Ep. 75: Strategies for Successful Studios

<p>So, your new game has taken the world by storm? What do you do next? How do you maintain momentum and how do you replicate your previous success? </p><p>This week on “Mastering Retention,” Miikka Ahonen Co-founder of Lightheart Entertainment, creator of Mr. Autofire, joins Tom to discuss building and running a company, building successful games, as well as strategies for release and, of course, retention.</p><p>Here are your cheat codes:</p><p>- 0:45 How Miikka Ahonen got into the video game industry</p><p>- 3:07 What it was like starting Lightheart Entertainment</p><p>- 5:40 Advice for people starting their own studio</p><p>- 8:58 The original vision for Lightheart and where it is today</p><p>- 16:40 The process of creating prototypes and where they draw inspiration from at Lightheart</p><p>- 18:33 What comes after gray box testing?</p><p>- 20:40 What are realistic build and release timelines?</p><p>- 23:34 Is there an ideal revenue breakdown for ads and IAP?</p><p>- 24:53 What mistakes do you feel like you made and what would you do differently?</p><p>- 26:55 How the company has changed after a successful game and their outlook and strategy moving forward</p><p>- 31:53 What is your approach to hiring and some lessons you’ve learned?</p><p>- 40:25 Live ops in hybrid-casual</p><p>- 53:58 Game economy design within hybrid-casual genre</p><p>- 56:19 Tips to increase player retention</p>