So, your new game has taken the world by storm? What do you do next? How do you maintain momentum and how do you replicate your previous success?
This week on “Mastering Retention,” Miikka Ahonen Co-founder of Lightheart Entertainment, creator of Mr. Autofire, joins Tom to discuss building and running a company, building successful games, as well as strategies for release and, of course, retention.
Here are your cheat codes:
- 0:45 How Miikka Ahonen got into the video game industry
- 3:07 What it was like starting Lightheart Entertainment
- 5:40 Advice for people starting their own studio
- 8:58 The original vision for Lightheart and where it is today
- 16:40 The process of creating prototypes and where they draw inspiration from at Lightheart
- 18:33 What comes after gray box testing?
- 20:40 What are realistic build and release timelines?
- 23:34 Is there an ideal revenue breakdown for ads and IAP?
- 24:53 What mistakes do you feel like you made and what would you do differently?
- 26:55 How the company has changed after a successful game and their outlook and strategy moving forward
- 31:53 What is your approach to hiring and some lessons you’ve learned?
- 40:25 Live ops in hybrid-casual
- 53:58 Game economy design within hybrid-casual genre
- 56:19 Tips to increase player retention
Ep. 75: Strategies for Successful Studios