A Human-Centric Approach to Mobile gaming industry by Ömer Yakabagi

Let's talk about something real.

Our world of mobile gaming is fully built on creativity and fun, pure joy.

But imagine we could flip the script and put people first in everything we do.

So let's talk about, for example, startup culture, especially studios, ad tech companies, etc. Felix Shacka bringing the insight we're rocking those vibes till the early daylight Matei UA master eyes on the prize tracking data through the cyberspace skies Felix acts colors like a wizard in disguise

Jackups craft the realms lift us to the highs

Two and a half gamers talking smack slow hockey stick got your back ads are beautiful they light the way

Click it fast don't delay hello everyone ahoj so today i'm your host uh jakub premiar and no, definitely not. Actually, John Wright used this joke with Matej and I wanted to have it for Jakub, my buddy.
So hello everyone. Ömer Yakabu here, as in Turkish pronunciation.
Globally it's Ömer Yakabagi. And today we will be talking about mobile gaming revival.
I know it big but I swear there is no bullshit here so first of all thanks to Tonal of Gamers Crow like not just Matej but also dear friends Felix, Jakub appreciate it and it's nice to be here in this monologue session so like when Mate when Matei asked me, would you be up for this like half an hour monologue speech?

I was thinking, what could it be?

You know, like it's something really big.

That's why I wanted to talk about the industry itself, current situation.

And how about the, not just, you know, ad tech money, but I also want to go to human-centric side who who are we how is it going actually i really want to touch upon these um human vibes as well but before very quickly uh about who i am so who is omer i actually like back then studied English language teaching teaching, continued with tourism industry for some years. And afterwards, I started working at media company, MobyDictum.
And since like four years, I have been in different fields like UI monetization, not just at network site, but also hands-on operations. so yeah right now I'm actually founder of

Gamogen. It's a mobile gaming website where we have a journal, really cool content from industry experts, and also having some newsletters sharing the weekly highlights from mobile gaming industry.
And I also actually have the jobs platform in our websites. Actually, I love the support and feedback from many of you, like really love it, improved it a lot according to feedback.
So yeah, please keep sending feedback. That's highly appreciated.
And actually, the numbers are growing crazy. Already like over 10k a month, like from Google Analytics, you know.
And yeah, I actually opened the website like just six months ago. Like it's really crazy.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
So about today's topic, I would like to talk about mobile gaming revival, what it means. Actually, I really want to take you on a fun journey where we face up to the real challenges in the industry while dreaming about future.
you know it's about great gaming creativity connection always good vibes like from events etc but actually we really need to be aware that our work is not just about money also not just about fun it's like mix of everything everything I want to talk about this so it's not it's about making experiences that entertain heal and bring us together like connecting that's what I mean with human centric. I love mobile gaming and

it will be kind of like Trump's sentence, you know, let's make mobile gaming great again. I know that's like kind of bullshit, but we really need to to understand that this revenue focused, KPI focused, stressful situation or like majority of the companies, I don't see it's going in a sustainable way.
We really need to, you know, do something. So that's why actually big kudos to everyone who keeps the spirit alive

every day. Love it.
Like, really appreciate it. So what I mean about the, like, problems, let's call it as facing the realities.
So actually, I call this as challenges we should, we can overcome so let's let's talk about something real like our world of mobile gaming is fully built on creativity and fun pure joy but like imagine we could flip the script and like put people first in everything we do so like let's's talk about for example startup culture, especially studios, ad tech companies, etc. Like right now most of them are startups.
Like it's crazy but even like five years old companies are startups as well and that's making them very aggressive because they need to to go for revenue right so our fast fast-paced startup world demands this like aggressive culture and in turkey actually we call this as peak culture so like rapid growth and big numbers escalating so there is actually no room for fun site at all like Like, you know, people are working too hard. It's like being stuck in a never-ending grace where the finish line is like always out of reach.
Like, okay, this one, this one, here's the KPI. Like, it's kind of like the rabbit carrot sample, you know, like, sorry, not donkey carrot.

It's like they are putting it like this and it's always running.

So, yeah, like, but what if we could slow down and focus on what matters most?

