Levelup

Herdjie Zhou co-founder and CEO of Lucky Kat Studios, speaks about the process of building his own gaming studio from the buttom up and how they got to first place on the top charts without any paid user acquisition. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/how-an-indie-developer-reached-number-one/

LevelUp is kicking off our new miniseries on game product management with Joe Kim, founder at GameMakers. In this pilot episode, Joe breaks down how and why product managers should do root cause analyses. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/how-does-root-cause-analysis-optimize-game-design/

Next up in our hyper-casual series, Vincent Hart de Keating, Managing Director at Homa Games gives us an update on genre and where it stands in the wider gaming indstry. It's been more than a year since hyper-casual took off. Is it starting fade or just getting steam? Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/how-to-make-hyper-casual-games-part-4-hyper-casual-check-in/

Sofia Gilyazova, Ad Monetization Manager at Social Point, talks everything in-app bidding - from challenges and drawbacks to benefits and brands coming on board. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/transitioning-to-an-in-app-bidding-world/

Brian Sapp, VP User Acquisition at Jam City, discusses how to conquer IPs in games, including the pros of partnerning with IPs, how game developers can get an IP, the ideal marketing strategy for them, and more. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/how-to-secure-an-ip-for-your-mobile-game/

Christophe Carvenius, Head of Insights at Tactile Games, runs through the evolution of the casual puzzle game genre while giving a deep dive into the psychology and motivation for playing puzzle games. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/the-evolution-of-casual-puzzle-games/

Andrew Stone, President at Random Logic Games, shares best practices for monetizing, advertising, and designing word games. What demographic plays word games most? Which ad unit performs best? And should you run competitior ads? Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/monetize-advertise-word-games/

In our next installment of our dedicated hyper-casual series, Ryan Davies, Digital Marketing Manager at Kwalee, tells us how his team runs successful user acquisition campaigns for hyper-casual games, which tools they rely on, and his thoughts on failing (hint: it's key). Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/whats-the-hype-with-hyper-casual-games-part-3-marketing/

Pieter Kooyman, Chief Advertising Officer at Miniclip, sets the record straight on programmatic mediation and predicts what the mobile games industry can expect to see in the near future. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/the-future-of-programmatic-mediation/

Next in our series on hyper-casual games, Tom Kinniburgh, a mobile consultant for game studios who also runs the popular blog Mobile Free to Play, walks us through the history of hyper-casual, monetization and user acquisition best practices, and what it's like with game publishers. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/whats-the-hype-with-hyper-casual-games-part-2-trends/

Discover the basics of how to make, design, plan and develop hyper-casual games with hyper-casual game idea fundamentals on this episode of LevelUp.Paul Woodbridge, Director of Design at MAG Interactive, shares what goes into designing a hyper-casual game, his team’s development process and standard KPIs, best practices, and the future of the hyper-casual genre. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/how-to-make-hyper-casual-games-part-1-designing/

Dan Greenberg, Chief Creative Officer at ironSource, shares what goes into designing hit playable ads, discusses where we can expect to see AR pop into mobile gaming, and reveals the game studio he admires most (spoiler - they build games for toddlers). Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/the-next-generation-of-interactive-mobile-ads/

Tatyana Bogatyreva, Head of User Acquisition at Gram Games, discusses mobile user acquisition strategy and the differences between UA in ad-driven games and IAP-heavy titles. Tatyana gives advice on cracking UA with limited resources, and reveals why understanding monetization is imperative for executing a strong UA strategy. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/cracking-user-acquisition-strategies-for-iap-and-ad-driven-titles/

Jane Anderson, Head of Ad Monetization at Zeptolab, shares how she’s seen the game industry change over the last few years, provides insights on how to successfully balance user experience with ad monetization, and discusses the huge potential for brand advertisers in the gaming space. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/balancing-ad-monetization-with-user-experience/

Join Nate Barker, Director of Biz Dev at Kolibri Games, in talking about idle games. Learn strategies for making and designing idle games that will monetize. Learn more here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/designing-idle-games-for-active-players/

Carissa Gonzalez, User Acquisition Manager at Pixelberry, shares her insights on everything from being a woman in the game industry, to how we've seen game marketing evolve, and how you always need to question the data. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/the-social-impact-of-gaming/

Erin O'Brien, Head of Culture at Gram Games, discusses what it means to set company culture as a business imperative and shares her secret sauce for nurturing a strong community in the workplace. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/setting-company-culture-business-imperative/

Nir Miretzky, Chairman of GameIS, covers everything on what it takes to establish and maintain strong game communities and illustrates the trends and challenges in developing mobile games. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/building-great-game-communities/

Warren Woodward, Director of User Acquisition at Nexon, shares his insights on mobile user acquisition, the importance of soft launches (can you get away without one?) and what it’s like bringing games from East to West and vice versa. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/bridging-east-and-west-in-gaming/

Hear Mishka Katkoff, Director of Product Management at Rovio and the founder of gaming blog Deconstructor of Fun share his predictions for the gaming industry in 2018 (will AR mature this year?), and discuss whether we've hit a peak with hyper-casual games. Read the edited highlights here: https://www.ironsrc.com/podcasts/the-rise-of-hyper-casual-2018-gaming-trends/