come to you there’s many mistakes They just believe they know the recipe Companies don’t test their game ideas

soon enough They just go out and build a game Today on the gaming playbook we’re joined Peter Fodor founder and CEO of

App Agent one of the top mobile marketing agencies in the world Peter has spent over a decade helping mobile

game sters scale their titles acquire players and maximize revenue With Half Agent he’s worked at over 120 games

across 41 countries including titles from Supercell Geopoly and 505 Games In this episode we get into how mobile game

studios can grow their games more effectively Enjoy the playbook 2016 that was the golden age for mobile games

there were new companies established pretty much every week The first week when the lockdown happened I was like

Jesus Christ I’ve invested years into building the business and then one virus will kill it If you look back the last

five six years the story is just full of copycats There’s more drive to innovate

and create new games and take bit more risk because it’s the only way how can you win What could people do to increase

lifetime value of the game they already have obviously one of the biggest challenges and you should

Peter welcome to the show Hello Harry Thanks for having me My pleasure Um we met at Pocket Gamer London for the first

time which is very relevant to your business because it’s all about mobile gaming How did you find Pocket Gamer London it was awesome It was super busy

Uh maybe one of the biggest events I’ve attended so far Uh 2,700 attendees uh it

was crowded everywhere but I’ve met lots of friends had some good talks uh with peers and also learned some stuff about

the industry how it’s recovering how it’s more about stabilization than you

know survival as the last year so generally the vibe was positive and I feel that there will be quite some new

games uh launch this year and we’ll see some interesting innovation oh very cool

and not what you usually hear especially in mobile games so it’s nice to have a bit of optimism I want to basically dive

in to be honest So you mentioned the market is a bit stabilizing a bit So I

wanted you to give give you the opportunity to just explain a little bit about what you do with the context of

the last couple years cuz yes you grow mobile games but like you mentioned you’ve noticed that change in I guess

the sentiment So could you give us a bit of the lay of the land of the mobile gaming market from a high level yeah

sure So you know I’ve started a pageent in late 2016 That was the golden age for

mobile games and uh there were new companies uh established pretty much

every week and the big players were formed back then Uh COVID came The first

feeling I had uh the first week when the lockdown happened was fear and I was

terrified because most of our client just stopped any marketing activities they were unsure what will happen with

uh the predictive models they’ve built over the years you know if players will keep playing or things will change and

that created so much like anxiety in the industry that it was on hold for a couple of weeks and I was like Jesus

Christ I’ve invested years into building the business and then one virus will kill it and I guess this was the same

for many other founders and even employees of those studios while then

the situation changed quite the opposite people were at home They played a lot and it created this huge spike of um uh

let’s say engagement and spend and we all sort of hoped this will last forever

While now if you look uh from the hint side it was a bit silly because what we have seen was then big drop in 22 23 and

if you just connect the dots on the growth uh curve and you just connect

2021 with 25 you will see that there was this spike up and uh drop down but

generally we are on a stable growth rate uh since then you know so it was just

like a wave and I dare to say that for most of the businesses is publishers

vendors agencies freelancers The last two years were very tough and we have

seen lots of layoffs Still nowadays they are happening Just recently huge games

uh laid off 30% of their staff Uh Smok Interactive announced yesterday some

layoffs So it’s not over yet but generally the sentiment is that companies became more lean they

understood how to tackle the change of uh um at like with AT uh the privacy and

targeting became quite a challenge This seems now sort of uh under control and

also how to run more optimized and healthy business that’s sustainable in the long term So that’s why I believe

the sentiment is uh more positive because we are sort of like after restart Yeah it reminds me of the saying

like bad times create kind of strong people then the strong people create good times then the good times create

kind of I guess not bad people but like I think we just had a very big shock event where that’s was forced to happen

and hopefully we’re on that coming up now like kind of everyone’s realizing how to do more with less which in theory

you know more leaner better businesses in the future So let’s get into it So in

terms of with what you do I like to ask this question where it’s like the biggest mistake So you’ve helped over 80

games grow from what I’ve seen online What’s the biggest mistakes studios are making before they come to you biggest

mistakes there’s many mistakes The biggest ones I would say there’s um two

The first one that’s more true than ever before is that companies don’t test

their game ideas soon enough They just you know believe they know the recipe

and instead of going out and pre-esting the concept with uh you know ads created

in After Effects mimicking the game play or you know going through series of

experiments uncovering if the game play is appealing if the game theme is

resonating with the audience they just go out and build a game While we highly recommend and I see this becoming more

and more common to do the testing before you write a single line of code Why

because if you are launching a new game you have to gain some advantage And you can either have CPI advantage or LTV

advantage And by CPA advantage I mean that if you’re in an ad auction with uh

some other game you either have high

appeal of the ad and people will click or you need to pay more and the one who

can pay more is established game that’s out on the market for years where LTV lifetime value of players is high enough

to justify high bit but if you are starting the game is like minimum viable product there’s nothing like that uh

that will allow you to compete with the money So you need to compete with the appeal You know we might call it sex

appeal And that needs to be verified soon enough in order to be able to win

in the auction and be able to scale the game later and develop it into a more rich experience and eventually