Like our industry people picture a workday where you like have time to you know catch your breath enjoy a quick game break and you still smash your goals like when we put people first make it human-centric every win actually feels that's much sweeter much enjoyable and actually, like last week with Mati, we talked about in our podcast, the Amazon podcast, how do you maintain this work-life balance? And I even call it work-family balance because he's caring a lot about his family, spending lots of time with his daughter. And I really love it.
And he talks a lot about that to me. So love it.
I wish everyone could make that work-life balance. So yeah, I actually would like to go deeper.
Let's go, guys. So developers, I really appreciate how game developers put that much effort.
It's not just coding. It's also like putting their soul over there.
So let's be honest. Too many developers developers turned coding into a never ending checklist.

It's like I'm talking about the startups especially, right?

So especially in Turkey, I know that like really long, long working hours and it's like too stressful.

I really cannot share so many details.

I know some like internal information from many companies, but I know that they are just buried in the work. It's like some don't even get to play the games they build because they are stuck over there.
Isn't it crazy that you don't enjoy playing the game that you develop? And it's so normal. Imagine a world where you could experiment, tinker around, and actually have fun with your own creations.
Like when we give developers the freedom to play and enjoy, we bring back the like spark that's make make us fall in love with the industry so that was a developer side and actually similar for designers artists like they often face this intense pressure to churn out the content that's, you know, looks actually cool. And sometimes at the cost of their own creative joy, like many don't even get a moment to step back and enjoy the art.
It's not like that really. What if every designer could like spend time dreaming, dreaming up about like wild ideas.
Maybe this could be, you know not like that, really. It's going in a revenue direction.
Yeah, that's killing the creativity. We have to just make it humanized, I think.
How about the marketing? User acquisition. like, literally more than just data churners, you know?

Once upon a time, like, UA was all about creative storytelling,

like, capturing hearts, cool stuff.

Now, like, it can feel like a grind of data and numbers, fully about CPI, money,I money leaving like no time to enjoy the games they are actually working especially in hyper casual like I know that many of the UA guys don't even like care about the game like just bum bum bum bum and it's like literally boring work for them with lots of um actually manual work i know uh so it's kind of like imagine if the focus shifted back to engaging playful storytelling where like your ideas could shine just as much as the you know cpis um of course similar for admin administration guys like chasing revenue targets sometimes like strip away the fun and turning what should be a creative adventure into like relentless revenue game so yeah uh, I actually also have to touch upon the sales teams in the industry. Like they are under lots of pressure to hit high targets.
And, you know, that actually drains the energy right out of their work. It's a realmer like when the fun of connecting with players gets

lost in the chase of numbers so yeah that's why i think we really need to get back to ourselves maybe that would be the sentence so yeah so so why have we or how have we lost our spark? Like we drifted drastically away from like what's truly matters. Janine, creativity, human connection, pure joy.
Like normally mobile gaming was meant to be our playground. And actually not just for industry people imagine about like from we call it like 7 to 70 you know like it can be child or lonely person with depression and elderly person like maybe even pretty sick it's kind of actually even rediscover joy.
It's sometimes a place to escape, like unwinding. You know, it's time to remember that we are human and we just should enjoy our life.
I think from our side, we are not just here to

meet targets. We are here to create moments of wonder and fun.
Like we are all of us. We are the creators, storytellers, architects of worlds that bring smiles

and little break from either everyday routine or horrible things.

Like not everyone is so lucky, you know.

It's maybe even poverty, et cetera.

These people get hope just, you know, having a sip, having a breath over there. But let's dream up about a future where we can find this fondly.
That's the focus in my speech here. I would say I would put number one as we need to celebrate creativity like you know um we should let creativity flow uh like you know experiment play around and make work feel like fun challenges and not just like task, task, business, business, money, money.
I think that that would change a lot in time. It sounds small, but it's really big.
And I would put number two, investing in well-being, not just about like physically but also being mentally strong because we're talking about creativity like and for that you like need to give yourself and your colleagues time to relax learning new tricks and enjoying the ride, you know? And like, I have actually like four more pinpoints here. I would call them like breaking down the barriers, number three, to like all developers, designers, marketers, and everyone should be collaborating

and actually sharing

ideas, having

that joy

of mobile gaming. And I

don't see a lot, actually.

