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Mobile Gaming Europe 2012: It's not about mobile any more says HandyGames

#mobilegamingeurope Moving to PC, STP, Ouya

Mobile Gaming Europe 2012: It's not about mobile any more says HandyGames
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Kicking off the two day Mobile Gaming Europe conference in London, was a keynote from Christopher Kassulke, CEO of veteran German mobile developer HandyGames.

Only he argued the days of being just a mobile developer are over.

"We are no longer a pure mobile games company," he said.

Handy Games is one of the big supporters of the Android-based Ouya console, it's going live on set top boxes in Japan with KDDI, and also making its mobile games available for free on PC via the BlueStacks technology.

Doing everything

Kassulke's deeper argument is this move is based on the way business models have changed in the games industry.

It's no longer just about selling a game direct to users on one type of device, it's about monetising many different users around the globe in many different ways.

For example, in terms of HandyGames' Clouds & Sheep, he said 15 percent of revenue comes from paid games sales, but even this is split 50 percent between paid/IAPs and 50 percent between advertising and CPI/CPA revenue.

Kassulke also pointed out that at the top end of the market, Rovio generates 30 percent of revenue from its merchandising operations, while Glu Mobile made around 13 percent of revenue from Tapjoy's CPI platform.

Stronger, together

All these revenue streams are important to HandyGames' overall business, and it's something that really adds up when applied over a portfolio of games across many different platforms.

It even did a brand advertising deal with a German dog food manufacturer for one of its dog nurturing games.

"And it's not just about the games in the top 10," Kassulke said refering to the long tail of the market, further questioning 'how do you make a sustainable business?'

"Profit is uncool for a lot of venture capitalists, but that's what you need to focus on," he countered, at least if you want to create a developer which like HandyGames has been around for more than a decade.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.