From their humble beginnings to their now viral and addictive mobile games, Solon Chen, the Co-Founder and Studio Manager of Kooapps Philipines joins us to talk about what it takes to create a successful mobile game from conception, development, launch, and monetization.
This episode's key insights:
Kooapps is a mobile games studio based in the Philippines. They are the developers behind Snake.io, Pictoeord, and Pocket Family Dreams.
Find Kooapps online at
https://kooapps.com/
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Kooapps
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kooapps/
Find more of Kooapps' games here
Snake.io
Pictoword
Pocket Family
From their humble beginnings to their now viral and addictive mobile games, Solon Chen, the Co-Founder and Studio Manager of Kooapps Philipines joins us to talk about what it takes to create a successful mobile game from conception, development, launch, and monetization.
This episode's key insights:
Kooapps is a mobile games studio based in the Philippines. They are the developers behind Snake.io, Pictoeord, and Pocket Family Dreams.
Find Kooapps online at
https://kooapps.com/
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Kooapps
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kooapps/
Find more of Kooapps' games here
Snake.io
Pictoword
Pocket Family
Aileen: 0:02
This podcast episode features Solon Chen, studio manager and co-founder of Kooapps Philippines Corp. Kooapps has released more than 50 very popular mobile games such as Snake.io, Piano Tiles, and Stacky Bird. What are the key characteristics of the mobile platform to consider when developing and marketing a successful game? What are the leading monetization options? Solon shares his insights and advice in this episode. Hi Solon, welcome on in.
Solon: 0:30
Hello, Ice.
Aileen: 0:32
Hi. So, you guys are, you have, you had quite a journey. You started from your parents' garage. I remember when we first met, you said you started at your parents' garage and now you have a full game dev studio and you're, you're now a publisher. So, I think one of the biggest questions for us is now that you have created more than 50 games or you've published more than 50 games, how do you decide that a game will perform best as a mobile release before development?
Solon: 1:04
I guess like this is a very complicated matter. It will probably take very long hours to discuss all the details, but more or less, there's usually some kind of like basic principles that you follow, right? So yeah, definitely, I think like number one is you really have to do your market studies properly. Like what are the type of games that will actually work on mobile platform? Okay, not every games actually work there. Like for example number one would be like the controls. Unlike the, the games that you play on PC or like on consoles, usually you play using mouse and keyboard or a controller, but like on mobile, it's just a touch screen. It's all flat, right? You don't get the tactile feedback. So there are games that just doesn't feel like as good when you are playing it using phone. And the tendency is, if that's the case, it might not do as well when you actually release them. So for example, like real time strategy games, the RTS games, it's actually very, very hard to reproduce on a mobile environment. Yes, you can, okay, but they aren't-- they don't offer the same control that you can have, or the fine control that you can do using like a mouse and keyboard. Same thing even with camera, right? If the best camera is the one that you have on your hand at that moment when you need to take a photo. Things like driving games is actually good, right? Because the driving games, your phone is basically the screen and the controller at the same time, so you're tilting them. You're tilting the phone as if you're driving a real car. So the experience is closer. Unlike a controller, you're using a joystick, so it's different. So, again, like what kind of, like, control that you will have in the game plays a big role whether it will succeed or not on the mobile. So, that's just a number one basic requirement. Number two is it depends on your capability and resources. So, there are teams that are very small, there are teams that are very big. So, the kind of game that you can make is very different. If you want to make really, really huge games that have like hundreds of hours worth of content chances are you need a lot bigger team. So definitely when you pick a game to make, You do have to pick something at your own size, basically. So, like, some people want to make, like, Mobile Legends or, like, a Call of Duty, or these are all way too big for a very small team. I mean, it's not that you cannot, you could still, it's just that by the time that you finish the game, the genre might be no longer as relevant, or the game itself is already outdated, there are newer technology come out. So, time is of essence. So, you do have to see, like what's your own situation and decide on what would fit your team. So you create teams you create games that you could make within that boundary that you have, you need to prototype the game because in game dev, we have a saying, like idea is cheap. Everybody has ideas. The difference is execution. Whether you can actually make it or not, that's the difference, right? It happens, but at least you know it early. That's true. You know, before you go all in, right? Yeah, it's too late now.
Aileen: 4:34
You've invested everything and it's too late. That's good. Yeah.
