What Is Gaming Product Management Like by Zynga Product Manager
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Product Managers aren’t new to the gaming industry, and every day more and more gaming companies are realizing the significance of employing Product Managers to drive product strategy and business decisions. This event, was an overview on Product Management in Gaming and learn how gaming Product Managers are merging Art, Business and Technology to create value in this exciting and fast-paced industry.
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What Is Gaming Product Management Like by Zynga Product Manager
- 1. What Is Gaming Product Management Like by Zynga Product Manager www.productschool.com
- 2. FREE INVITE Join 20,000+ Product Managers on productschool.com/slack-community
- 5. Data Analytics for Managers 2-month part-time Courses
- 7. Include @productschool and #prodmgmt at the end of your tweet Tweet to get a free ticket for our next Event!
- 9. Product Management in Gaming Ponappa Somayanda Zynga
- 10. An Introduction ● Sr. PM at Zynga’s NaturalMotion studio ● From India, living in London ● Currently managing Dawn of Titans ● ~4 years in the game industry ● Avid Gamer
- 12. Agenda ● Why do Gaming companies need PMs? ● What does a Game PM do? ● What does it take to be a PM at a Gaming company like Zynga? ● Q&A
- 13. Caveat ‘These are my views and my opinions based on my experiences and the experiences of my peers, and do not reflect the views of my current employer or past employers’
- 14. Why do Gaming companies need PMs?
- 15. Games as a Service (GaaS) “In video gaming, games as a service (GaaS) represents providing video games or game content on a continuing revenue model, similar to software as a service. Games as a service are ways to monetize video games either after their initial sale, or to support a free-to-play model.”
- 16. Conventional Game Development Concept ● Pitch ● Concept ● Prototype Release ● Marketing ● Distribution ● Launch ● Maintenance ● Metacritic Score Design ● Gameplay ● Rulesets ● Narrative ● Interface ● Content Production ● Programming ● Art ● Sound ● Design ● Implementatio n Testing ● Playables ● Alpha & Beta ● Bugs
- 17. The GaaS Approach Release Concept Design Production Testing LIVE SERVICES ANALYSIS & FEEDBACKPROMOTIONS CUSTOMER SUPPORT & COMMUNITY UPKEEP CONTENT, EVENTS & FEATURES Tools, Backend & Sustainability
- 18. Why does this make good sense? Recurring Revenue Model Extended Life Cycle More Player Focused Measure Success Better Risk Mitigation
- 19. Game Changers Platforms & Distribution IAPs & Microtransactions Data & Analytics
- 20. This is where Product Managers thrive
- 21. What does a Game PM do?
- 22. A lot actually.. ● Responsible for KPIs and Metrics ● Own/Manage the Roadmap ● Define Product Strategy ● Design Content and Features ● Measure-Analyse-Optimize-Iterate ● Be a Player Champion Art BusinessTechnology PMs Features Live Ops Analysis Planning & Forecasting Reporting Experimentation
- 23. A day in the life
- 24. Working as a Team Product Manager Art/UX/UI CS & Community Marketing Dev & QA AnalyticsProducer Studio Leadership Game Designer
- 25. PMing in a nutshell Ruthless Prioritization ● Roadmap ● Features ● Metrics ● Team ● Goals (Professional and Personal) ● Time ● Players ● Technology
- 26. Becoming a Game PM - What does it take?
- 27. Skillsets Communication Data is your Best Friend Problem Solver Growth Hacker Mindset Knowledge Team Player Empathy & Passion
- 28. Ending Notes ● Do you need to be a ‘gamer’ to be a PM in a gaming company? ○ Corollary: Being a ‘gamer’ isn’t always a qualification or validation of skill set ● Passion does not always translate into great ideas ● Dealing with Player expectations ● Interviewing with Gaming companies ● https://a16z.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/good-product- manager.pdf
- 29. Q&A
- 30. Appendix (will delete these before the event)
- 31. Interviewing Do research Play games, understand market Understand the metrics Be sure you want the job Basic problem solving, discussion on games Breaking down products
- 32. Part-time Product Management Courses in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New York, Austin, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, London, Toronto www.productschool.com
Editor's Notes
- Secondary benefits - multi platform, eSports, piracy, lower cost to develop Extend life cycle of Games Move from seasonal/cyclical revenue generation to a recurring model - ubisoft stats More emphasis on player- engagement, analytics, community Risk mitigation by moving away from a hit-or-miss cycle Improved analytics and metrics to measure performance More player focus, more analytics, more community/sentiment FIFA Ultimate Team, MS Office
- Participate in the full product/game lifecycle management. This includes making insights-driven recommendations, writing clear and actionable specifications, working with multidisciplinary teams (design, art, and programming) to implement core features on time and for greatest impact, analysing the results and sharing learnings across the team and business. Understand the player experience and audience psychology. Identify player needs and spot opportunities to build features that improve engagement and retention, grow the user base and delight our players. Help to scope and prioritise features based on business and player impact. Generate expected outcomes by analysing data from existing games, creating forecast models and performing funnel analysis. Provide input into business cases based on in-depth data analysis and demonstrate how that analysis impacts key product metrics. Create dashboards and reports that build knowledge and understanding of data driven insights within the rest of the team.
- Verbal explanation - no slide content; example use cases
- Game atomic unit; PMs cannot succeed alone, and games cannot depend purely on PMs
- Prioritization does not mean Compromising
- Do you need to be a gamer to be a Gaming PM Tech/Code understanding