Mastering Retention

- 1:27 What has Natalie Sieradzki career journey been like? - 4:50 How a UX consultant would go about fixing a game. - 10:08 How to find your peer group. - 13:00 How to figure out what different things different players want. - 16:45 “Magic Moment” - 18:25 How does fantasy play into “scratching” a players “itch” - 22:27 Is there more value in talking with the players who churned apposed to the one...

Founders of game studios who have "been there and done that" share their top secrets and tricks on how to start your own game studio. ▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬ 00:00 Introductions 12:22 How you became a studio founder? 21:54 Thing that most people don’t realize about starting a studio 29:51 Crucial roles to start a studio 35:37 First hires 39:25 Raising money 46:58 Setting up a studio for a l...

On today's episode of Mastering Retention, David Molnar (Live Ops Manager at Square Enix Montreal) joins Tom to dive deep into the world of Battle Passes and In-App Purchasing, as well as a lengthy discussion on League of Legends. - 1:01 How did David Molnar get into the gaming industry? - 2:15 Did he play League of Legends before working on it? - 6:25 Thoughts on League of Legends coming to Mobil...

On today's episode of Mastering Retention, Pradeep Gupta (Product & Growth at Gameberry Labs) speaks with Tom about integrating social features into a mobile game and the importance of socializing in videogames. - 1:36 How did Pradeep Gupta get into video games? - 3:38 Why did “Ludo Star” take off? - 10:09 Did “Ludo Star” grow organically? - 13:54 How to balance Monetization and social. - 16:5...

- 0:31 How did Ido get into the video game industry? - 4:03 Going from a data-driven company to a fast-paced company? - 6:40 What did Ido’s VP of GameOps role look like at Voodoo? - 10:50 Can liveops can be done in hyper-casual games? - 17:40 How does liveops translate into an ad-based game? - 22:34 Learning from failures - 30:36 How to brainstorm solutions to problems? - 32:59 How to learn from c...

- 1:34 How did Luiz get into the video game industry - 5:38 What is the secret to launching great games? - 8:25 How to know when your game isn’t working? - 14:51 Validating your game’s concept. - 21:02 What to look for during a playtest. - 24:16 Best way to approach a soft launch - 35:42 How to gather realistic data - 39:00 Rules for soft launch. - 41:30 Should you seek advice from people that sto...

(1:25) How did Aaron Morley get into the gaming industry? (8:01) What does a product manager even do? (12:04) How to intermediate for your monetization team and product team. (17:34) Yearly planning. (21:54) Changing your game once it is established. (29:56) Extinction Mode/rebooting your late game economy. (43:28) Using quantitative and qualitative data to improve live performance. (48:46) How to...

- 0:45 How did Mikael Silvennoinen get into the video game industry? - 3:06 How his background as a chef impacts his career in video games. - 5:08 What does he define player experience? - 6:19 How to accommodate all the different things that different players want. - 7:53 Effective ways to communicate with players. - 8:59 The challenge of localization. - 10:20 Communication errors and how to preve...

- 0:50 How did Alok Kumar get into the gaming industry? - 6:27 Was briefly leaving the gaming industry helpful? - 8:06 How does Alok Kumar approach psychology? - 13:40 The psychological impact on players - 17:35 How does psychology help game design? - 20:11 Intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation. - 29:51 Reinforcement theories in game design. - 33:32 How to keep more players around longer.

- 1:19 How did Olesja Marjalaakso get into the gaming industry? - 9:56 What has she learned along her way about the gaming industry? - 13:26 What should a co-founding team look like? - 15:47 Deciding what game to build. - 22:08 Testing your game's concept - 28:47 What to do after creating a game concept and nailing down the gameplay. - 35:52 How to keep more players around longer.

- 1:19 What got Jakub Remiar into video games? - 4:17 Does he utilize his background in psychology when designing a video game? - 7:16 What is the best way to get a game to global launch? - 13:13 When is the best time to do a play test? - 19:50 Is a PNG approach a good way to innovate? - 27:36 When should you start thinking about monetization? - 30:39 Battle Passes - 32:35 Using LiveOps to test yo...

On today's episode of Mastering Retention, Peter Pawan (Co-Founder Of Super Huge Studios) talks with Tom about his journey through the video game industry, starting a studio from scratch, and much more! Episode Highlights: - 0:54 What started Peter’s love for video games? - 3:40 Peters outlines his professional journey in the video game industry. - 7:40 What kind of games are you making at Super H...

