Gaming

European Gaming meets Gökçe Nur Oguz, CEO and Co-Founder of Playable Factory

Published

2 years ago

April 26, 2022

George Miller

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Q: Tell us about how & why you came to found Playable Factory?

Over four years ago – when we founded the company – gaming was booming and it still is today. All our friends were working in the sector and we wanted to, too. We were new to it all. Monetization, LTV, CPI… sounded like another language to us but gradually we learnt from our friends and tapped into the scene. As we grew our understanding, we realised playable ads played an important role. If done well, they can add to the experience of gaming. But good ones were frustratingly hard to find. So, along with my co-founders, Berat and Omer, we started making them ourselves and the rest is history.

Q: What were you doing before that/what led to it?

After university, I completed a PhD in Fluid Dynamics, a subdiscipline within physics and engineering. There were a few gamification projects, like building games for people to play that would simultaneously have a background programme running to solve an operational problem. This part had me captivated. Outside of academia, I was always gaming and would gamify everything I did. Not just computer games, but card games, board games etc… So it felt natural to me to do something I enjoyed.

Q: Describe Playable Factory & Gearbox in a nutshell?

Playable Factory is a company that focuses on the creative needs of digital advertisers. The focus is mostly on playable ads and recently on video ads for gaming clients specifically. Our secret (or not so secret) weapon is Gearbox, an online editing and iterating platform for creatives. This is split into two: Gearbox Playable, create your own tailor made playable ads (create, iterate, download and repeat) and Gearbox Video, a tool that allows users to record gameplays easily and create/edit/tweak to their heart’s desire. You can generate hundreds of videos in an automated process with one click.

Q: What kind of support can a gaming developer (or brand marketer) expect from your
platform?

Gearbox is made for people who want to monetize their games. It’s a one-stop shop for advertising and promotional videos. No prior coding knowledge is needed so anyone can use it, which hasn’t really been done to this extent before – with full, fast-response, technical support. It’s like having the full agency experience on one platform. For developers, we provide them with market insights around playable ads, guiding them to the right concept in
a speedy manner. They can get creative with graphic filters, text to speech options, banners… and any feature that improves the performance of the playables or video ads.

Q: Who are your clients?

We work with top mobile game publishers: Zynga, Playtika, Dream, Voodoo, Lion Studios, Gram Games and lots more. Apps publishers like Funimate, Trendyol and Gopuff. And brands include Hasbro, LEGO, Unilever and L’Oréal.

Q: What is unique about the Turkish mobile market/why has it become known as the Silicon
valley of the mobile gaming market?

Turkey’s become a global mobile gaming hub. It’s amazing to watch it take off. Some of the best publishers and developers in the world are based here. I think it’s got a lot to do with the ability for rapid development. You’ll find teams of 4-5 young people making a steady stream of mobile games that they send out into the market. Thanks to home-grown success stories, the eyes of investors have turned towards us. But it’s also down to the culture here. Gaming is hugely popular in Turkey and you can feel the passion and drive among people in the
scene here. Local and global economic forces make international expansion lucrative and it feeds back into making the industry making it even bigger and better – and long may it continue.

Q: Have you always been passionate about gaming? When did you first get into it?

I’ve always liked games: console, board games, mobile games… For me, it’s cracking the puzzle that gets me hooked on a game. In my childhood, my younger sister and I were always inventing our own games. Now, business-wise, my co-founder Berat and I, enjoy gaming together and playing board games in our downtime. We actually got the licence for the hugely popular party game Codenames from Czech Games. Since then, we’ve published two more board games together. This was before we entered mobile gaming.

Q: What’s your favourite mobile game?

It has to be 2048. I like puzzles and numbers 🙂

Q: What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve overcome in your career to date? And greatest
success?

Without a doubt: building a company from scratch on a technology that we learned all by ourselves, with no training. I didn’t know how to build playable ads, I didn’t know anything about HTML5 gaming and coding so finding a good developer and establishing a business was the biggest challenge.

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d give to start-ups in the gaming industry?

I never truly understood the importance of a team before I started working in gaming. PhDs involve mostly working solo and it misses the team spirit. The pressure is high because the success of your work is always dependent on you, and you alone. The gaming industry is totally different. Success reflects on the team who built the game. I wish I’d known that before joining the industry. So, my advice would be to evaluate your team, and believe in them because that’s the only way to reach success. If you don’t like the people you work with, it’s often much harder for you to fulfil your full potential. When your motivations align with your team’s, you can combine forces and focus to get the success you deserve.

