two & a half gamers co-host and F2P mastermind Jakub Remiar joined Josh to discuss the importance of cooperation between product and Ad Mon when it comes to ad placements, not forcing a 50/50 IAA to IAP balance and the community at Gamesforum events.

Josh: Hi Jakub, thank you for joining me! Can you introduce yourself?

Hi Josh, I am in the industry for 9 years now, I worked on both the developer and publishers side and now I am working as independent product/ game design consultant and I am one of the co-hosts on the 2,5 Gamers podcast.

Josh: How did you come to work in F2P space?

Actually I was literally drafted from a University where I was doing my PhD in psychology, specializing in Virtual Reality, as my first gaming company was developing a VR game. Later on I switched to F2P game design as it seems natural to me with a psychological background.

Josh: Talk to us a bit more about two & a half gamers, the no BS podcast?

Originally we started a Slovak version of the podcast to help our gaming developers community locally here in Slovakia, but after some time, we thought that we can switch to English as most people here know it anyway. It is more of a byproduct of our consulting work, as we would need to review these games anyway so why not share what we have seen and have some fun in the process 😀

Josh: Following on from this, what is the most impressive game you, Felix and Matej have deconstructed on the podcast?

I really like the time we did this double deconstruction of Frozen City & Whiteout survival, it was amazing once you understand some amazing things Century games did there. So I would say that was one of my favorite ones and definitely super impressive as for what was done from a product perspective there.

Josh: Following on from that, what two part question:

a. What is your favorite mobile game?

Honestly, I think it was Monster strike, until it was still running the international servers. I was playing it on 2 phones simultaneously. That game was and still is amazing, considering how much it is still earning in Japan. And btw, it is the second game in the world to reach $1 Bil. revenue after Puzzle and Dragons. I think everyone in our industry needs to know these games, it's a history lesson.

b. What game has impressed you the most with its revenue potential?

Last war recently did some crazy things, we covered it again on the podcast. It is basically using UA to create a product template for onboarding. The game is still scaling up, doing more than $3 Mil. a day. It really shows how Rivergame is an expert in the 4X genre after being in it for 15+ years.

Josh: Hybrid Monetization, finding the sweet spot between IAP & IAA. What advice do you have for publishers in finding the ideal monetization mix?

Don’t try to push too much on IAP. As we said on one of our last episodes - revenue is revenue, doesn’t matter in the end if it's IAP or Ad based. I think developers shouldn’t try to hit the magical 50/50 revenue split at all cost, every game is unique and so it is its revenue profile, but also don’t half ass your metagame progression 😀

Josh: Ad Quality & App Health appeared as one of the greatest challenges in our annual Mobile Games Report. How important is firefighting bad ads for protecting game health?

A lot :D. I think developers need to be ruthless if they see some behavior in their app caused by bad ads. If talking to the networks doesn’t solve it immediately, cut the source. Your community managers will also love you.

Josh: How can ad mon teams work better with their product counterparts in protecting the in-game experience through ad placements?

Make sure that it is a joint effort. Talk to each other and clearly state your goals, as it will be different from the other side usually. Rewarded videos are always a better solution if possible for both side, but if it comes to interstitials try segmentations and don’t be shy to search for a sweet spot in order to monetize non-payer traffic. Run experiments so that you don’t rush these changes.

Josh: Great to have you leading a Roundtable at Gamesforum Hamburg on Ad Placement for Live Ops! Can you tease a bit about what our audience can expect?

I definitely want to get into topics of good vs great ad placements, how ad placements affects your economy and therefore live-ops content treadmill. Reference some specific examples of course and talk about some latest trends that we saw in the recent games, and I mean feature wise 😊.

Josh: What are you most excited for with your time in Hamburg?

I have never been to Hamburg before, so it is always great to put one more city on my visited list. But I am really looking forward to the “usual suspects” as the community around the conference is super welcoming and I have a lot of friends coming there 😊. Throughout these conversions it charges you up with energy and gives you a lot of interesting info, like walking to a prancing pony tavern, where travelers from all over the world meet each other.

Josh: Thanks Jakub for your time and insights on ad monetization. See you soon! 

You can hear more from Jakub at Gamesforum Hamburg!