leveraging the LTV as well So you need a CPI advantage in order to win the auction and be able to launch the game

and you can test that before writing a single line of code So that’s one thing that I believe is

um still missing but is getting better and that’s I believe uh good news Okay

Could I ask a question on this so if I’m a 10 person studio like I’m trying to

think about the studios which are born I wonder how many of them are born thinking let me go test the best

marketing ad Like most of the studios probably start with the development in mind I’d imagine and then you’re coming

in and saying well we need to test these ideas but like are most studios not born

the opposite way like most of the talent is on like let’s develop let’s develop and then the marketing is kind of like

later in the picture like how is that actually done in practice like how should a small team try to get the ads

out there and then start building you know what got us here won’t get us uh further in the future So you’re right

that most of the studios are born with some idea in mind with some creative spark and they develop the game first If

this is the case I strongly encourage those creators to next to the game development also

start this test and run it in parallel But there are cases like Metacore that

started the game exploration pretty much from the desk You know they crunched lots of data They looked at the trending

game genres what can monetize well how to combine different aspects of games that are successful in some like new

packaging and only once they felt they found something interesting they’ve started developing merchion So there are

situations like this and there are even situations when the team start developing a game and then they realize

the game works but what’s not working is the top funnel the marketing funnel Another example from Helsinki uh is

small giant games We worked with them years ago and during the soft launch of imperson puzzles they have seen this

strange uh funnel where players who were in the game stick played and had had fun

but it was difficult to acquire them So throughout the soft launch they ran series of tests and completely changed

the art style the core palette the feel and vibe of the game into what we know

today So luckily soon enough they realized this needs to be tested and developed through series of tests on net

networks and even in the store to find out what really resonates with the audience And another example is Merch

Gardens where this game got through very like large overhaul in the last two

years and now it’s back on track when it comes to growth and increase of revenue while they were struggling quite a lot

in the past So we have the CPI which I feel like

people are I guess neglecting maybe or not doing it early enough Um I’ve heard

an issue when it comes to mobile game teams when it comes to spend depth Like they don’t understand how much money a

player could actually play So yes we got them they got the player but then when the actual play is in there like there’s

just not enough stuff to do to actually make a good lifetime value Um could you speak on that when it comes to like what

could people do to increase lifetime value of the game they already have that’s more a question for game

designers and I don’t feel being a game designer uh but it’s obviously one of the biggest challenges and you should

design the game with uh the mind that the player the hardcore player should spend thousands if not like dozens of

thousands and let’s say in world of tanks there are you know Arab sche are

spending millions and it’s still fun for them you know so that’s uh from the monetization perspective great game

design what I see now uh being one of the trends and we can speak about it bit later is to create new events

tournaments special offers and really keep the game alive And if you look at the proportion of revenue coming from

the let’s say traditional inner purchases or admonetization compared to these uh uh like new sources of income

uh that’s uh like live ops based the proportion over the years is heavily

turning towards live ops and that’s a trend across different game categories So that’s the way to go and that’s also

the way how to bring back lapsed users who played the game in the early days and then lost the interest and uh you

can somehow re-engage them by showing some interesting collaboration with IP or influencer and therefore open the

ballot again So on that topic you mentioned live ops is becoming more and

more of a revenue I’m actually just curious as someone who’s more on the outside is the pie of the live ops

revenue is a massive slice of that pie the actual seasonal events or is it more

the new features and things coming in like do you understand how much of a

balance this people should focus on this will differ game by game and uh it will be definitely different for a casual

game compared to let’s say RPG game Uh there’s a couple of things that I see

are sort of a trend and that’s um IP collaborations um and think of crash of

clan’s uh collab with uh the football player Holland or Brawl Stars with

Spongebob then influencer collaborations uh that’s another type uh and sort of life ops u category uh top troops and Mr

beast last year or Fortnite is like very heavily on collaboration with influencers and celebrities Uh and then

also you have different types of offers um such as time limited offers events

connected to some holidays or some big uh you know uh real life events uh

progression based events Let’s say in college of clans if you level up to certain town hall it opens some new uh

opportunities what to buy uh for what to spend but also for laps players who

haven’t played the game for a while sort of come back uh offers and then even

like more personalized based on the player behavior what they purchased before So there’s different types and um

you know it very much depends on the game design on the core game loop and

what your audience enjoys uh in the game and I can imagine that would be vastly different for a 60-year-old female

player in huge casino compared to you know my son playing Brawl Stars uh they

will have like different um preferences And by the way my son spent you know a fortune on Brawl Stars and uh he’s uh

still having fun and always answers uh yes it’s worth it daddy Uh when he’s

spending his own pocket money So yeah it works So curious here like if we think

about I guess the indie studio I mean I get these retargeting ads from Hearthstone and they’re so good like “Oh

look at this new update we got.” And I know it’s retargeting because they’re like they’re using language like “Come

back.” And I’m like “Harstone can do it.” I imagine because it’s Blizzard and they got a big money cash and probably a

big team But hearing you say the companies you mentioned like we got

Supercell in my head again another big money bag Like if I’m thinking about maybe your average client maybe this is

