Deconstructor of Fun

Welcome to TWIG #99! This week we cover: #1. India bans PUBG in latest crackdown on Chinese apps #2. Epic’s Latest Apple Argument Hints At Plans For World Domination #3. Report: New Switch model with better graphics coming in 2021 #4. PS5 won’t be backward-compatible with PS3, PS2, or PS1, Ubisoft says Do you have feedback or comments for us? You can reach us on Twitter at: Joseph Kim: @jokim1 (Twitter, Insta)   Eric Kress: @ekress    Adam Telfer: @adamwtelfer    Miska Katkoff: @m_katkoff SPONSOR: This episode is sponsored by Beta Hat (www.betahatMR.com)

GenJoy, a studio from the leading Spanish mobile Group Genera, just launched Tuscany Villa a match-3 puzzle game on mobile.  How will the Seville, Spain based mobile studio compete against giants such as King and Playrix?   More specifically we talk about:   #1. Strategy & Product: What kind of strategy and what kind of product differentiation does Genera employ to compete against the big guys?   #2. Marketing: We’ve heard stories about how the big guys have a huge marketing advantage… or do they? Let’s dive deeper and find out how Genera competes on a marketing basis   #3. Technology Infrastructure: And finally technology infrastructure. There are lots of rumors and stories of a massive infrastructure technology investment by King especially around machine learning and AI applied to level creation, design, and balancing. What are the technology investments Genera will be making to compete?   To walk us through all of this and more are the three key leads from Genera:      - Alejandro Moreno     - Pablo Benitez     - Jesus Bartus

Antitrust Specialist Ryan Tisch from Crowell & Moring and Video Games Lawyer David Hoppe from Gamma Law explain Epic's lawsuit against Apple and Google.   Topics Covered:  Epic's Legal Suit Explained  Google vs. Apple? Apple's Retaliation  Apple's Legal Strategy  Realistic Legal Scenarios  Predicting Outcomes  Expect an Epic Trick   Hosts:     - Joe Kim, @jokim1    - Eric Kress Speakers:     - David Hoppe, https://gammalaw.com/     - Ryan Tisch, https://www.crowell.com/

Welcome to TWIG #98! This week we cover: #1. Facebook has abandoned the IDFA and may kill FAN for iOS. What’s next for mobile measurement? #2. Unity’s IPO numbers look pretty… Unreal #3. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War costs $69.99 for next-gen consoles #4. The risks of market research LINKS: Best Practices Live Ops Digital Conference. More info: liveops.splashthat.com Eric Seufert blog post: Apocalypse Now: per WWDC, the IDFA is dead Guest Host: Eric Seufert. Check out Eric's blog: MobileDevMemo. And his Twitter: @eric_seufert Regular Hosts: Joe Kim. Any Ubisoft employees wanting help finding a new job DM me! Eric Kress Adam Telfer

What are the biggest issues and annoyances in the games industry that trigger Eric Kress? Come to an uncensored broadcast discussing these issues moderated by Chris Hewish from Xsolla and also joined by Joe Kim who will egg on Eric for maximum entertainment! Host: Chris Hewish, President of Xsolla Speakers: Eric Kress, Deconstructor of Fun co-host Joe Kim, Deconstructor of Fun co-host Notes: I (Joe Kim) have been corrected that probabilistic attribution actually doesn't require fingerprinting but instead can be executed by utilizing a technique called Mixed Media Modeling. Thanks Steve Palley for the correction!

In this episode we sat down with three growth experts to discuss following questions: What companies are doing to prepare for the depreciation of IDFA How to figure out the best messaging to convince as many users as possible to give you permission to access their IDFA via AppTrackingTransparency How to optimize marketing campaigns post IDFA depreciation How to pick conversion value events going forward How to distinct between paid and organic users How to retarget high-value users What will happen to CPIs Connect with our fantastic guests: Tatyana Bogatyreva, Head of UA at Gram Games Nebojsa Radovic, Growth Lead at Network’s Yevgeny Peres, VP of Growth at ironSource 

Welcome to TWIG #97! This week we cover: #1. Amazon is good at so many things. Why is it bad at games? #2. Take-Two Interactive acquires mobile studio Playdots for $192 million #3. Tencent takes minority stake in French casual games maker Voodoo #4. Video Game Creators Are Burned Out and Desperate for Change SHOW LINKS: Guest Host: Dan Bailey, Actor/Voice Actor and Video Game Producer  THE GREATEST LIVE OPS CONFERENCE EVER, SIGN UP NOW: https://liveops.splashthat.com/  FEEDBACK?: Do you have feedback or comments for us? You can reach us on Twitter at: Joseph Kim: @jokim1 (Twitter, Insta)   Eric Kress: @ekress    Adam Telfer: @adamwtelfer    Miska Katkoff: @m_katkoff SPONSOR: This episode is sponsored by Beta Hat (www.betahatMR.com)

Host:  Joe Kim, Deconstructor of Fun Podcast Host, Managing Partner of GameMakers, and CEO of LILA Games. We are joined by the founders and CEOs of 3 recently funded game studios:   1. Antti Hattara, CEO of StarBerry  ($1.3M led by Play Ventures)     2. Emily Greer, CEO of Double Loop ($2.5M led by London Venture Partners)    3. Travis Boatman, CEO of Carbonated ($8.5M led by Andreessen Horowitz)     Today we’ll be talking about what it takes to start a games studio and also how to get funding for your studio.  So more specifically we’ll talk about:       What is the current environment for starting a games studio? What are the key opportunities to pursue? What does the funding environment look like? What are challenges?  Advice for new founders?

Welcome to TWIG #96! This week we cover: #1. Next-Gen Gaming: State of the Industry, Unreal Engine Blog site #2. Opinion: The Apple/Epic battle has four possible outcomes, and Epic can’t lose, 9to5 mac #3. Wildlife Scores Vulcan-led $120M Series B Financing To Propel Mobile Game Platform, Crunchbase SHOW LINKS: Guest Host: Kenny Liu from ggDigest, now DOF Digest! Is the US about to split the internet? US Govt "Clean Network" Proposal FEEDBACK?: Do you have feedback or comments for us? You can reach us on Twitter at: Joseph Kim: @jokim1 (Twitter, Insta)   Eric Kress: @ekress    Adam Telfer: @adamwtelfer    Miska Katkoff: @m_katkoff SPONSOR: This episode is sponsored by Beta Hat (www.betahatMR.com)

Game companies (with some exceptions like Nintendo) don't last! They are not long-term defensible. In tech, the FAANG companies are massively defensible. In fact,  Amazon today is the most valuable and most defensible company in the world.    In the video games industry, we don’t see the same level of long-term defensibility that we see in those industries.   After lots of great feedback and discussion after posting a blog post about this issue, we decided to bring some smart folks to talk about this.  Here's the written blog post  So the topic of our discussion today is as follows:      - #1. What are the current defensibility strategies of game companies today?      - #2. How defensible are gaming companies?       - #3. How can game companies build greater long-term defensibility?       - #4. How should management teams be thinking about building greater defensibility into their companies?      - #5. Which game company has the greatest defensibility in the market today?   And with us today to speak to all of these issues and more are:       - #1. Lloyd Melnick, GM of Chumba Casino at VGW    - #2. Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Super Evil Megacorp - #3. Mark Sottosanti, SVP at Riot Games Your host/moderator: - Joe Kim, CEO of LILA Games, YouTuber at GameMakers, and DOF Podcast Co-host/Producer, Twitter/Insta: @jokim1