As many people know, gaming is an interdisciplinary industry, and the development of a project requires the participation of multiple different functions. However, among the many gaming positions, there is a lot of less familiar positions is the product manager.
So, why does the gaming industry need product managers? What does a game product manager do? In a previous presentation, Ponappa Somayanda, Zynga's main product manager, gave her own explanation.
Here's what GameLook Interpreters is all about:
Ponappa Somayanda:
I'm mainly talking about product management in the game industry today, but there are two big questions to answer specifically, one of which is why is the game and the game industry suitable for product managers? The second is what product managers do in the game industry, or why does the game industry need a product manager?
Why can I say this? Because I've been a game product manager for the last 5 years, I've been the main product manager at Zynga. Zynga acquired British studio NaturalMotion in 2014, so I'm currently based in London. Prior to that, I worked at EA in India and moved to London after joining Zynga.
I love to play games and still put in 10-15 hours a week, but I always feel that no amount of time is enough.
It should be stated in advance that what I am sharing is based on my experience and the experience of my friends, and does not represent the position of current or former employers.
Why is gaming a great fit for product managers?
Many people ask me, why does the game need a product manager, what does this position do? Let me share some data first:
The game itself is a very large market, what many people may not know is that its scale is larger than the music and film industry combined, the annual revenue reached more than 100 billion US dollars, coupled with the emergence of mobile games, VR and AR and other emerging fields, so that the game industry achieved a relatively high growth rate, which is a very good industry.
Many people may have heard of Fortnite, which is not only a very successful blockbuster game, but also a global popular phenomenon, all of which is just to illustrate the scale of the game industry and has very good prospects for development.
The game has changed a lot over the years, which means you as a product manager can create a lot of interesting experiences. As the game moves more and more towards online and multiplayer gameplay, it means you can do features to make a community of the same kind of players, because the player experience is influenced by other people, and every time a different person plays together, it means that the last experience is completely different from the next.
As a game product manager, you can observe a lot of changes in player behavior, and you can attract or influence their behavior through many of the systems we've built.
On the right is a screenshot of the mobile game Pokemon Go, which adds multiplayer gameplay to get people to gather in real-world locations, such as going to the park to catch elves together, which is an incredible game because it can convince you to get out of the house and move.
Earlier we mentioned that player behavior tends to be communal, but in fact, many games do not provide such features, and as a game product manager, you need to design some features to enhance their experience. Many of the games I've worked on pay more attention to PvP, that is, the confrontation between players, and such group confrontations can often drive user engagement.
As a product manager, it's very exciting to watch player behavior and social changes. I just mentioned that games are places where players live socially and virtually, because they expand to the economic aspects of games, and depending on the complexity of the game, each game will have one or more game currencies.
As a product manager, you want to make sure that you manage the game economy very well, such as the inflow and outflow of these game coins, which means that you need to deal with inflation-like problems. In addition to balancing the output and consumption of in-game currency, you also need to let the player see the value of the virtual item, when the player buys an item, he has a relative understanding of the value of the item.
As in-app purchases become more common, players begin to compare the value of in-game items to the money they actually spend, meaning they invest $1 or $5 in items that can deliver that value to the game. Players rarely earn back $1 of something, so as a product manager, you have to tell the player where the value of the items is.
Some games allow players to craft items and trade them with other users, which complicates the game's economic system. For example, players can make equipment with a specific value and sell it in the market or auction house.
For example, this is the auction house in World of Warcraft, and as a product manager, you need to make sure that the price of these equipment is not particularly outrageous, and at the same time, make it very close to the real market, which is a very exciting challenge.
It's worth noting that a poorly designed game economy can ruin your game, and players will find problems and back down. Game economic design not only affects monetization, but also has an important impact on long-term user engagement and retention.
As product managers, a lot of people think it's okay to be creative, but in reality we have to deal with much more than that. As a game product manager, you need to have a deeper understanding of game design, such as game system, mechanics tuning, and optimization. Because the game involves many aspects, such as music, art, functional design, etc., as a product manager, your knowledge should be broad enough, and your team already has professionals in various aspects, so you must be able to add value to the game.
For example, of course not everyone product manager needs to do this, before working on a project, I spent 8 months working on the game story, which is not available in other industries. You can design it with a lot of story planning and then have players test it out in the hope that they'll like what you do.
Next up is enthusiasm. As mentioned earlier, the work of a product manager affects game developers and players, and it's easy to fall in love with the projects you're working on, because the people you meet are most likely colleagues who are as passionate about their work as you are, which will improve your satisfaction and the quality of your work.
Core players will also be very enthusiastic about the content you make, and they invest a lot of time and play multiple games every day, which is a good phenomenon, because it means long-term retention, and players will give you very positive and useful feedback. At the same time, if you screw up, they'll also be very proactive in telling you.
Games have always been innovative in technology, it is the earliest user of new technologies, and many of the technologies applied to the consumer industry today, such as microtransactions, AI, cloud computing, VR, and AR, all started from the game field. So the gaming industry is perfect for people who love new technologies, and a very good example is AI.
For example, I'm playing a soccer game and the computer matches me with an enemy, and I need to make sure that the opponent is real and can imitate a real player, but at the same time, through my attempts and technical improvements, it must be defeatable. For example, there are many space-themed games that use AI to generate complete creatures, environments, and ecosystems. This case is a case of DeepMind working with StarCraft to create high-level AI players.