Solon: 4:37
Yeah. You just, you just want to, you know, dip your feet in it a little bit to see how, Oh, okay. And slowly work your way to making sure that you are taking the right steps. Right? Yeah. But if the feedback, of course, it's generally positive, then yeah, it's great.
Aileen: 4:55
That's true. I love what you said about that. Ideas being cheap, everybody has them, but it's the execution that matters. And, when you talked about market research and then the logistics and then the kind of mobile games, it really opens up a lot of questions and say, it's an entirely different ball game from, let's say a Steam game, because there are a lot of considerations that. are into play with even with just mobile games, so that's really insightful because oftentimes people want to just copy a certain game or they like what you mentioned people want to create a Mobile Legends version of their own without knowing that it needs a huge team for that to succeed otherwise it would take forever and so that's good. So now that you have developed a working game, so let's say they've tested the waters, they've done a prototype and the feedback is good. How do you go about marketing it and then ensuring the success now that you've dipped your toes in there?
Solon: 5:54
Yeah, of course. Number one is make a good game. Then people want to play, right? That's the number one rule. Okay. That's the most obvious one. I do have to say that good game is something extremely subjective because everyone has a different taste and like, it's same as food. There's food that you like, there's foods that I don't like. Same as movie. There are movies that you like to watch certain type of movie you like, certain type that I like, same with music and same with a lot of things in life. So maybe what you Think it's a good game might not be the same for other people and vice versa maybe like you think the game is bad but there were just way a lot of people who's playing, like for sample like candy crush, you know, a lot of guys things like oh, you know, it's not big deal It's a boring game for old people, whatever, but like you can't deny the fact that it's a very successful game
Aileen: 6:56
It is. There's a lot of old people who love that game and probably I'm part of the old people too at some point.
Solon: 7:00
But you have to remember, people that have slightly more age, okay, we're talking about versus college students, or younger. Okay, if you're not a college student, you're considered adults, adult adults, okay. These are the ones with money. If you really think about it, because we work, we have salaries.
Yeah, and we can use the money the way that we want, right? But if you're a college student, you are at the mercy of your parents most of the time. Yeah. So, so if you think about it, you know, like Candy Crash, okay. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, but definitely it's a successful game. Okay. It's a good game in its own right. Right. And then like a lot of boys likes to play for some for like Clash of Clans. But it doesn't necessarily means like the parents loves to play it or others like to play it. Even as simple as object finding games or hidden object games. Yeah. A lot of people like, you know, especially boys. doesn't tend to like to play that kind of game. But I can tell you, that's one of the most popular genres among moms.
Aileen: 8:10
Oh, that's very interesting.
Solon: 8:10
But in terms of general strategy, like usually attending events helps, but it's not as effective if your purpose is to let consumers know about your game. Because events are very localized. So people who goes to that event are people who lives in that area or lives in the country or lives in that city. And that's the only people that you can potentially promote to, right? So it's relatively limiting. So just remember that if you go to an event, your goal is not set. The most important goal is not about the players who's playing your game. The most important goal is actually to get media attention. Yeah, that's what you want. Yeah. So if you are in an indie booth, you know, if they are like a reporter or influencer or, others, then you want them to notice you so that they can write an article to promote because they have way bigger reach than that event itself. All the people's going to that event. Yeah, so to get that clear. Yeah Of course, it's fun to see people play the game. Sometimes they give you feedbacks. Although not all the feedbacks are useful. It's a feedback nevertheless. Number two is if you can, okay, I know not everyone can, but if you can, set aside some budgets to run some advertisements. Okay, user acquisitions, basically. You know, think about it, like one of a very popular game is Among Us, right? But Among Us didn't get popular until like more than a year that the game was released.
Aileen: 9:58
That's true.
Solon: 9:58
Yeah. It's not like when you release it, it's instant popular. It takes time. Okay. It takes people to see it. So you need to able to hit that critical mass for it to blew up.
Aileen: 10:11
Right.
Solon: 10:11
And one of the way to help you to reach more audience in a shorter span of time is right so that you could hit that critical mass faster. It's not something that's evil, right? It's just math.
Aileen: 10:24
Yes, that's true.
Solon: 10:25
Next one is community. Okay. So before you even like launch the game. Okay. It would be good, like, like earlier times that we are doing prototype, right? So all of these people they can be you can already start to promote your games, build a community no matter, like whether it's on Facebook group or it's Discord that you have a group of -- you have people, basically your own community who is interested in your game, wants to support your game. In fact, they can even be your, some of them can be your lucky testers.
