Author: Dean Takahashi / Source: VentureBeat
Andrew Stalbow, CEO of Seriously, knows that the stakes are getting high in the $48 billion mobile game business. Every company is zeroing in on keeping players engaged with fewer, better, and stronger titles.
Stalbow’s biggest hit is Best Fiends, and the Helsinki-based Seriously has gone the way of Angry Birds maker Rovio by launching animated video shorts to promote the game and deepen fan interest in its characters and stories.
It’s a young game, launched in 2016. But it has dedicated fans and it is generating about $150,000 a day in revenues — plenty to sustain the 75-person Seriously. I talked with Stalbow at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last week in San Francisco about the game and the company’s hopes for turning its title into a sustainable brand.
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: Looking at some of your competitors that are narrowing down and getting very focused, do you see that as a common trend or something you’re doing too?
Andrew Stalbow: I see it across the industry. People are focusing on products they have that have established a connection with an audience. If you look at titles that are still performing really well, often they got their start two or three or four years ago. The market wasn’t quite as competitive. You didn’t have Netflix becoming what it is now. You didn’t have Spotify becoming what it is now. You didn’t have Apple Music or Snapchat. Right now, the mobile market is the most vibrant ecosystem in the world, but it’s also the most competitive media platform in the world.
GamesBeat: All those things you pointed out are competing for your time, and so, it’s even more precious.
Stalbow: There’s really only one area that everyone is focused on, and that’s engagement. We all have to create brands and experiences that are more compelling than answering your email or watching the Ozarks. It’s a great opportunity for people to lean in, understand what their audience is attracted to, and double down on that. We’re seeing a lot of companies succeed by focusing on core propositions that they know will work, whether that’s a Zynga or a Glu.
We see the evolution of Supercell products like Clash Royale or games like Candy Crush. Many of those products are unrecognizable compared to where they were three years ago. They’re so much more compelling now with all the improvements they’ve made. There are lessons for all of us there.
GamesBeat: There’s a pattern where everyone fishes around and spreads out and tries a lot of things until they find what works, and once they find that, they get rid of everything else and focus on the one thing.
Stalbow: If you’ve managed to build a product that’s attracted an audience that you can build a business on, you need to lean in to that. Clearly some of the biggest mobile games companies in the world didn’t release new titles in 2017. One reason is they’re leaning in to their existing products so they can grow.
An example of what we achieved last year with our original Best Fiends game, we took it from 11 or 12 cents [average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU)] at the beginning of 2017 to a 22 to 25 cent ARPDAU by the end of 2017 just by making it more fun. We’re learning from different things that our players and our audience enjoy. That’s a great opportunity for everyone.
GamesBeat: Do you feel like you’re getting some good momentum from brand value? Is it already [a] brand, even as such a young game in the scheme of things?
Stalbow: We definitely think we’re at the beginning. The way we look at our brand is, we’re three years into something we’re building out over the next 20 to 30 years. We try to value, in both our product and our marketing, the creative elements that, compounded, can make a difference to create something super special. We’ve always valued brand building and character creation a bit more than short-term revenue goals. We feel like if you focus on the brand, the revenue follows.
Right now, we’re at the beginning. We have two Best Fiends games on the market. We just kicked off our first animated shorts last year. Those seem to have really connected with our audience. We tied the stories to in-game events and content. That helped enhance our performance and helped increase our retention and helped keep our community feeling engaged. We don’t feel like we’ve arrived anywhere yet, but we have the basis and foundations for a strong IP.
GamesBeat: Do you also have confidence to, say, do more of it, double down on it? Rather than go exploring somewhere else and come up with more things?
Stalbow: We’re just at the beginning of the journey with Best Fiends. Last year, we did two animated shorts. This year, we’re working on four. Next year, we’ll do six. We’ve also just kicked off working on a deal for a lead writer on our television series that we’re looking to pitch to subscription VOD players later in the year. We have a new game, Best Fiends Rivals, in early soft launch, and it’s showing very encouraging signs.
Our core game is going from strength to strength. Q1 2018 will be the biggest quarter for it yet. We end March at around $150,000 a day in revenue, but we really think the potential is so much bigger based on the level of engagement we see.
GamesBeat: How many people are on the team now?
Stalbow: Right now, we have two offices. In Los Angeles, we have business development, marketing, data science, finance, and community. It’s about 15 people. In Helsinki, where we do content creation, product development, technology, and data science, that’s 60 people right now. We keep the teams super small. We think that small teams can make a big difference. As a company, we’re an interesting mix between creative IP builders, marrying that with understanding and learning from the data.
GamesBeat: It seems like the environment in Helsinki is still pretty healthy. Lots of activity, lots of companies getting bigger.
Stalbow: It’s always been a good development ecosystem. Ever since the ‘90s, there have been interesting game companies emerging. My co-founder, Petri [Järvilehto], the chief creative officer at Seriously, he was a co-founder at Remedy. That got built up in the ‘90s on the back of games like Max Payne. Companies like Rovio, Supercell, Fingersoft, Future Play — it’s a very compelling development environment.
GamesBeat: The stock market seems to think so, too.
Stalbow: You know, I think what the…
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