only a thing for bigger companies I wanted to just ask you to speak on like

this IP and then the influencer thing Do you need to be at a certain stage to kind of use that as a tool like what do

you think about that as a way to get more people to your game well I think that you can start uh with some

collaborations quite early on and uh if you’re flexible and creative enough you might uh get deals that wouldn’t be like

cash only or cash upfront only So I wouldn’t say this is only for the big guys obviously like the biggest IPs uh

be it Marvel or Spongebob uh that’s you know pricey and you have to really uh

bet on the IP and we even did some IP test in the past to help our partners to identify what’s the right uh IP to

partner with and sometimes the results are surprising you know like you have some gut feel and then you know out of

five one that wasn’t your favorite is uh really outperforming the rest and even

like more popular IPs uh by you know the market research so it’s for testing is out and see what it brings Generally I

would say that uh it’s when it comes to retargeting it’s always a question of

the mathematics uh of the final calculation There’s games that are able to monetize the lap users super well in

the later stages Let’s say social casino you know like social casino can really have high LTV and acquisition of new

players is extremely pricey So for them bringing a user back is definitely more

cost-effective than buying a new one because the glass ceiling of how much you can spend and how typical user

spends over a longer lifetime is tremendous But on the other side of the

scale if you are let’s say running a board game uh the LTV typically for this

category is quite low and then the re-engagement might be too expensive to

really be ROI positive I guess it depends but I’m curious Is there anything you learned from that IP test

that someone can take away because you said something surprised you Is there anything people can take away from that yeah Uh it’s better to test it than to

rely on your gut feel Um it’s good to really really understand your players

well and not just like demographics like age and gender and location like that’s not enough at all You really need to get

into their minds see know how they communicate in forums on Discord If

there’s some Reddit group get there spend time with the audience understand what culture trends influence their

lives what they like watching on Netflix That can help you identify these brands that might be good fit for your title

and then ideally test it because you might be surprised that something that you personally prefer is not preferred

by your player community That seems like a thing that is so important but I wonder how many students

are actually doing that in a way which is like repeatable if you get where I’m coming from Like is there is this supposed to be someone’s job to go and

find this information is that supposed to be outsourced like what are what should studios do when it comes to like making that actually happen because I

feel like a lot of people know they should but they don’t Uh Harry this is our job That’s what we do like when we

are doing our our like diagnostic uh when we are developing the creative strategy we start with understanding the

player motivators we go on Reddit we go on discord we do a community scan as we call it we often even speak with players

to understand them well and based on these insights we develop a creative strategy and very often we bring to the

table insights that a game team or the marketing team haven’t seen before you know and that’s our role we are the

outsiders we have done this before and we are showing them things that are somehow out of their sight Got it Lovely

So I want to move on to a part of the podcast to talk about creative frameworks and I wanted to take you back

to the first time you used creative frameworks how you use them and I wonder how that evolved over time So could you

take me back to how you first approached creative frameworks well that’s a tough question because that’s years ago and

you know there’s creative frameworks for let’s say creative development the marketing communication where I’m sort

of an expert and then also creative frameworks for the core game idea

development So I will probably speak about the first category where you know that’s my field of expertise and back in

the day it was way less about understand the audience deeply

enough because the leverage for marketers were mostly in campaign management like things on Facebook were

quite complicated It required lots of like skills to tweak campaigns Whereas

with the level of automation we see today it’s the creative that makes the difference and you can’t target specific

users If at this is not possible enough uh anymore and therefore you are pretty

much defining whom you will acquire based on the message that you deliver

and that’s where the creative strategy plays role That’s you know where the framework is so important because you

need to identify different areas of interest of players and there might be different groups of players you know

some that like certain type of a game or feature or uh part of the game play or

art style or narrative and you need to identify those groups and tail your communication towards them and then you

might run like three different let’s say creative directions at the same time attracting three different audiences but that’s the way how you scale that’s the

way how you grow campa campaigns nowadays So back in the day it was quite simple Uh we were pretty much like all

the marketers looking mostly on like one type of an audience whereas today it’s

more about segmentation about understanding these different let’s say groups of players

and I will give example in a second what I mean by that because there could be like many different let’s say

subsegments within one game I will speak about cash of coins where this is uh especially true and that led us to one

very strong winning concept uh the last year and we also look a

lot on underlying principles behind competitor’s creatives So it’s not about

copying what the others do but why it works What actually makes this type of a creative work for the competitor is it

you know good connection with the gameplay is it some kind of like message is it the execution is it the pacing and

once you identify these underlying patterns you’re able to use the same

principles in your own original way without copying on your creatives and increase chances that you will uh nail

it and find some uh new winner And I mentioned Clash of Clans So there was an

interesting realization that came actually from the community scan I guess it was Reddit where we have seen people

take screenshots of their uh base they have built in the game and we learned

through reading about these screenshots that there’s a type of players who like more the building aspect than the

battling aspect The communication was mostly about the competitive aspect of the game about like crushing the base of

someone else being dominant But there’s a lots of players based on this insight from Reddit who like the building of the

base and you know making it nice and you know very like robust and we build a

concept around it like time lapse different seasons evolution of the base

and we call this creative direction relax and man this was the best creative last year because we hit something that

resonated with large audience and that made them super excited and lots of players came back to the game because

they remembered for the days when they were building their base Oh I love that I always joke but I think it’s true Like

everyone just wants to do three things Make money I guess make a family and then flex And I find that the base

building is like the ultimate flex right i’m guessing they just like I just want to show you Look at this amazing base