Gaming

Flexion Enters into Partnership with Jam City

Published

1 week ago

May 9, 2024

Niji Narayan

flexion-enters-into-partnership-with-jam-city

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Flexion, the games marketing company, has partnered with Jam City, a leading mobile entertainment company behind some of the world’s highest-grossing and most enduring mobile games, to bring a selection of the publisher’s best-in-class games to the Alternative App Stores: Amazon Appstore, Huawei App Gallery, Aptoide, ONE store, Samsung Galaxy Store, DT Hub and Xiaomi GetApps.

“We are always looking for new opportunities to build our network of global players, and Flexion is a proven partner that will help introduce our award-winning titles to new audiences in the alternative stores,” Curtis Barnes, Senior Director of Publishing Operations for Jam City, said.

“We’re all about helping developers like Jam City reach the full potential of their games. We’re delighted they have chosen us to add revenue and audiences for their games on the alternative app stores,” Jens Lauritzson, CEO of Flexion, said.

The post Flexion Enters into Partnership with Jam City appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Gaming

Mobile Games Index: Analysis of 95M Game Interactions Reveals Shifting Engagement Trends, Available Now

Published

2 weeks ago

May 7, 2024

George Miller

mobile-games-index:-analysis-of-95m-game-interactions-reveals-shifting-engagement-trends,-available-now

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The anticipated fourth edition of the annual Mobile Games Index, powered by adjoe and Statista, is now available.

The latest report offers a clear look into the current state of the mobile gaming sector, analyzing the past 12 months of the first-party data from 95 million app interactions across 27 million users. The MGI 2024 reveals what people choose to play on their mobile devices, filling the gap in industry knowledge and enabling game developers and user acquisition specialists to benchmark their products and ultimately target the right audiences with the right content.

Moving forward, it is up to the industry decision-makers to analyze the findings and promptly adapt to the newly-emerged engagement trends from MGI 2024, effectively engaging desired audiences.

A Peek at Shifting Engagement Trends to Capitalize on

Based on predictions from Statista, the overarching trend in the market is its robust growth with a forecasted expansion from $166.1 billion in 2024 to $227 billion by 2028.

Remarkably, Card games are expected to grow the most dramatically at 13.8% a year, nearly doubling their global revenue by 2028. Judging from the engagement charts of MGI 2024, the main driver of growth in this category is Solitaire games. The audience is showing a clear preference for Solitaire – these games hold 7 out of 10 positions in the top list of card games worldwide by time spent with titles from MobilityWare, Gimica, Scopely, and Playvalve, among others.

What allows the market to show revenue growth is the positive changes in global daily time spent. After the dip in engagement highlighted by the last year’s Index, adjoe confirms that average daily sessions have rebounded to 21.5 minutes from 17.3 minutes reported last year, marking a 22% increase.

The most engaged demographic of mobile gamers globally is the 40-49 age group, which has experienced a remarkable 33% increase in daily gaming time, now at 23 minutes daily. The strategies targeted at older demographics over the past 12 months can be deemed successful. However, this has led to a loss of focus on engaging Gen-Z, which has shown only modest growth in time spent.

The MGI also reveals that women are outpacing men in daily gaming time across most genres – as reported for the 4th edition in a row. This consistent and high performance makes the female audience a continuously safer bet when it comes to user targeting.

Another continued trend is the dominance of top publishers such as Supercell, Garena, King, and Playrix, while there’s still space to occupy for smaller publishers. For instance, ForgeGames tops the engagement charts with their game Special Forces Group 2 – capturing over 43 minutes of average daily engagement.

The insights continue in the MGI 2024, going granular to segment and visualize global mobile game engagement data from adjoe by genre, region, and demographic. At the same time, Statista’s extensive market research provides a macro-view of the current and future industry, offering figures for global downloads and revenues with forecasts extending to 2028.

Mobile Games Index 2024 Is Available in Open Access

The MGI 2024 goes deep below the surface of market data and creates a comprehensive snapshot of the mobile gaming industry today. Inside are

For developers and marketers, this report is the green light to benchmark performance against industry leaders and align their products with the rising expectations of mobile gamers. This comprehensive tool is now available for free to inform decision-making and help optimize strategies for short- and long-term actions.