And there we go to

redefining the success because

right now, there

is only one answer, which is

revenue.

Nobody cares about

the smile Thank you. is right now there is only one answer, which is revenue.
Nobody cares about the smiles, the genuine connections we create with our not only colleagues, also with our players. So I think of course I said nobody, but there are already great great companies like for example i'm big fan of supercell i i love how uh like you know company culture how they have built their community um of course the games like and of course there are many more companies like that from another aspect I actually want to talk about the industry events I really love them not just big ones like Packet Gamer Games Forum many more Hit Game Conference, Moby Dickton, White Knights and many more I think our industry people are just awesome like we are super chill cool vibes and you can literally go and shake hands with anyone and get to know each other, get friends and learn anything.
Literally, just find the right people to ask and your network will grow very quickly. It's actually pretty unique.
Especially, imagine finance or many industries, actually. And it's like super formal, boring, I would call.
And that's why I think we should keep this vibes up. And if we go back to for example pandemic time which was the golden era right that time was the like just skyrocketing because when the success is over there money flow is huge all the VCs are like looking They're like, do you have any project? Yeah, okay, we are investing.
That was really quick and easy at that time. Now, especially since last two years, it's kind of getting in the opposite direction.
It affected our industry as well. So right now, because of the financials, what I mean with opposite, that time was everyone was chill, enjoying, anyway, like success was coming.
And right now it's actually super hot, not just for studios,, also for any, it can be ad tech, or even for VCs, actually. Right now, it's so hard to find the right investment for studios to make profitable games, also getting investment for ad tech companies to find companies, finding a sweet spot in the industry.
I can give hundreds of examples here, but what I mean, these challenges affected the industry people as well. That's where I would like to direct, basically.
I think even in this scenario, we really need to get back to our core mobile gaming vibes. I really loved when Mati wrote about this sexist creative ads where we like you know lost our how to say I think we can even say humanity like literally with pregnant women, child like so many more things with animals.
I saw horrible things.

Like I wish I didn't see them.

And I can't imagine like some great people saw worse things. And some of them are actually creating them and like using them.
So it's really crazy. that's why overall

I would like to

just

I think, pray that our industry will not lose its humanity, joy, fun. right now I'm actually very happy to be in the industry it's like so amazing

and

I'm glad to support the people industry people with content quality like not only media news but also educational content in our blog and also sharing jobs it's literally about giving hope to many people that actually

feel so bad after some like big layoffs or some crisis etc they they have something to like

share check etc that's some of them like write to me and we chat that's also

making me happy to be able to help in this way in an emotional way you know

Thank you. Some of them write to me and we chat.
That's also making me happy to be able to help in this way, in an emotional way. We started our podcasting.
We invite people. Right now, we have recorded with actually six people, including 12 Gamers, John John Wright, etc.
And it's actually about them. It's just like, who is Mati? Who is Felix? Who is Jakob? Like, literally human-centric, fully.
Even like, before mobile gaming, what were you doing? If it excludes the industry, who are you? What are you doing? How is your life actually? What would you tell about the life you see from your perspective? You know those type of cool questions, pretty personal and we would like to grow distraction to also blog side as well, like written form basically. And yeah,

we would like to do many more

like these projects.

Also like big thanks to

Aileen, the support on the

podcast

and content side.

And so far, like the big

love from industry is

I think making this doable. In the beginning, I had like concerns, you know, like not just how would the industry react, but also like, is it correct? Is it the best way, etc.? So that's my direction.
Also, I wanted to connect this topic to who I am and what I am currently doing in the and for the industry so this is about mobile gaming revival and here is Ömer and I would like to do my best to keep the positive, great vibes in the industry. Whenever you feel down, whoever you are, you know, happy to chat, happy to support anything I can do.
So not everything is high level and we are all connected. We should support each other.
Our industry is small. we are all connected we should support each other our industry is small we are not as I mentioned banking or food industry, mobile gaming just thousands of people, that's it yeah thank you for having me, thank you for listening to me, especially if you made it till here.

Really appreciate it.

So take care. Thank you.