Leaderboard is one way but like the base And I love that we you uncovered that through the community scan Super cool

The follow-up question here is like how do studios do this themselves like what

steps aren’t they taking for example like what is something that they can nip in the bud and have more of these aha

moments there’s a couple of things that we are now applying on a game that we are publishing uh where we have skin on

the game So there’s a studio called Goodfriend Games Uh and we are developing together a mobile fitness

game called Walking Planet and on this I will tell you what we found out as super

effective in like growing the game into something that our players really enjoy

in the long term So initially we had this concept of motivating people by

using gamified mechanics and uh it’s called walking planet So it’s about

making people walk being more active and you’re uh walking real in the real world

Then in the evening you open the game and you move your avatar on a virtual

trail Let’s say you go on Everest or you walk in uh you go

on a trail uh in Yellowstone And we then decided let’s

learn more about our players to really tailor the game to some early adopters

group because we don’t have enough funds to do everything for everyone And we

started with surveys in the game So players got some incentive of I don’t know 10,000 coins for filling a survey

that was simply done in Google forms 20 questions We collected that Today we

have thousands of these surveys already collected From that we did initial segmentation and identified couple of

categories And the next move was to go on a call We selected uh people who were

willing to invest half an hour of their time and we asked them some qualitative

questions and we really try to understand what motivates them What are their challenges in their life uh if

they want to lose weight or if they just want to be more appraised for being active uh if they are already actively

walking or if they’re just thinking about it you know So really understanding the motivations and uh

with that we are able to identify the core audience for which was easy to build the first version of the game uh

like active walkers while motivating so-called couch potatoes would require a

much featurerich game much more developed world that will give them

enough incentives to be active The first group however just wanted to be appraised They just wanted to be in top

of the leaderboards show off get some little reward in the afternoon you know and have this like good feeling that

they did something for themselves And for that group we have started developing the game further And I believe this is super effective It costs

pretty much nothing just your time and direct connection with players And with that you can effectively compete with

big guys who most likely will either skip it completely or hire some uh you

know research agency that will do their mediocre job But if you’re really

directly connected with your player you can uncover insight that are applicable across product marketing whatever So

that’s my tip for everyone who is looking for a competitive advantage and

is willing to invest their time and effort and overcome this little discomfort talking directly with people

and asking them tough questions Amazing So the survey basically costed

nothing right just time and effort to install because it’s direct to consumer

And by the way I was in I was just inspired uh by Simon Hate from Space

Haven Games He just founded a new studio but it was years ago at Pocket Gamer Helsinki when he showed in a case study

about Beatar how they try to understand who their players are and um if there

are some special like micro groups of fans of different game or music genres

sorry and he showed like very simply designed survey within the game and that

was like the impulse for us to do the same in walking planet and it turned out to be amazingly inspirational I read on

your LinkedIn you talked about timeless creative principles and given that it’s more important now to have more focus on

the creative rather than tweaking the campaign like what are the must have principles for like mobile game

marketing h there’s a few that I’ve learned uh at a uni I studied marketing

communication and uh surprisingly 20 years later they are still valid So one

of them that I feel is um still true is the concept of IDA attention interest

decision action and if you think about the player journey attention is uh the role of the ad or the ad creative

interest is what happens in the store decision is if the player will click the get button and download the game and

then the action happens within the game and you can then uh use the same principle on the ad creative itself You

have the hook there’s the attention grabber you have the interest part which is showing the game play or some

characters the decision that’s you know where you try to convince the viewer to

do the next step therefore like get download the game uh and then the action is the actual like click tap uh on the

button So this is one this is one of the principles that I believe is still like very applicable and serves as a

guideline as a structure for concept development and uh one that’s valid

across everything we do even like my role as a CEO is kiss keep it simple

stupid uh and you know when you think about creative communication and the

context of it people very often consume your message on a way to work They are in a

busy tube Uh they are waiting in a queue They are you know on the move and you

need to really keep things super simple So captivating hook then showing the game play zoomed enough so you can see

it uh even when you are you know walking on the street You need to emphasize the

core game mechanics so everyone can get it in two three seconds And then you need to really have a convincing unique

selling proposition The reason why people should download and play the game And that’s all about simplicity and

being straightforward and entertaining I would say it reminds me of everything I

do around LinkedIn posts Like if I just removed the game at Yeah because you need the hook which is the first three

lines and you need the interest which is why should someone spend more time

looking at this post So I need to build up the I guess expectation by either you

know flexing where where we’re going to go what we’re going to learn or like the story start of a story like all right

