Solon Bucholtz is the co-founder and CEO of LBC Studios, which he started back in 2015. developing titles like Hempire, Tasty Buds, and their upcoming game Brewtopia soft launching this week.
Bucholtz has been named in the top 40 under 40 by BIV 2020, is a member of YPO BC, has previously started two businesses, and also has over 13 years as an advisor and board member across a number of industries.
Bucholtz is one of more than 250+ expert speakers delivering 29 conference tracks at Pocket Gamer Connects London on January 22nd to 23rd. We asked him to tell us more about their upcoming panel sessions, entitled ‘Surviving & Thriving: Why Being Part of the Right Ecosystems Matters’ and ‘Publishing Cross-Platform: Can you Afford not To?’, as well as get their opinions on the latest industry trends.
PocketGamer.biz: Please give us a summary of what you’re speaking about and why it’s important.
Solon Bucholtz: I will be on the publishing cross-platform panel to share the challenges and rewarding moments that came with publishing on various platforms and how our company assesses and executes on new platform opportunities.
What’s the most common mistake you see being made in the games sector?
Taking uncalculated risks and struggling to know if your game has an audience big enough to scale successfully. If you could give other mobile games companies one piece of advice, what would it be?
Value your people and don’t be afraid to take the risk. You need to have conviction in your game, but don’t ignore the signals that you may be off track.
Where are the next big opportunities in the mobile games market?
I think studios that balance the focus on what they are good at a product level with looking forward at changes in the landscape will be able to leverage trends in tech like AI to be more efficient and more effective in what they build.
To succeed today you need to be efficient with your capital and you need to be data informed. The bar for entry to develop is lower than ever, but you need to apply good business sense to succeed and weed through the noise and gain traction.
What’s the most important key performance indicator (KPI) for you – and why?
For marketing its ROAS you can have great game but if you can’t scale your marketing you won’t have enough users to sustain the team.
At a product level, it’s retention. People are quicker to churn than ever and if you have a sticky product you can maximise your player base.
What company do you most admire in the mobile games world?
Supercell at a global level and ATA at a local level.
What do you think the next big disruptor in mobile games will be?
AI will likely change the experience of games and allow players to have a much more personalised feel to their gameplay.
What is the single biggest challenge facing the mobile games industry today?
The cost of acquisition, privacy and discoverability on the stores.
What game from another company do you wish you had worked on?
Beatstar. We did the Bob Marley mobile game and I wish I was able to experience the learnings from making Beatstar to better understand how we could have executed on BM.
Is there a console or PC trend that you think has potential within the mobile space?
I think the ongoing effort to make games cross-platform and make the experience interchangeable is really important. As new mediums for gaming evolve, people will want to experience their games in a different environment.
What was the fundamental appeal of the mobile games industry that brought you to it?
My passion stemmed from wanting to build the world’s most popular cannabis game to destigmatise it and deliver something amazing for the audience.
What is one way attendees can prepare for your discussion?
Come with questions you feel you may only get the answer from during this talk.
Meet Solon Bucholtz at PG Connects London
Not only will you have the chance to see Bucholtz take part in one of our panel debates, but you can also arrange to meet them at PG Connects London. Our online organiser MeetToMatch is free to all event attendees, connecting you directly with more than 2,500 decision makers from the global games industry.
As well as the 29-track conference schedule, the two-day event also features a series of side-events like The Very Big Indie Pitch, Publisher SpeedMatch, Investor Connector and a host of other networking opportunities all aimed at helping you level up your skills and business.
