Current years have proven an enormous shift in how we play our video games and with the accessibility of cellular and a rising catalogue of free-to-play titles it is very important see how the trade has modified to this point and the place it could possibly be heading sooner or later.
We spoke to Rovio’s Luis de la Camara in regards to the adjustments within the video games trade over the past 16 years and what’s in retailer for the way forward for cellular gaming.
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Firstly, are you able to please introduce your self and briefly clarify your function inside your organization?
My identify is Luis de la Camara and I’m the VP of Advertising and marketing at Rovio. I lead a group of 60 entrepreneurs centered on rising our video games enterprise, overlaying areas resembling Product Advertising and marketing, Consumer Acquisition, Neighborhood, UX Analysis, Participant Assist, Platform Partnerships and Advertising and marketing Artistic.
What would you say has been the most important change within the trade because you entered into it?
I joined the video games trade in 2006 beginning off in console gaming after which joined cellular free-to-play in 2013 so a ton has modified over these 16 years.
What has remained true all through the years is that specializing in constructing one of the best product on your audience is crucial a part of any technique.
I might say the most important adjustments I’ve witnessed in my profession are the brand new enterprise fashions that appeared, primarily cellular free-to-play, which now makes over half of the video games trade’s income and this new latest mannequin of play&earn. This has meant that I’ve needed to adapt my advertising and marketing strategy through the years, the place in console it was very hype constructing via PR to now rather more data-driven efficiency advertising and marketing.
Did you see the abovementioned change coming? If not, how did you adapt to it?
Once I took my first job as an intern at EA I by no means would have imagined that video games as a service and free-to-play fashions would develop into the main enterprise mannequin within the trade. In actual fact, after I left college I selected to give attention to advertising and marketing relatively than finance or accounting as a result of I assumed it will be extra inventive and fewer mathematical.
So little did I do know on the time that advertising and marketing was going to develop into so numbers pushed, however as any good skilled you simply have to adapt and proceed to study. One of the best factor about this trade is that there’s by no means a boring day, and what labored properly yesterday doesn’t imply it would work right now or tomorrow. There may be really no actual formulation for launching a profitable scalable product.
Considering again over the previous couple of years, what’s the largest hurdle you have confronted?
The largest hurdle is admittedly what I simply talked about. Simply because you might have been profitable with one product doesn’t suggest you can be on the subsequent one, and even on the identical sport you could be discovering nice efficiency in your campaigns after which the efficiency drops and it is a wrestle to get it again to the place it was, and vice versa.
That is why it’s good to construct resilient groups which can be naturally curious and need to always problem the established order.
I need to work with of us who’re hungry to attempt new issues, who’re collaborative, get pleasure from their work, care about our gamers and have a product centered mindset.
Many app/sport builders have moved away from in-app purchases in favour of subscription fashions. How do you’re feeling in regards to the present state of monetisation within the trade?
Whereas I feel some subscription fashions can work, I nonetheless really feel that for the subsequent few years microtransactions and incentivised adverts are going to proceed to be the principle driver of income for cellular video games.
On the finish of the day cellular free-to-play gives such a wealth of free and enjoyable content material that I really feel it is onerous to discover a higher mannequin. I feel what we must always try to work out is how we are able to convert extra non-spending gamers into spending gamers, and options like season passes have proven some traction in convincing extra gamers to spend cash in free-to-play video games.
Additionally I consider that as our video games on this area get higher, extra polished and ship extra content material, gamers can be keen to spend more cash in these video games.
The place do you assume the cellular gaming trade is headed within the subsequent few years?
I feel there can be just a few key tendencies in cellular gaming over the approaching years, some which we’re already seeing.
To begin with, video games which have been round for a number of years and have proven regular DAU and income will develop even additional as corporations scale up the sport groups round them.
A second pattern can be extra console-like experiences which now we have seen already with the likes of Name of Responsibility Cellular or Genshin Influence, and this may deliver extra console first avid gamers into cellular free-to-play in addition to deliver extra cross-platform experiences. Additionally, like several mature market we’ll proceed to see large consolidation, and I would not be shocked if ten years from now the trade is primarily made up of a handful of massive corporations.
One final pattern that I’m curious to observe unfold is that if there can be a hybridization of the free-to-play mannequin with the play&earn mannequin, and if this may ever develop into mainstream.
Applied sciences like AR and location-awareness have gotten more and more mainstream. Which, if any, know-how excites you most?
I might say the know-how that excites me probably the most is definitely cross platform play paired with cloud gaming. So I’m not referring to Stadia or something like that, however extra that sooner or later it is possible for you to to play high-quality video games throughout a number of gadgets with little to no friction.