I’ll I’ll give you my extra 10 seconds because everyone’s like I always say you have to stop the scroll like it’s not a

book it’s not an article we’re on LinkedIn and then at the end you say the decision for me is like the call to

action or call to engage and now I just started thinking about all the mobile ads I’ve seen some of them don’t do I

feel some of those well like the hook there is no hook it’s just showing gameplay or the decision like a lot of

them now they have the playable ads so I guess that’s the decision and then I play and I like I fail and I want to download the game but I think it’s a

very good reminder like we’re trying to stop the scroll usually so that’s

is I’m just okay now I’m just going to ask you questions as a marketer because I’m curious like how important is the

hook in a mobile game ad is it everything because for some people say it’s like 80% in their marketing but I

wonder how does it work in mobile game ads It’s absolutely important and the

reason is that the most of the ads are viewed for a few seconds Uh and you know in our thinking when we are developing

creatives we know that we have max 4 seconds before people start dropping off

and we did an experiment in the past and measured that across lots of creatives that we have developed And you can clearly see the curve dropping down

after 4 seconds So that’s the time frame within which you need to stop uh the

viewer to scroll and you can do it with uh you know something that’s surprising

that’s comical You can use techniques such as movement text voice sound

effects visual elements like there’s many ways how to create a captivating

hook and very often and that’s why we uh pay extra attention to it It’s the hook

that can kill the creative So what we do at agent we always deliver the master at

and two extra versions with alternative hook So the core is pretty much the same but the opening sequence is something

that we alter to increase the likelihood that that concept will work because we

are testing three different opening parts and therefore there’s 3x chances

that we’ll find the winner Yeah same thing on LinkedIn I do that a lot with my content I changed the first couple

lines but also the visual hook is massive I had one post for a client and I knew it was going to be good and it

wasn’t I was like there’s something not right So I did it again with a different graphic and it flew I was like okay So

yeah Um that’s super cool So I want to move on to creative teams but I’m going

to ask you one more question on hooks because I’m very curious So like what are what are people getting wrong with hooks not thinking about them first and

foremost Um oh really are you saying that there’s studios that not thinking about hooks in the ads the creative

people tend to think in stories and a hook is like a mini story within a story

you know And by nature we tend to think about like 30 seconds rather than 3

seconds So you need to really bake this into your creative process and even

build a creative that’s sort of scalable that’s ready made to be designed in

multiple versions You can actually change the opening hook and it will still make sense with the rest of the

creative So it’s sort of like a modular approach and that’s you know sometimes difficult to keep in mind when you are

you know looking for some inspiration and you are thinking about some big ideas like the TV stuff for commercials

where you build a narrative over 30 seconds and in the last 5 seconds you just show something surprising and ta

and you know that’s you know the peak of the experience on mobile is the opposite

you show like a snippet you show like a condensed um message and then you build

on that you elaborate on that So it’s reversed and that’s sort of counterintuitive you know like we were

told fairy tales as kids and the narrative was more like traditional Now you have to think the other way around

and that’s challenging That hurts Yeah No it’s so many parallels to LinkedIn

Like that’s one of the biggest things I do in coaching is banging on about the

hook Like this is a great story but imagine you were scrolling past this post You would make the decision like is

this worth my time probably not And I’m like no we’ve lost it And you really is

so important Um and and Harry time is time is the biggest currency Like even for players it’s not a question of if

the game is for free It takes time to download it open it get into the game

And because it’s the most valuable and not renewable asset people think twice if they will hit the get button You know

they can spend their time with their friends on Netflix I’ll go on a bike

whatever So you really need to bring a very strong unique selling proposition that you need to communicate very early

to convince people to keep watching and give them enough reasons to take action

Yeah awesome I want to move on to this which is actually relevant to me because I’m in the process of I guess building

and managing a team now So creative teams we mentioned earlier how creative

teams we haven’t mentioned it we’re going to mention it now but creative teams are difficult We mentioned this

before the show but a creative team you got designers you got marketers data analysts and in your team a lot of them

are remote From my understanding uh large part of the creative team is remote Yeah Because the best talent is

difficult to move to one location So it’s true So how do we manage a creative

team let alone full stop but like remotely even then that sounds very difficult Could you speak on that um

listen creative people are like different breed uh to let’s say us marketers I consider myself a marketer

They are very passionate They are very sensitive uh emotional crazy and uh these are all the

things that make them a great uh creative minds and they need to be treated differently than let’s say a

data analyst or UA manager Uh they need way more like safety They need mental

space They need support lots of support and being assured they are doing good job and if they fail like not making a

biggie from that like you know we are learning every day uh that’s part of the process Uh that’s fine and let’s let’s

continue no one will die like we are not surgeons so whatever happens uh is

usually not having like major implications So to let them perform at

their best you need to build an environment of safety and encouragement And funnily enough I’ve

learned over the years that usually the best performers have some kind of trauma from the childhood from school

from relations and they work hard on themselves every day because they want

to prove to themselves sometimes even to the others they are really really good

So it’s a bit counterintuitive that the best people usually are not very like

self-confident They have something inside know imposter syndrome or how do we call it that drives them and gives

them this like extra motivation to work hard on their skills on their you know

knowledge etc So you need to keep this in mind and you need to treat them

accordingly Even if they are rock stars if you love them if they are amazing and

create awesome stuff there is this uncertainty inside and you need to be kind to them and give them enough let’s

say support so they can really be at their best all the time What would you say to old Peter who was

