns are to do with the business side of things, partnerships, funding and the general management of the company.
When I take part in the actual product development, that is usually in tasks that fall under the producer’s or QA’s job description.
What do you think have been the most exciting developments in gaming since the last Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki?
Well certainly I’m keeping a close eye on the market development of chat games.
For us, that means HTML5 games that are played inside social / chat apps without the player needing to download a separate game app.
On this sector lots has happened. WeChat started their platform at the end of December 2017. Facebook opened their instant games to everyone in March 2018 and brought out in-game-purchases in May 2018. Line and Kakao Games have also started operating chat games.
What are your thoughts on the way the industry has grown in the last 12 months?
The Chat Games market has widened with so many new platforms coming in.
Also, we’ve started to see the first revenue figures released, and they are painting a good picture of this sector.
It is still early days though and we haven’t seen the true hit games yet that every platform eventually needs for a breakthrough.
Besides Chat Games it’s interesting to see how blockchain is creeping its way into games. Games have long had in-game assets that you buy and there is a natural way to link these assets to exist more permanently on the blockchain.
The tech needs to mature, but it’ll get there.
What do you think the next 12 months in mobile gaming are going to look like?
We will see more console-style games come to mobile due to the huge success of Fortnite and other titles like it.
The hypercasual is doing well, but there will be other new genres coming up too that we don’t yet see on the market.
And even though our panel is under the hypercasual track and that is very much the current dominant strategy on Messenger games, chat games too will go to deeper and longer gameplay types.
Which part of Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki are you most looking forward to and why?
There are many interesting tracks and lectures that I hope to catch, but some of the best content is always the people who attend.
I’m looking to meet interesting people and hear about what they are developing and how they see the industry shaping.
There are always opportunities to learn at the coffee breaks.
About Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki
In a few short days the whole mobile gaming industry is set to descend on Helsinki for Pocket Gamer Connects. The event, which runs from September 11th to 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.