- 0:22 How did Carson Taylor get started in the business? - 6:02 Has Austin, Texas become a gaming hub? - 11:43 Remote Working vs In Office working. - 17:00 Computer Science - 22:05 Is learning “Sequel” a key to success for Product Managers? - 26:53 An example of a time where “Sequel” made a profound impact. - 31:42 A/B Testing in the video game world. - 40:22 At what stage of development is it ap...

On today's episode of the Mastering Retention podcast, Stanislav Stankovic, Creative Director at EA, sharing with us a great deal of his experience with games and game development. To read his Medium articles, please visit here . Episode highlights: What to do first when starting new game Approaches to introduce new game concepts and mechanics Psychological feelings in a game Mood boards His reten...

Episode highlights: - 0:30 How did Daniel Kammerer get into games? - 3:26 What exactly is level design? - 5:20 What would the level building process look like for a match 3 game like Candy Crush Saga? - 8:11 How much should a level designer be playing the level to ensure it is correct? - 9:28 Designing a level with procedurally generated landscapes. - 12:57 Handcrafted design vs procedurally gener...

On today's episode of the Mastering Retention show, we have our first artist: Riana McKeith! She is the Art Director at TreesPlease Games and has an incredible amount of experience in game art not only in the corporate setting but also in the startup environment. Episode notes: Going from a corporation to a startup Work between art and product team Art influencing KPIs The idea of content treadmil...

in today's episode of the Mastering Retention show, Tj’ièn Twijnstra the Game Director at Story Giant Games joins Tom to talk about how to create strong enough meaningful narrative connections in your games and how to implement gameplay into that narrative. Episode highlights: How he got into games Narrative in casual games Elements that make up a good story Adding gameplay to the game narrative T...

In this episode of the Mastering Retention show, Mădălina Vlădău the Live Ops Manager at Ubisoft RedLynx talks to us all about LiveOps tools! From what LiveOps tools are to how should they be implemented. Episode highlights: Games she’s currently testing What is a LiveOps tool? Designing user experiences How to prevent more errors from happening Commercial tools vs building your own tools Making y...

On today’s episode of the Mastering Retention show, Tom talks to Keeley Bunting, the Executive Producer at Outplay Entertainment. When the episode was recorded, she was transitioning from being a lead game designer to being the executive producer at Outplay and she tells us how the transition is going and how she got there. She’s the lead on the Gordon Ramsay, Chef Blast free-to-play mobile game....

In this episode of the Mastering Retention show, Hadrien Carpentier, the Game Lead at Oh BiBi joins us to talk about their game, FRAG Pro Shooter, and having an audience-first approach. He also goes over how they are doing without a game designer! Episode highlights: How Hadrien got to his current position When should you innovate the art style of a game FRAG Pro Shooter and having an audience-fir...

In today’s episode of the Mastering Retention show, Niek Tuerlings, the senior game designer at Voodoo, tells us all about the new game they are working on: Plantopia. He tells us all the things they’ve learned, how they got to where they are and what they are expecting. If you are currently designing a game, you don’t want to miss this episode! Episode topics: The development process of their fir...

In today’s episode of the Mastering Retention podcast, Alex Clark, Game Designer at Nitro Games, talks to Tom about everything mobile shooter related! Episode highlights: Definition of mobile shooter Why do people like shooters on mobile What kind of audiences like shooters? Tom pitches Alex a mobile shooter game idea and they dissect the development process! First-time user experience in mobile s...

On today’s episode of the Mastering Retention podcast, Tom talks to Benjamin Charbit the Co-Founder of DareWise about his most recent game development: Live Beyond. He and Tom talk all about the experiences he and his team are building for this game and some of the things they’ve learned and discovered in the process. Episode notes: How did he develop DareWise The current game/experience they are...

Jason Schklar is the founder of UX is Fine! and has led teams and provided product, design, and UX direction both as a sought-after consultant and as a studio leader at Amazon, Big Huge Games, Disney, Microsoft, and Zynga. In today's episode, he talks about the importance of UX in game design. Today's highlights: How he started UX is Fine! What is quantitative data and what is qualitative data? Co...

On today's episode of the Mastering Retention podcast, our host Tom Hammond talks to hyper-casual guru Michal Tomcany! He is the Chief Gameplay Scientist at Studio Slovack and has a lot of experience with hyper-casual games. Episode highlights: What is hyper-casual? Types of hyper-casual games What can mobile free-to-play games learn from hyper-casual? The role onboarding tutorials play in retenti...