managing creative teams about how to manage those rock stars better like what

would you go back in time and tell Peter i would say that what I have learned is

that structure and systems are not the opposite of

creativity and it actually makes people more comfortable and secure and feeling

more safe So process is something that empowers creative minds because it

gives some boundaries some structure some system some guidance and you know what’s the most terrifying at least to

me if I am sitting with a pen and a white sheet of paper and that’s for most

of the people and imagine that you have a company with no rules you have a team with no structure you have no definition

of the steps that you need to take you have no framework how to ideulate how to create iterations how to develop a

creative strategy without these things you might feel easily lost And I would

say that early in the days I felt that smart creative people will figure it out

They don’t need this Over the years I see the benefits of combining uh more like structure and systematic work which

actually gives people more mental capacity to be creative and bring better ideas

I’m going through that right now uh Peter So I have a ghost writing agency and I was doing it all myself for up to

like what six to eight clients and I realized then you hit just a mental

limit like all this mental energy spent on like okay what am I going to do i’m going to use this method this method and

I’ve been working over the last month actually on trying to make it into a framework and a system specifically for

ideulating and writing But I wanted to ask you so is my job now the person

because I am a ghostriter but ultimately I want to be the CEO and more quality control in the future That’s the goal

Right now I’m doing a lot of hands-on work but I want to enable someone to do ghost writing to high quality But I

cannot expect them to have 200 gaming podcast under their belt and been writing for a year straight Like it’s

just those people don’t exist So what I’ve been thinking to do is build the framework and give it to them but I want

in theory to have that person also build on that framework because they’re actually going to be spending more time on it So my question is this like is it

my role now to build a framework and give it to them full stop like or how

much are they supposed to be involved in like building this framework and process if any uh do you have architects or

brick brick layers on your team I tried with brick layers and then stopped I now

have I’d say a 70% architect That’s how I would start question Yeah

uh what I found out the best is to combine my experience with the fresh

perspective of the newcomer you know be it my new business manager or uh someone who is promoted in the team to a

leadership role and uh co-create this together like I’m usually the owner like

there needs to be one owner that’s you you’re the leader you’re building the business you’re imprinting your principles into the business so you need

to own this but the person should be involved in creating it because they will be using it They will be daily

following these principles and they might see things that you consider uh you know obvious um that you don’t have

to explain to anyone or that uh maybe you are already having some habits that

someone else sees as not very like productive or efficient So it’s good to have this like friction this conflict

between the old and new and the senior and junior uh and take the best out of both worlds So that’s the way how to

build it because also the person who use it will consider it their own They will

feel I was part of the development process This is my tool This is my framework in a sense and therefore they

will more likely use it rather than feeling that something is imposed on them from top

That’s actually tangential very good advice for a client I recommended them

the recruitment pipeline that I used at my old company and they had the

challenge of then introducing that system to their team and what you just

mentioned I was like oh we should add that to the process where we get them to say oh this is how the Trello should

look in my opinion and no that’s very good advice don’t get me wrong uh I’ve messed this up many times uh and you

know even like last year I’ve made the same mistake uh a few times so Uh it’s a

process where you learn that you don’t have like the let’s say

[Music] um the idea that’s always the best and I’m strong believer that if I bring more

people to the table the outcome is better It’s not always about the number of people Usually smaller teams two

three four are performing better than larger ones It’s not about you know democracy about letting everyone vote

and uh decide uh you know as a group You’re the owner That’s what I said at

the beginning You should make the final call But if you invite the others the

next stage the application of the framework or the system or the process will be much more efficient and you

won’t have to be the police guy who is always checking if someone is really sticking to the rules because they will

do it naturally Awesome Um very quick tactical question on this because I’m just curious So

would you do that in a dedicated call with an agenda for example right now it’s kind of like we’re just having two

or three calls a week to like sync on stuff But when you’re building a process

should there be a process to the way you do the I guess the calls and the

communication to making sure the process gets to a stage because right now it’s kind of like we’re just going through the motions is still getting somewhere

But I’m curious if there’s any advice there I’m learning this a lot especially last year when we’ve invested quite some

time into repositioning uh defining the strategy more in detail and also like

involving more people to be part of the strategy development So it’s not just me

now it’s a larger team and there needs to be some system how to bring these ideas to life So what I like to do is to

meet in person with these folks if possible because the chemistry the focus

is much better Uh imagine that you are sitting with someone eight hours on a zoom call like that’s that’s killing you

But if you’re eight hours in the same space you go for a lunch take a coffee break Uh you can really push things

forward at tremendous pace and uh then what we typically do is some homework uh

preparing some ideas up front So everyone has to think has to take down notes has to come with their own

perspective not influenced by the others and then we have more most commonly a

collaborative session in mirror so it’s in digital space and it’s uh easy to you

know develop uh in such a way and there we are pretty

much communicating about what are the different perspectives how to consolidate the ideas uh we are voting

which one is the together or we are discussing uh what to highlight and then at the end there’s some like rough

conclusion but then the owner if it’s let’s say company strategy it’s me if it’s about new business strategy it’s

the head of new business is making the final action steps that are turned into some project management tools such as

