“We have tons of ideas, but what should we do first?” Having worked with over 30 game teams as a product consultant, I’ve been surprised by how often developers fail to frame the prioritization problem correctly. As a result, I’ve seen …
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Category: Blog
How to Fail in F2P Mobile Games, Part III: Vague Product Goals
Previously, in “How to Fail in F2P Mobile Games…” In Part II of “How to Fail in F2P Mobile Games” we touched on three distinct approaches to product and feature design: Adapting Proven Solutions, Forward-Innovation, and Pure (blank slate) Design. Now, in …
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How to Fail in F2P Mobile Games, Part II: Undisciplined Innovation
The F2P Designer’s Dilemma Like many mobile game PMs and designers, I cut my teeth in premium console game production. Down in the trenches, creative decision-making flowed freely, and we were blissfully ignorant of and unperturbed by broader business realities …
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How to Fail, Part 1: Start Without a Business Case
As we know, 95% of mobile F2P games are unprofitable. After working on 80+ mobile projects with 30+ game teams, I’ve seen these odds play out first-hand. It’s quite understandable. Building a modern mobile game product is no easy feat! …
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Why Raid: Shadow Legends will surpass $250m
Introduction If you played any mobile games during the months of March or April 2019, you likely saw an ad (or twenty) for a game called Raid: Shadow Legends (from Israeli developer Plarium, of Vikings: War of Clans and Lost …
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Do you know your game’s spend depth?
The topic of Spend Depth comes up often with my free-to-play, mobile game clients, so I thought I’d share some high-level thoughts on the topic. To start, spend depth means exactly what you think it means- the depth of spend that is possible in your game, …
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Game Analytics III: What you need to know about your users
This is the third part in a multi-part series discussing best-practices in product management and analytics for mobile games. Game Analytics Part I: DON’T Measure Everything Game Analytics Part II: Just Track These 6 Behaviors Standard disclaimer: As before, this …
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Game Analytics II: Just Track These 6 Behaviors
This is the second part in a multi-part series discussing best-practices in product management and analytics for mobile games. In the previous post, DON’T Measure Everything, I broadly espoused the advantages of the ‘simpler is better’ approach when applied to …
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Game Analytics I: DON’T Measure Everything
It’s no secret that turning a profit in mobile games isn’t easy these days, and not only because competition is fierce. The modern mobile game product is an intimidating construct with many moving parts—code, staged releases, content production, backend, 3rd-party …
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