569: Voodoo PM on Creating Addictive Games with Gabriel Rivaud

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Description

Today’s guest is the former Head of Publishing and now Product Manager at Voodoo games. They have chart topping titles such as Snake VS Block, Paper.io, Fight List and more. You will discover his key elements of addictive games, how to install a great working atmosphere for both designers and engineers and how he studies top games using a spreadsheet.

Gabriel Rivaud is the former Head of Publishing and now Product Manager at Voodoo.io.

Show Notes

Key Elements of Addictive Games

Addictiveness is one of the hardest things to achieve but if you have this, you have it all and the revenue will flow. It comes down to snackability – short sessions which could be repeated – as this will create loops. The game also needs to be relaxing to avoid stress. If the user has a negative reaction at the end of the game, he would not want to go through the loop again / will not play again. It should not be too punitive and not too frustrating either. There is no 100% recipe but generally, users should just have a good time. If your game is innovative and people have not seen it yet, it will also have the potential to be addictive.

Studying Top Games Using Spreadsheets

To focus on what’s addictive and what will work for the user, Gabriel benchmarks and spends a lot of time looking at games on the top charts. He extracts what qualities they have and condenses it in Excel sheets and charts to be more analytical. He places objective qualities such as the average time or length of the session, online or offline, two player or multiplayer, puzzle games or clickers, etc. He also covers the subjective items such as the effect to the user (relaxing? too punitive?) and the feelings it conjures to the gamer (frustrating? enjoyable?). He would see trends in the data and get ideas from there.

Show Mention

– Fav app:

• Clash Royale: (iTunes | Google Play)
• Bankin: (iTunes | Google Play)