Why Ustwo Games shifted from mobile to PC and the "mind-boggling" discovery problem

Monument Valley developer Ustwo Games should have shifted to PC sooner instead of hanging on to the “mobile subscriptions honeypot trap for too long”, says CEO Maria Sayans.

Speaking at Develop Brighton, Sayans was joined on stage by Ustwo’s Peter Pashley and Daniel Gray to discuss the history of the studio, as moderated by GamesRadar’s Sam Loveridge.

On the shift from mobile, where the company established its roots, Sayans said subscription money was good while it lasted and created a profitable company, but it was almost like Ustwo was a developer-for-hire business dependent on Apple and Netflix. “We needed to have shifted to PC a little bit sooner,” she said.

“The games we wanted to make, we just couldn’t make them profitably on mobile on our own or without either Apple or Netflix,” said Sayans.

“And then Apple and Netflix didn’t want to pay us anymore to make those kinds of games. They wanted to make games that people came back to more regularly, that had more retention and that lasted a longer time.”

She added the studio was faced with a choice to either become a free-to-play developer - which is against the company’s DNA - or make a play for PC.

“Making premium games on mobile, at the cost at which we make them - we are a company where our average cost per employee is similar to a triple-A developer - so we are an expensive developer making games with indie sensibilities in many ways, and that just wasn’t going to fly on mobile. We’ll see if it flies on PC.”

The discovery problem

During the talk, Mayans also took a shot at platform holders for not aiding developers with discoverability.

“Discoverability in the industry is just impossible,” she said. “Honestly, it’s just mind-boggling that we have such a huge audience for games, so many people buying games, and still the platforms can’t really find the right audience in the right game. They don’t give you that.”

She added: “It’s this issue of, how do you meet an audience in a very crowded market with platforms that honestly are, I would say, they’re not doing their job. You pay 30% to a platform for a number of things and one of them is to help you reach an audience and right now that’s not really working.”

Ustwo is looking to tackle this issue of discovery by building its own communities and having a direct relationship with players - not an easy task with single-player games, from which the studio starts from scratch on each new project after launch.

Ustwo is now building a community that “runs parallel to our games”, starting the ‘Beautiful Games Club’. Effectively a book club-type channel discussing games they love.