PROFILE The Disruptor
The Disruptor
AT A GLANCE
Nikki Lannen CEO, WARDUCKS
$15.7 trillion ... THE ESTIMATE INCREASE IN GLOBAL GDP (BY 2030) WHICH CAN BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY AI
17% ... THE BOOST ONLINE SHOPPING CAN ACHIEVE WHEN INTRODUCING VR
P r i o r t o e stablis hing WarDucks , a g a m e st u d io bas ed in Dublin, N i k k i L a n n en s erved as a founding m e m b e r o f the Facebook games t e a m w h e r e s he helped the top g a m e s b u si nes s es throughout E M E A sc a l e their bus ines s es .
Outsourcing and intellectual property can be tricky to balance. Where should the line be drawn? Keeping the ingredients of your secret sauce secret is obviously important, so it’s a fine balancing act when it comes to bringing in outsourced work or contractors. You need to be sure to have robust agreements in place governing access to commercially sensitive information. We’ve been fortunate in being able to keep our mission critical work in-house to-date.
All ideas start small. What makes some more scalable than others? Two things make the mobile games sector scalable, firstly, the existence of a readymade infrastructure that allows us to reach our market directly i.e. smartphones and tablets. Secondly, convenience, our product fits around people’s day-to-day lives – you can play a mobile game almost anywhere and at any time. Eliminating any barriers to access your market supports scalability.
How important is an understanding of marketing? An understanding of marketing is vital, especially in a crowded market like the gaming sector. Building the game is only half of the battle, the other half is scaling the game in a cost-effective, profitable manner. There is so much content and mediums vying for people’s attention today that you need to be surgical in identifying the optimal method of delivery for your marketing. You need to understand your audience, what platforms they are on and how you can reach them. You also need to understand what ad creative will engage them. And this involves constant iteration.
Resourcing is a major cost, particularly staffing. How did you manage your staffing in the early days? When we started out, I had to be ready to wear a lot of different hats and juggle a lot of different plates. That is still the case but the early days were more challenging in this regard. Identifying and hiring a team who could do the same was the key to keeping everything moving. Not everyone has this felxibility. Hire a team which shares your entrepreneurial traits, particularly in the early stages.
Challenging and testing your own assumptions is important – testing market viability is essential. What would be your top tip? Never ascribe to the thinking of “build it and they will come”. Identify who your target market will be, then engage that market and find out what it is they want but aren’t being given by what’s already out there. And then go back again and again throughout the development lifecycle to make sure you’re staying aligned to the needs of the market.
5.5 million ... THE NUMBER OF VR HEADSETS SHIPPED IN 2020
Planning to meet increased demand is important when scaling up. What is the best piece of advice you can give? I think a clear and established process with your team for communicating bottlenecks and roadblocks down the line and the capacity of existing resources to tackle these is key to getting the scaling process right. Having a solid hiring plan to support that growth is also vital. Is there any such thing as a bad time for a good idea? That is quite a broad question. Timings can be really important. Especially on certain platforms such as Virtual Reality platforms. You could have a great game but launching at the wrong time, it may not get it the downloads it deserves. Also if you’re trying to do something innovative you might want to be ‘first to market’ with that product. How do you spot a one trick pony? As mobile games are live products that often need a large team to support their growth such as adding additional game content and live events etc, many game studios are in fact ‘one trick ponies’ but are very successful in their own right. The revenue a successful mobile game can generate would allow for a very thriving business model and could probably be more described as a ‘one successfully tricked horse’. IDAIRELAND.COM
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