ClickUp in our case so there are some homework co collaboration and then

specific outcomes and tasks with defined next steps and deadlines that’s what works for us across the support you know

for retrospections for new strategy development frameworks ideation etc Love

it I’m watching that back later That was lovely That was awesome Nice step-by-step process Sweet Um you

mentioned about managing teams I’m curious about hiring them So it’s one thing when they’re there but like how do

we get the best ones how would you go about hiring a creative person we are looking for very passionate people uh

you know if you’re in gaming you need people who love games who are absolutely like passionate about uh some titles

that are played you know day and night They need to be like nerds in a sense uh

and that brings the talent that’s really like super engaged uh when there’s a

task to resolve and I feel that the best result comes if

there’s different people in the room there’s like different like complimentarity of skills and uh

therefore when I’m hiring I’m looking for some place to be filled some like

new talent to enrich uh the team like yesterday we had a call with a junior

strategist or candidate for a junior strategist and he’s a male the team is

predominantly female he’s uh very outspoken the team is more like introverted he’s uh very like

charismatic girls on the team are very like uh work focused and very much like

heads and clouds and he can be the one who will like bring some new energy on the team who will be uh able to go in

front of a client who will be able to really fight for the idea because like we felt the energy from him So we had

the two candidates yesterday and this guy was very different to the current

team while the second candidate was like a carbon copy of the existing team members and we decided to go for the one

who is really on the opposite side of the scale to create this like diversity tension mix of perspectives

uh and you know create this like vibrant environment because from that you get the best ideas M so when you’re

hiring I think we’re if I could um recap that So we need to be treating people I

guess like not individuals themselves alone We

want to be more like they’re a puzzle piece that fits into what we have now and we need to take that into account when we’re hiring So

yeah that’s my strategy You know I’m uh thinking about agent as like top sports

team Uh everyone has their role Uh someone is uh a goalkeeper someone is uh

you know in the middle of the field Uh someone is you know creating the goal opportunities and someone is scoring And

I’m the coach Uh I’m sitting on the bench I’m just like orchestrating it And I need people with uh different talents

different uh age gender experience passions And once we put them in one

room the magic happens So I’m always thinking how this new person will elevate the team It’s not about

expanding capacity It’s about bring something new at a cost that there will be friction There will be ripples I bet

you know this new guy will bring some stuff that will be great but also will create some uh issues and that’s part of

the game because the net new will be positive I believe Yeah No I love that

approach If we’re coming to the later part of the podcast I wanted to talk

about the future a little bit I’m just curious uh Peter before I move on to like your thoughts on I guess marketing

might touch on AI but you personally like what are your goal because you mentioned you see yourself as this

sports team like I’m curious how big of a sports team you looking for like what’s what’s the vision for Peter and

App agent for the next few years You said big but I think that uh the perspective changed over the last two

years uh you can go big with a small team with AI you can create stuff that

uh required uh more people and now with the same team the bandwidth uh increased

and uh you have less let’s say overheads uh less management issues so to me it’s

not about the size of the team I want to have rather small team we are now about 35 people and uh I feel that for us the

50 is the healthy maximum uh but you can do the work uh with uh 50 plus AI as

with 200 few years ago you know so uh that changed uh the situation quite uh

tremendously there’s um many many options in the future one is to really win tournaments with app

agent another one that we are investing in is uh this publishing developing own products uh being more let’s say

involved in the product design uh so that could be you know some kind of a new business I guess uh we are now still

in the exploratory stage and have few products uh out and still learn a lot

Can I ask something that I’m just Yeah go ahead I’m just I’m just curious um is that you opening a publishing arm did I

get that right that’s maybe too bold to say at this stage Uh we are learning how

to better connect product and marketing if I put it this way Uh we’re

experimenting with uh gamified apps Uh so it’s somewhere in between apps and

games Uh yeah like the walking you told me right yeah that’s a good example you know that’s uh somewhere in between and

when we were pitching this to investor they were always asking is it a game or is it an app uh but if I ask you is

Dualingo an app or a game h uh like it’s difficult to pick right uh so uh things

on this intersection is uh where uh is uh our interest and uh we’ll see where

it will bring us like even now uh year and a half into this adventure we have learned so much that we are using for

our clients you know this research uh the principles how to connect uh the marketing with the product uh let’s say

offers in the game in marketing communication vice versa how these tests in the early stage are influencing the

game design these are things that we are learning uh on our own stuff and are absolutely applicable to our partners

and very often I am getting these questions uh where I have real experience that I can share uh that’s

great so that could be uh a direction uh that will take off uh let’s see I would

be very happy about that uh but I’m also you know in the age when I’m not overly

optimistic about everything out there uh we work hard and uh we are optimistic but things can go either way Uh but

generally I feel there’s a lack of agencies like a patient on the market

that are able to solve real growth problems There are sorts of like creative shops There’s agencies that do

UA There’s agencies that do influencer marketing But is there someone who can really

come diagnose the problem find the solution and help you to grow again to

bring a game that’s declining back on the growth track to help you to identify new title and test it well so the

chances for success are bigger to combine this like systematic approach with really creative uh angle you know

that’s where I believe we can provide great value and of course there’s a threat of AI but I strongly believe that

you know strategy and creative strategy in particular is something that for a while will still be a domain of uh humans