Right. So that's one of the way to get things early. So that by the time that you launch, you can instantly have a lot of people downloading the game because they are the core group and they already know. They're basically just waiting for it. And if you couple with that, with a pre registration pre order. It's very, very effective.
Aileen: 11:18
Setting the hype up.
Solon: 11:19
Yes, yeah, so that they can order, even if the game is not out, they can order it. I mean, they don't have to pay when they order it, actually. They only deduct money when the game is out, if it's a paid game. Yeah, if it's a free game, of course, you're not paying anyway, right, in the first place. The next one is collaboration with other games. So sometimes Indies tend to be able to help each other, okay so you collaborate with other games, especially if that game is like already released and have more users than you because, they released earlier than you. Right? So certain collaborations can help each other to promote each other's game. I help you, you help me kind of situation. Of course, you should do it, you know, legally.
Aileen: 12:01
Yeah. Is there a way to do that legally? Because it's very exciting to see indie games work together with each other. Is there, could you give us a bit of insight on how to start that collaboration? Do you reach out to them? Do you, is it? Complicated?
Solon: 12:17
Yeah, usually, I mean, when you go to an event, you will see a bunch of indies, then you can just ask. There's no harm. Like, even if they say no, like, what's going to happen to you? Nothing happens. That's true. Because you never had it in the first place. You gotta hustle a bit.
Aileen: 12:33
Yeah, you have to, you have to network and throw your shot. Yeah, that's good.
Solon: 12:38
Yeah, and you have to get out of your way, you know, because I think like, developers tend to be a little bit more introverted most of the time. But, you know, just don't forget that most people who's in other booth are just like you. But, you'll be surprised how much similarities that we all are. That's why we're there. We're all in this. Because we share similarities. And last but not least is basically like having a feature by the platform owner, for example, like Apple or Google, or even Amazon, right? If you're talking about mobile platforms. But this one is very, very difficult because, It works in a mysterious way. Nobody really knows how it works.
Aileen: 13:18
How the algorithm chooses.
Solon: 13:19
Yeah. Yeah. I heard stories that there are algorithms that chooses certain metrics and criteria, and there's also like human curators that curates it. And there's also like business development. There are BDs from the respective platform that really liked that your game and vouch for your game, things like that. So, yeah, I mean, don't count on it, but if you have it, that's great.
Aileen: 13:42
That's great. Okay, that's good. So now that we have, we have the game running, you found collaborators who are in events. Now might be a good time to talk about monetization options, because definitely at this point, you're feeling the pinch of spending on development, spending on ads, spending on going to these events, because it's not free, right? You have to, put out not just money, effort, energy, and you need other people. So now that we're there, how, what are the monetization options for mobile games and how does that compare to, let's say, Steam or web browser? And how does that happen?
Solon: 14:19
So by default, I think there's always pay upfront, right? It's not as common, but it's starting again with like on a mobile platform with like a more higher and AAA ish looking kind of games. They are starting to do that. For example, like Resident Evil Village, okay, and Resident Evil 4, or even Assassin's Creed Mirage. They are going to be on mobile phone. And of course, I kind of expect that it's going to be paid. Maybe like first chapter or first stage being free, okay, as demo. Okay and of course, there's also in app purchase. Okay, it can be free, but then you charge it through in app purchase, and of course, I'm pretty sure a lot of viewers here are victims of gacha games.
Aileen: 15:07
I am!
Solon: 15:10
But you know, no judgments. We all are, you know, we're in love with our waifu and husbando, right? We spend that money willingly.
Aileen: 15:18
We go in with open eyes to roll that cash out.
Solon: 15:23
Yeah, yeah. I need this character. Okay, I go. Okay you know, people love it. People will do it, right? So yeah, in app purchases. Then of course, the one that's not as common would be subscriptions. Subscription is usually presented in the game as like a battle pass.
Aileen: 15:41
Battle pass.
Solon: 15:42
And yeah, that's the most common one. And sometimes they do it as like a seasonal pass. But seasonal pass is a non-auto renewable subscription. Technically it's still considered a subscription. It's just not auto renewed. But battle pass is closer to auto renew. Some of the battle pass can, you can allow it to auto renew it for you, right? So subscription works also. Another one is of course, ads. Okay. Ads is basically love and hate relationship with a lot of people.
