Paul Ryaykkonen, Nevosoft: «The most you can earn on midkornyh games"

How to create a game that buy millions of users? The answer to this question knows the company's founder Paul Nevosoft Ryaykkonen, and today he is a guest of the "MakRadara".

Paul, you are playing mobile games? How many hours a day?

Yes, I play. First of all our games, to know what is happening with the product. Well, in the competition of the game to know what features they bring in, and so on. For some it is a pleasant pastime, but for me - working weekdays. An hour and a half each day I play.

His speech at the conference, White Night 2015 you began with the words: "Everyone knows that the most successful games - a game as a service." Explain what this means?

In this case we are talking about games that use the model of free-to-play. This business model means that you can start playing for free. Moreover, a significant part of the game you can go free. But for more rapid progress, for further options you need to pay. Often buy game currency, which is then used for in-game purchases.

Maintenance of the game is a brand new product is not the end. The game is constantly changing, new content is added, the levels. That's the essence - the product is alive and growing, and the lifetime of the service-oriented games is calculated in years.

For example, Angry Birds - this is a service game?

Originally this game was launched as a paid product, with a free demo version. In the future, the company is actively develop this brand and sell the franchise. Rovio was able to make an interesting game world, which is then replicated in the other game company. The Angry Birds have applied the model freemium, which implies a sale of episodic content. No, this is not a service game. But the continuation of the game, Angry Birds 2, has already been done on the model of free-to-play.

What are the best examples of games as a service?

The most striking example, which at the hearing - is Slash of Slans company Supercell. Earnings per night up to several million dollars. If we take only the Russian App Store, the game from the top of the top ten earning tens of thousands of dollars a day.

Which gaming niches is now spinning the most money?

If you look at the Top Grossing iPhone / iPad Games, is in the top ten most common midkornyh game genres. Income there is very serious. At the same time we must not forget that spent a lot of money to attract users, the advertising project.

Midkornye game (mid-core games) - Game designed for an adult audience with a wide range of interests. Usually, these games contain a lot of domestic purchases.

It is not enough just to make a good game. You have to understand how this game to market, where it will take the traffic. This is one of the most serious problems on the market.

And how do you solve this problem?

We rely heavily on cross-traffic from your own applications and traffic that we buy. We do not expect to get free traffic from the platforms. If it happens ficherenie and play "highlight" - yes, that's great, but not much else. You can not bet on ficherenie. With these initial premises business to build will not work. Accordingly, the processes within a company are arranged as follows. First, run the game in a limited number of countries. Before purchasing the traffic, it is necessary to ensure that the project is working well. Traffic - it's money, and do not want them to go into the pipe or in some critical bug, which we are not caught. Then remove metrics from the game. Enjoying what level of retention in the first, seventh, the thirtieth day, how many people fall off over time. If retention is low, then either the game uninteresting or on the balance sheet have not guessed, or have a particular place in the wrong game. If all is well, then after a "soft" start to leave the world.

What are your most successful game?

The Russian market is "Planet gems". We started it about a year ago in conjunction with the "VKontakte", and today it is played 2.5-3 million people per month.

You have 94 games for the iPhone and 105 games for the iPad. That is, you spoke about the cross-network. Maybe it makes sense to focus on one, but a strong game?

Historically. Initially we were doing freemium-games. Started on the PC, then switched on the mobile market in 2011. By this time we have accumulated a large portfolio of freemium-games, we simply moved to a new platform. And in the process of receiving experience, how to correctly and successfully play services. Go to the freemium model to free-to-play is not so easy, is another production cycle. At the moment, we are focused on a few projects. Despite this, we will not delete the other games of the App Store. They live, they have their fans.

Do you work with indie developers?

No, we only work with the internal studios and projects. But Alex Silver, one of the co-founders Nevosoft leads project gamedevparty.ru, where guys gather and jam their games.

What is happening in the global mobile gaming market? It grows, falls and froze on the spot?

The market is growing. In its report on the White Night 2015, I said that this year the market turnover is $ 25 billion. In Russia - $ 374 million. This assessment can also to correct due to the dollar. If you look at the entire gaming market in Russia, then the amount will increase to $ 1.3 billion. Signs of stagnation, I do not see the market will grow. According to various estimates, in 2018 the global turnover of the market of mobile games will reach $ 30 billion.

What do you think about gadgets such as Oculus Rift? This is the next "killer-feature" in the gaming market?

We are looking at how the platform develops, and assess the situation. So far the only way. After all, there is no our audience at the moment. We follow the customer, where our users - there we are.

Thanks.