AI can even automatically generate interesting stories, so a lot of advanced technology is breaking through in the gaming industry and then helping all industries. For example, real-time chat translation, which was first applied from the game industry, has now become the standard in many industries, and even the companies that explore these technologies have become platforms that have expanded to other industries, and this technological innovation actually comes from the needs of player communication, when people were thinking about how to let players communicate seamlessly without affecting the game experience without typing.
In terms of security technology, games will always face the threat of hackers, and many game companies, including Zynga, need to do game security technology, not only to protect the player experience, but also to protect player data.
Another is ease of use, such as Microsoft recently designed a different controller for the Xbox to adapt to users of different game levels. I won't delve into this topic in detail, but interested readers can go specifically to it.
Personally, I think that as product managers, the greatest value we have to our products, companies, and teams is that we can solve some or even many problems. So, you have to choose the problem you want to solve in a lot of skill areas.
In short, gaming is a thriving industry with a lot of potential where you can learn about and participate in a lot of technological innovation. Working in the gaming industry is very personally fulfilling, you will face a lot of challenges, and it will also have an impact on the players and the team in many ways, and finally, working in the game industry is fun.
Why do games need a product manager?
With this question, let's take a quick look at what the game development process is like:
Traditional game development, not only a long time ago, but a lot of game companies are doing it, they imitate the process of software companies and film companies in the 90s. They start with a concept, which is an idea, what do I want to do? For example, make suggestions for investors, friends, and teams to set up projects.
Then move on to the game design phase, including gameplay, rule settings, story, and what the game interacts with, what needs to be done, and so on. Then, entering the production stage, game development requires the collaboration of many departments, including art, audio, planning, and programming.
Next you will enter the testing phase, not only for QA reasons, the game itself is still player-facing, so you have to solve the game bugs, optimize many aspects, polish, and then you can enter the release phase.
If you're lucky, you'll get a lot of marketing support, online and offline distribution channels, maintenance of the game after release, and finally the game will perform better and better.
After all this, usually you move to another project, either a sequel or a completely new IP, a model that repeats for many years.
Subsequently, the Game as a Service (GaaS) model emerged, which, in short, represents a model that provides continuous revenue for games or game content, similar to service software. Games as a service mean that either monetization continues after the initial sale or supports a free-to-play model.
So, what is the development of GaaS?
Like traditional games, you go through the concept, design, production, and testing phases and then release, but this type of game doesn't end there, and then you need to go through a long content production and maintenance cycle until the end of the game's life. For example, you'll do a lot of in-game activity, player analysis, make changes based on feedback, and make sure your game client is strong enough to continue to support the game for many years to come.
To support these parts of the game, you need to build tools, back-end technology to ensure the sustainability of the game, we call it online operations, although it sounds like a service, but it is cooler and more interesting than other industries.
Why does this pattern make sense? Because GaaS brings recyclable revenue, making your income more stable and predictable in the long term; it greatly expands the game life cycle, such as many games have even been operating for decades, decades, such as Clash of Clans, which has been released for many years, but still continues to surprise players with new content.
Another advantage is that you can focus on more players. Every game has a fixed category label when it is released, but as an online game, you can learn more about user needs through player feedback, and as more users join, your research and development route will change and be more flexible.
The model also reduces a lot of risk. Like the film industry, the traditional game development model is masterpiece-driven, if a game project that has been invested for many years fails, it will directly lead to the dissolution of a team or even the closure of the entire company, while in the GaaS model, even if the game is not successful enough, there are still many games that have become billions of dollars through continuous iteration.
Finally, it provides a better measure of success. This sounds strange, but in the traditional model, the criterion for the success of a game is how many sets are sold and how much income they get. But in the GaaS model, you can even have a small user base, but it can also be profitable, and depending on the game category, you can also find your own success criteria, such as MAU, DAU and so on.
That's why product managers are so important to games, a role at the center of the creative, technical, and business model, and our role is to communicate with departments to ensure a long-term success game.
What does a game product manager do? It's actually similar to product managers in the traditional consumer goods industry. For example, you are responsible for KPIs and data, including monetization and revenue data. You'll define a product strategy for different periods and phases, making sure to put in place a path that the team can do. Also do content and function design, grasp and analyze a lot of data, do a lot of experimentation and optimization... There's a lot to do, but it's all fun.
You have to be the player who knows your game best, know what your players need most and try to surprise them. Obviously, you also need to understand the market, understand what kind of competition you are facing, you may be the first game in the current category may even maintain the advantage for three years, so what can you do in the fourth year to continue to maintain the advantage?
In addition, game development is a multidisciplinary cooperation project, and the game product experience is at the center of all departments, not only need to communicate with studio leaders, but also deal with all departments such as planning, art, community, QA, etc., not only to meet the needs of players, realize the creativity of the team, but also to ensure that the game is successful in terms of commercial performance.
During the game's release, you also need to work with the buying and marketing teams, and you need to be involved in the whole life cycle of the game from development, release to operation, and every aspect is interesting.
Finally, hopefully, the above answers the two questions we started asking.
However, some people also ask me: "I don't like to play games so much, but I work in the game industry, so am I suitable for being a game product manager?" "My answer is yes, because I've seen a lot of people from other industries as game product managers, and of course, most people don't end up staying, maybe they find something more interesting for themselves."
Another point is that before many traditional game development companies are turning to the free model, so many game companies are short of product managers, including Zynga, we are also recruiting product managers, interested readers can further understand, I hope that today's talk about these can help you answer the above questions, thank you.
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