Really cool Loads of moving parts there and yeah I like the the vision and I’m in a similar boat

I think with AI there is what influencer marketing sorry personal branding

agencies you can grow them to 30 50 people but now you just don’t have to So I’m I’m also toying with that as well

you mentioned with AI Yeah For me it’s a bold statement like you can do what you

could do with 50 people versus 200 I was going to ask the question when it comes

to mobile game marketing like how has AI changed and will change do you think in the future like what should people keep

in mind that maybe you’ve seen from the bird’s eye view that you have we’ve already seen so many changes um there’s

much better understanding of what works uh for the competition like the creative analysis that’s already providing very

good insights Uh it’s much easier to illustrate your ideas Like back in the day we were looking for some stock

footage or taking some screenshots from the game Nowadays we can just prompt an

image in the style and mood that really reflects the concept It’s much easier to create story boards these days It’s much

easier to also work with limited assets that we are very often uh getting

provided uh by our partners uh be it in terms of volume quality diversity So

these days we can create from just few static images much more compelling at

creative where the characters will be animated there will be 3D sequences that could be done with tools like clink uh

we can generally create more like variety which is one of the keys to you

know crack uh the algorithmic challenge and find the winner Uh the variety is

what makes uh uh the difference Uh and also what will be a huge change and

I feel that will be really sooner than later Um the user acquisition as we know it uh will become largely automated It

makes much more sense that there will be machine talking to machine One machine is let’s say meta’s uh algorithm the

network algorithm or Google or Apple you name it and on the other side now there’s still a human being but that

will you know be completely changed and there will be another machine talking to

the other one and the role of a UA manager as we know it won’t be around in two three years from now So that will

change a lot So I really think that the main challenge will be in finding the unique angle finding the the strategy

how to get from A to B and that in between I know the execution will be

largely simplified and that’s where I believe the gains will be achieved For me that’s a big statement The UA manager

execution responsibility is going to become less and less needed because of AI And what I’m hearing is that

firepower would then go into the creative and the strategy which is what we feel like a human needs to be doing

right 100% Yeah Interesting I feel the same um with

what I’m doing Like I guess the job of a writer isn’t as necessary It’s more the

ideation and the person who can bring the stories together which an AI can’t do But like actually writing the first

draft like I don’t think we’re going to have the same marketplace of like people

writers charging by word It’s just like it’s not as necessary anymore So yeah

very cool very exciting Is that scary should that be scary if you if I’m a UA manager listening to this like what should I be doing it’s also scary for me

I’m not a UA manager Uh but I’m in a business where AI has and will have a

big impact Um it can go either way Like it might kill the business it might

boost it I’m not sure yet Uh but uh there is a reason to be scared On the

other hand uh seeing you know what our team creates with AI what kind of stuff

they’re able to do today just like single person it’s mind-blowing So uh

I’m excited every day and I’m scared in the long term Well so I guess you just do more do

better and then I guess Yeah do more do Yeah Interesting It’s it’s funny hearing

you say like you’re scared in the long term but excited in the short term If I ask you a final question which I try to

ask as much as possible is for young people right now maybe people who want to follow in your footsteps or young

people who want to join the games industry What would you tell them based on your career

i had an interview last week uh and spoke to a young guy who said he wants

to get into game development and he was applying for I

guess traffic manager role something like that and asked him so what have you done he said I’m playing with unity and

explor yada yada and I was like okay so are you developing a game yourself not

really I’m just like exploring it And I asked him “Well why not why not now when

you have no obligations you have plenty of time You can sit with Unreal the

whole weekend and have a prototype by the end of the day and bring that prototype to a company you want to work

for and just show them that you are doer that you are not just like thinking and

dreaming you’re actually doing something.” And uh I am always impressed

by people who come and show they have balls like this guy yesterday He’s

running uh an event agency here in Prague uh developing uh high quality

events in the music space He’s running his own label He started Instagram account that grew tremendously over the

last 12 months It has nothing in common with gaming and mobile marketing but he showed that he’s a doer and I want him

on the team Couldn’t agree more I love that Amazing Peter if we are thinking about

the people in mobile games that are listening to this is there anything we haven’t covered today that you’d like to share with them i would say that uh we

got through very rough times in the last two years It’s not completely over but I

feel that we should tap ourselves on the back Uh that we’ve made it on the other side uh and

look more into the future like what will be the next age of gaming uh what kind

of experiences the technology can provide what players want and just be

more innovative experimental again because frankly if you look back the last five six years the story is just

full of copycats and I feel that only now after the pressure coming with this

postcoid normalization there’s more drive to innovate and create new games

and take bit more risk because that’s the only way how can you win I love it and will be better for people like me

More games as well more different types of games less copycats So amazing Peter thank you so much for your time I really

enjoyed this conversation Thank you Harry for having me and have a good one Ah how can people find you what’s the best way for people to find and connect

with you if they want to chat uh look for me on LinkedIn Peter Fodor I’m very active there So if you want to connect

drop me a message Amazing Peter Thanks again Thank you very much So good one