The post Mobile Games Index: Analysis of 95M Game Interactions Reveals Shifting Engagement Trends, Available Now appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Gaming

The German Games Industry Association congratulates all winners of the German Computer Game Awards 2024

Published

4 weeks ago

April 22, 2024

George Miller

the-german-games-industry-association-congratulates-all-winners-of-the-german-computer-game-awards-2024

Reading Time: 3 minutes

• “EVERSPACE 2” by ROCKFISH Games is ‘Best German Game’ 2024
• Pixel Maniacs from Nuremberg wins in the ‘Studio of the Year’ category
• ‘Best International Game’ is Baldur’s Gate 3
• ‘Player of the Year’ is Maurice Weber

High-quality games, great entertainment and many well-known personalities from the games industry and the cultural, societal and political spheres – the German Computer Game Awards 2024 (DCP), presented this evening in Munich, featured all that and more. Numerous guests celebrated the best games from Germany and the creative minds behind them in person at Eisbach Studios in Munich. The award show, which was hosted by Katrin Bauerfeind and Uke Bosse, was additionally followed by hundreds of thousands of viewers via live stream. A total of 800,000 euros was awarded in cash prizes. “EVERSPACE 2” by ROCKFISH Games was chosen ‘Best German Game’. The ‘Studio of the Year’ award went to Pixel Maniacs from Nuremberg, which has made a name for itself with successful games like the party racing game “Can’t Drive This”, its multifaceted involvement in the game industry and its promotion of young talent, as well as with its innovations in the area of marketing. The ‘Special Jury Prize’ was awarded to the project “Gaming ohne Grenzen” (Gaming without Borders), an initiative that enables young people with disabilities to participate actively in game culture – for example, by assessing in inclusive game testing groups the accessibility of various games as well as the ability of certain technologies to help overcome barriers in video games. In voting by the community and the jury, Maurice Weber was selected ‘Player of the Year’. The games editor and Twitch streamer regularly analyses current developments in the games industry and takes a critical look at them, while at the same time formulating a clear stance for more diversity and against extremism in games and society.

The German Computer Game Awards, which honour the year’s best German-produced games, are hosted by the German Federal Government, represented by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and game – The German Games Industry Association.

‘Congratulations to all winners of the German Computer Game Awards 2024!’ says Felix Falk, Managing Director of game. ‘Even in these very challenging times for many German firms in the industry, German games companies have created high-quality and successful games that have deservedly been honoured on the big stage of the DCP. Around half of these outstanding games were developed with the support of federal game funding. This once again demonstrates the potential that we can leverage when the underlying policy framework for game development in Germany provides for truly predictable and internationally competitive conditions – conditions that allow games from Germany to shine even more brightly all over the world and achieve even greater success on the national as well as international stage. We must make this our goal!’

Overview of all winners:
Best International Game (not endowed)

Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)

Best German Game (endowed with 100,000 euros)

EVERSPACE 2 (ROCKFISH Games)

The other nominees will each receive 30,000:

Atlas Fallen (Deck 13 Interactive/Focus Entertainment)
Fall of Porcupine (Critical Rabbit/Assemble Entertainment)

Best Family Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Spells & Secrets (Alchemist Interactive/rokaplay)

Newcomer Award – Best Debut (endowed with 60,000 euros)

Ad Infinitum (Hekate/NACON)

The other nominees will receive 25,000 euros each:

Fall of Porcupine (Critical Rabbit/Assemble Entertainment)
Lose CTRL (Play From Your Heart)

Newcomer Award – Best Prototype (endowed with 50,000 euros)

Misgiven (Symmetry Break Studio)

The other nominees will receive 25,000 euros each:

Bloodletter (Katharina “Mikey” Müller, David Cafisso, Marvin Braun, Alica Schneider/Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin)
EcoGnomix (Lars Hinnerk Grevsmühl, Lars Eble, Bahy Nguyen, Marcel Zurawka, Alec Shae)
Footgun: Underground (Eduard Dobermann, Theo Lohmüller, Georg Nimke, Robert Pistea, Lukas Salewsky)
REPLICORE (Sarah Inés Roeder, Rody Nawezi, Leonhard Gläser, Maximilian Götz/ HAW Hamburg)

Best Innovation and Technology (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Marble Maze (Fox-Assembly)

Best Serious Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Friedrich Ebert – Der Weg zur Demokratie (Playing History/Stiftung Reichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert-Gedenkstätte)

Best Audio Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Ad Infinitum (Hekate/NACON)

Best Game Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Lose CTRL (Play From Your Heart)

Best Graphic Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

The Bear – A Story from the World of Gra (Mucks! Games)

Best Mobile Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Cat Rescue Story (Tivola Games)