Product Management & Monetization 101 & 201, with Gordon Rowe

Playmakers - The Game Industry Podcast

In this episode:

Jordan interviews Gordon Rowe, a seasoned product manager with extensive experience in monetization strategies and product management within the gaming industry. Gordon has worked at Zynga, where he managed Mafia Wars and was the sole product manager on Zynga’s 3rd party publishing team. He later joined Daybreak Games and now works at Facebook. In this episode, Gordon shares his expertise on free-to-play (F2P) game economies, player retention, and balancing revenue generation with player satisfaction.

Topics covered:

• The hypothesis, test, iterate framework for improving key performance indicators (KPI)
• Using funnels to understand player behavior
• Anti-cheat considerations in competitive mobile games
• Zynga monetization tricks and managing in-game currency “hangovers”
• Avoiding "pay-to-win" dynamics in free-to-play games and why League of Legends has elements of it
• Balancing retention and revenue in game design
• How to evaluate F2P games using Day 1 (D1) and Day 7 (D7) retention metrics
• Building a balanced game economy and when to introduce monetization into the player journey
• The maturation of the mobile and PC F2P markets

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• Visit www.playmakerspodcast.com for the full blog post and more!

Timestamps:

[03:16] Gordon’s journey from Mafia Wars to Daybreak Games and Facebook

[07:05] Product management and the hypothesis-test-iterate framework

[10:12] Anti-cheat measures and team structures at Zynga

[13:00] Monetization strategies and avoiding pay-to-win

[17:14] The importance of actionable analytics in game development

[21:00] Managing game economies to avoid “currency hangovers”

[26:00] Day 1 and Day 7 retention metrics: What they tell you about your game

[28:56] Monetization strategies in League of Legends and World of Tanks

[34:24] How to test and iterate for better monetization in F2P

[40:52] The role of Steam reviews and player feedback in PC game success

[44:43] Gordon’s thoughts on product management and monetization strategies

Resources & media mentioned in this episode:

Games & companies mentioned:

• Mafia Wars (Zynga)
• Daybreak Games
• Facebook
• Steam Spy (Analytics tool)
• League of Legends (Riot Games)
• Rocket League (Psyonix)
• Clash Royale (Supercell)
• World of Tanks (Wargaming)
• H1Z1: King of the Kill (Daybreak Games)