The leading games industry conference is almost here. Pocket Gamer Connects London is now less than one week away and what a line up of speakers we’ve got in store for you.

On January 23rd and 24th Pocket Gamer Connects hits home soil, returning to London for two days of insight sharing, and contact making interspersed with our world famous thought-provoking panels, seminars, keynotes and more.

There's limitless networking opportunities and our expert sessions are your chance to get up close and meet some of the biggest names in mobile games in what will be our biggest and best PG Connects London yet!

In the build up to the conference – and to give you a sneak preview of what to expect – we are spotlighting some of the authorities in the games industry that will be sharing their wisdom, today we speak to Jai Dave, Head of Client Insight & Strategy at Ramp.

Jai will be speaking about the broader means of reducing risk and improving success in games. Given Ramp’s position as an analytics firm that means Jai is well-placed to offer his thoughts and insights on the broader world of mobile gaming and how a variety of businesses can improve their chances of success in 2023.

Be sure to join us at PG Connects London on January 23rd to 24th 2023 to find out more!

What’s the most common mistake you see being made in the games sector?

Not doing the necessary research around positioning the game or fully understanding the opportunities and risks related to that particular game's market landscape This includes things like concept testing, knowing exactly who you are making the game for, utilising marketing expertise to identify what assets/naming/logo/colour scheme/wording etc. appeal to the audience and using that to guide the creative development process. Also, not understanding the competitive landscape fully, why other games were successful/unsuccessful, what does 'good' actually look like, etc. Without this sort of work up front it can lead to friction between product and marketing teams as well as potentially having to retrofit elements of the game that can often delay or even derail production.

What’s the most important key performance indicator (KPI) for you - and why?

For me it is long term retention. It is the key measure of whether players find the product fun. Of course monetisation is super important as you need to generate revenue but if players aren't even coming back to the game then you have no chance of monetising them. Plus in today's market where there are so many options for players with zero up front costs, if you can provide a long term environment for them to enjoy and get them deeply ingrained in your product, it's even harder for others to come along and tempt them to theirs.

What’s your favourite ever mobile game?

Hard to pick just one to be honest so here are three: I'm a big fan of New Star Soccer. It's a great blend of casual gameplay integrated with a sport that I love. Whereas more traditional football games just didn't do it for me on mobile vs the console offerings, with NSS I played it through a number of times and felt they had a good balance of enticing me to spend with positive motivations. Score Hero is another favourite of mine, super simple yet really enjoyable, frustrating though! I also really enjoyed Tinker Island, the initial resource management element that evolves into a lite-RPG wrapped up in an exciting story kept me hooked until I reached the end - Also it had a really cool merge style minigame, and one of the first of its type that I played. Interesting to see that it has now become its own very successful genre.

Is hypercasual gaming here to stay?

I think its been around much longer than we give it credit for, it's just that its been given a name in mobile gaming in the last few years. There are minigames on 90's console games such as Mario, Sonic and Final Fantasies for example that people would sometimes play as much as the main game that housed them just to try and get a higher score. Plus there were tonnes of 'hypercasual' style games built for browsers in the pre-mobile days.

Most people respond positively to short bursts of lite-gaming fun even if they are not 'gamers', it's just that today its easier than ever to put the products right in front of people that wouldn't typically seek them out, and its no-commitment fun - as easy to put down as it is to pick up. So yes I think it will stay as it serves a certain need within the industry, though I'm interested to see how the market leaders will evolve the genre. I think the challenge for the developers within this area is how to stay competitive and innovate in such a way that they are not creating like-for-like products.

Can people get in touch with you at the event? What sort of people would you like to connect with?

Sure! I'm representing our company, Ramp, who are looking to pioneer the tricky world of forecasting games accurately and empower our clients to make smarter, faster business decisions. So if anyone is interested in trying to predict the future of their games better then I'd love to connect to see if we can help.

Find out more about Pocket Gamer Connects London and get your tickets right here!