There is always the normal ads that you see, okay, that's just percent of boom, right, right in your face kind of things, okay, or just a tiny little banner here and there. Okay, there's also reward ads, which is the ones that you, the player voluntarily want to watch, right? Watch the ad to get a certain thing,
Aileen: 16:36
A free something.
Solon: 16:37
Yeah, exactly. So, so there's that. Okay. And there's also like a partnership, ad partnership with physical brand. So for example, like you make a basketball game and then, so obviously a basketball game got to have some backgrounds, right? Okay. Yeah. And that background can potentially put up ad banners to make it more realistic. Or you have like a 3D game, like a GTA, open world. It needs to have some kind of ads to make the world look real. Right? So, the ad is actually real ads that's being inserted into the game. But you don't feel that it's an ad. You feel it's a natural part of the game. Because that's how the world, real world looks like, or feels like. So that's another partnership. Or for example, you make a donut game. Maybe you can partner up with Dunkin Donut or Krispy Kreme or whatever. And then it will be somehow like you have their signature donuts or something like that. So, that's actually, to some extent usually like in other platforms, they mostly have the, only the first three. Yeah. Especially on console, usually on the first three. Console don't have ads. Okay. Except the, the ad partnership thingy, because it doesn't look like, you know, it's part of the game. It's not an ad.
Aileen: 17:56
It's part of your environment.
Solon: 17:57
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So that's one. And then for the web, for the web, it does have ads as you can see sometimes in the banner ads on the side, but banner is the most common ones. Yeah. There's not much reward ads on the web browser ones. However, this really depends on what type of game that you have. That's why I said that you have to consider all of these, even at the concept designing stage, that you need to think about it already. Like how would this integrate into the game? Well, without making user feel intrusive or annoyed. Right? Yeah. And then how would, how we would in certain things again, would entice people who want to pay for the enough purchase or subscription, or even pay upfront. For the whole game, you know, you have to think about that at the beginning. The key here is to provide value so people feel it's worth paying the money for it.
Aileen: 18:57
Mm hmm.
Solon: 18:58
Yeah. So most of the mobile platform, it's more on the in app purchase and ads. It's much less on the pay up, up from while PCs and other, it's the other way around and then mix of like pay, even it's already paid, they still have enough purchase.
Aileen: 19:17
Okay.
Solon: 19:18
So you're not limited to one. You can combine them.
Aileen: 19:21
You can do more than that.
Solon: 19:23
Yeah. You combine them to see whichever fits well. You're not just fixed to one type, it's all types mixed together.
Aileen: 19:32
Okay, that's really good. And we've covered a lot from inception of the game up until monetization. And I know this is-- we haven't discussed this, but do you have one big takeaway or what's the biggest lesson you've learned from all the 50 games you guys have launched and published? Is there one biggest learning that you have?
Solon: 19:53
I think the biggest takeaway is you have to treat like your indie game, not simply as a passion project. It's also a business, because I think that's what a lot of people fail to understand or realize that it is still a business after all, unless, like I said, you don't care about income. You have too much money or you are ready to burn that money then yeah, sure. Right? But at some point, okay, if you're not someone who's like that, you have to try to be able to sustain it. At least, at minimum, sustain. You don't have to be a billionaire, okay, from the game that you made, but at least you need to be able to sustain.
Aileen: 20:36
That's very wise, because I think with a lot of us, and for all the gamers out there, I mean, we're all gamers at heart here. I think it starts as a passion project, but it's a hard love for you to say that. It has to be a business. It can't just be a passion project. So that's, that's really good. So Solon, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and all your previous experiences. Can you tell our listeners where they can find co ops or do you have any upcoming games that you would like to invite them to?
Solon: 21:07
You can find us on almost every phone, okay, just go to your respective app store and search for Kooapps. Then you can see a lot of the games that you make and chances are you might be our players. You just didn't know that it was our game. Yeah. You might have already downloaded it in the past. Yeah, so we do have some things coming up, but of course, you know, as usual, you know, we can't tell you or else we'll have to kill you kind of thing. Game dev industry is usually very secretive. We only tell people whatever we're ready to tell.
Aileen: 21:47
Mm hmm. All the NDAs and all the secrecy. That's true. So they will just have to watch out and stay tuned to your Facebook, your website to see what's, what's coming up next.
Solon: 21:59
Correct. Yes.
Aileen: 22:01
All right. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Solon. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our series on game development experts on the Arise Plus Philippines YouTube channel.