To be a successful company within the games industry, it is essential to understand your customers.
As part of Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital, Nitro Games CEO Jussi Tahtinen took to the stage to discuss his topic, know your customer (and what they want).
Understanding consumers is the best way to ensure success. It is also crucial to know what game you yourself want to make. For example, Nitro Games specialises in the shooter genre.
Three phases
The three phases to knowing your customer are concept, production and live.
In the first phase, it is vital to identify a market opportunity. When it comes to shooters, there is a big opening, given just eight shooter games have cracked the top-grossing 200 within the US on iOS.
Through market research, a developer can discover what it is about a game that will entice a player through looking at different archetypes. To create a unique game, it is important to understand “What do people want, that people don’t even necessarily know that they want.”
From there, it is time to move into phase 2, looking at behavioural concepts and monetisation designs. Next, it is time to validate your idea through a focus group.
Build systems in a way that allow you to easily test them. Focus groups are also crucial, not just early on, but throughout the life cycle of a game, it will enable the developer to learn if players are experiencing what they want them to.
Understand your players
In the third and final phase, a company needs to look at what it can do after a game goes live, namely things such as user acquisition. Moreover, it is vital to understand marketing funnel metrics and demographics – did you reach your desired customers?
Upon building up DAUs, it becomes easier to discover who the most valuable customers are. What are their values and goals in life, what motivates them, when exactly do they play your game? Moreover, what do these consumers like in your game and what parts are not relevant.
Furthermore, a developer will learn how to communicate with its player base.
Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital is the best of our Pocket Gamer Connects conference in an online form, with an entire week of talks, meetings, and pitch events taking place from September 14th to the 18th. You can read up on all the tracks taking place throughout the week here.
