Building and operating mobile casual games in today’s industry with Starberry Games

On this episode of Story Mode by Sanlo, Olya speaks with Antti Hattara, CEO & Co-Founder at StarBerry Games, a free-to-play casual mobile games studio in Berlin. They discuss mobile casual games and what it takes to build and operate them in today’s landscape. They touch on a wide range of topics, including: • Today's definition of mobile casual and how it's evolved over the years. • How to find the right player personas and niche for a casual game • What's working today in UA and marketing, and what's off the table • Ad monetization versus IAP monetization and how a hybrid model can sometimes be a disadvantage when it comes to marketing and distribution. • The benefits of having a Discord community and how it can be successful and helpful even for casual games. About Antti Antti is a games industry veteran with over 20 years of experience. He began his games career in Product Management at Digital Chocolate, where he spent over 6 years making social games. He then joined Wooga as their Head of Studio, focusing on casual mobile game development for over 5 years. In 2017, he co-founded StarBerry Games, known for their hit mobile title Merge Mayor.