AppSamurai: A current report you shared exhibits a ten% leap in in-game occasions in only one quarter. How do you see this acceleration shaping participant engagement, and is there a tipping level the place LiveOps turns into an excessive amount of?
Ömer Yakabağı:
The ten% leap in LiveOps isn’t only a stat, it’s proof that cellular gaming has absolutely embraced “Video games as a service.” Occasions are not seasonal bonuses; they’re now the core engagement loop.
Right here’s the catch: extra LiveOps doesn’t robotically imply extra engagement.
There’s a tipping level the place occasions turn out to be noise. In case you’re spamming gamers with time-limited grinds, you burn them out. The winners are the groups treating LiveOps as co-creation with the group: utilizing cohorts, heatmaps, and conduct information to form occasions that really feel private, not simply scheduled.
The actual levers at this time:
- Time as forex. Gamers pay to avoid wasting time, to not win. Good LiveOps designs round progress, not shortcuts.
- Cultural nuance. What feels thrilling in North America may flop in Southeast Asia. Regional LiveOps isn’t nearly time zones, it’s about cultural rhythm.
- Economic system self-discipline. Blow up your economic system with deep reductions, and gamers won’t ever pay full worth once more. Sensible pacing retains LTV wholesome.
- Circulation design. Runners present how problem scaling will be tuned so each occasion retains gamers in “stream,” not frustration.
So sure, there’s completely a “an excessive amount of” line.
LiveOps must be a dialog, not a content material dump. The studios that respect that, constructing occasions with their gamers as an alternative of at them, will maintain engagement sustainable. Everybody else will simply add noise to an already crowded calendar.
AppSamurai: Advert creatives are extra data-driven than ever, with groups consistently testing new concepts and codecs. Do you assume it’s the creatives that basically make a sport stand out, or is it nonetheless all concerning the gameplay? And what’s probably the most thrilling inventive strategy you’ve seen these days?
Ömer Yakabağı:
Creatives win the set up, gameplay wins the retention.
You don’t scale a weak loop with flashy adverts, however you additionally don’t get found with out them. In at this time’s cellular market, the advert is usually the first degree or minigame of your sport.
The wild half is how formulaic it’s turn out to be: “Save the Character,” “Freezing Individuals,” infinite clones of Royal Match’s king. It’s cynical, repetitive, even cringey, however it works, as a result of algorithms reward quantity, not originality. That’s why even the largest titles maintain recycling the identical ideas.
The thrilling shift? Excessive-quality packs like Match Villains elevating the manufacturing bar with near-cinematic animations, and playables evolving from hypercasual gimmicks into full UA engines. Add UGC on high, low-cost, bizarre, uncooked, and AI-amplified, and also you see the longer term forming: adverts that really feel much less like adverts, extra like leisure.
Gameplay builds the model, however creatives determine who will get a shot at scale. Ignore that at your individual threat.
AppSamurai: With a lot new content material and options being added to video games, the strains between genres are beginning to blur. Typically it’s arduous to inform what’s really informal, what’s hybridcasual, and so forth. How would you break down the principle genres at this time?
Ömer Yakabağı:
Genres at this time exist extra for publishers, traders, and analysts than for gamers.
“Informal, hypercasual, hybrid, midcore, hardcore” are handy bins we use in pitch decks and market experiences. However ask the gamers, I’d argue that over 70% of them have by no means even heard these phrases. For them, there’s just one class: “I’m simply bored, I wish to play one thing.”
A sport may be listed as informal within the retailer, however acquired via a hypercasual-style playable advert, stored alive with RPG-like development, and monetized by way of a midcore battle cross. So which style is it? For us, it’s a debate. For gamers, it’s simply an icon they faucet, actually. Actuality?
Style strains blur → Gamers don’t care. What shapes traits isn’t how we label genres, however what gamers obtain and spend on.
Discovery has shifted. Not App Retailer charts, however TikTok, YouTube, and playables drive installs. In that second, the one filter is emotion: “Does this look enjoyable proper now?”
Monetization loops redefine genres. Hypercasual funnels usually evolve into hybrid retention and midcore-style IAP. Genres at this time are extra about monetization and retention technique than participant notion.
On my 7-y.o Nephew’s cellphone, Gap.io (hypercasual), Alien Invasion (hybrid), Final Conflict: Survival (4X), and Brawl Stars (midcore) all sit subsequent to one another. He performs them each day. No boundaries in his thoughts. No thought, mainly.
Principally, segmentations nonetheless matter internally, for UA technique, roadmaps, investor decks. However the $60B cellular gaming viewers doesn’t care about informal vs. hybridcasual vs. midcore.
The one factor they care about is: “Does this sport relieve my boredom and maintain me engaged?”
AppSamurai: VC funding continues to be arduous to come back by, so extra studios are turning to UA financing. For smaller groups already placing an enormous chunk of their income into advertising and marketing, how do you see this altering the best way they develop?
Ömer Yakabağı:
There’s a incorrect assumption hidden on this query: “In case you can’t elevate VC, simply go for UA financing.” That’s not the way it works. Any studio that proves profitability and imaginative and prescient can elevate VC. The actual trade-off is completely totally different:
- UA financing = maintain your fairness, pay curiosity.
- VC funding = no curiosity, however surrender possession + a seat on the desk.
So the true query for smaller studios isn’t “VC is closed, ought to we strive UA financing?” however moderately “Which worth do you wish to pay for development, INTEREST or EQUITY?”
If a challenge is worthwhile and exhibits traction, cash will come from someplace, UA loans, publishers, angels, even founders’ personal belongings if they really consider in it. However no quantity of UA financing can flip a weak product into successful. Borrowed cash solely scales what already works.
And that’s the cruel fact of cellular gaming at this time: identical to in US-style capitalism, cash flows to make the massive gamers even greater. For smaller studios, UA financing with debt and curiosity is a critical threat. Imho, with out a confirmed sport loop, it’s not development, it’s simply carrying water to a damaged mill.
