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lessons learned in the transition from AAA to mobile development

CHANGING THE WAY WE MAKE GAMES. lessons learned in the transition from AAA to mobile development. Vijay Thakkar , Technical Director and Toy Maker. Our Portfolio. Zynga With Friends. Formed in Fall 2008 ( Newtoy ) Based in McKinney, Tx Zynga With Friends: Nov 2010 4 million DAUs

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lessons learned in the transition from AAA to mobile development

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  1. CHANGING THE WAY WE MAKE GAMES lessons learned in the transition from AAA to mobile development Vijay Thakkar, Technical Director and Toy Maker

  2. Our Portfolio

  3. Zynga With Friends • Formed in Fall 2008 (Newtoy) • Based in McKinney, Tx • ZyngaWith Friends: Nov 2010 • 4 million DAUs • 14 million unique users

  4. a fresh start

  5. a fresh start | AAA Games • Study in 2010 reported between $18 and $28 million $100M $55M $44M

  6. a fresh start | The Problems • Massive games lead to massive investments • Difficult to be agile and flexible • Scheduling slips have a large impact • Difficult to sustain

  7. a fresh start | A New Space with Mobile • User base is ‘everyone’ • Devices are always with you and connected • New methods of interactions and features • Small and concise experiences Embrace these strengths!

  8. a fresh start | New Ideas!

  9. a fresh start | The Ideal? • Shipping successful games is fun • Working on games you love is fun • Working with passionate, talented people is fun Have fun while shipping great products!

  10. a fresh start | Our Approach Strive to build games in a fewmonths Constant state of productivity Innovate, make mistakes, and adapt

  11. a fresh start | Minimum Viable Product • Build the smallest core experience • Grow and develop with something running • Allows for more creativity and flexibility • Identify potential problems early • Less wasted time and effort

  12. the people

  13. the people | Small and Flexible • Scrum / Agile development • Preference flexibility and general knowledge over specialization • Hire only the highest quality (force multipliers) • Everyone is a Toy Maker

  14. the people | The Circle

  15. the people | Small Workflow • The entire game may be completed in less time than a single system of a AAA title • “Let’s try it” • Tools are minimalistic and created as necessary • Don’t fear the mistakes, they’re going to happen!

  16. the people | Focus and Productivity • Remove everything that hinders productivity • Minimizeunnecessary meetings • Put in a solid 8 hours and then go home! • Library days designed for productivity

  17. how we build

  18. how we build | The Core Tenants Experiment until you find an nugget of fun Remove everything that doesn’t augment that nugget Polish, polish, polish

  19. how we build | Find the Nugget • Anyone can come up with it • Open, pie-in-the-sky phase, search for the positives • Creative ideas come from happy people, and rarely from the office

  20. how we build | Indie Fridays • Days for growth and exploration of new ideas • Foster the creativity of your employees • Open, creative collaboration across teams • Lightningquick prototyping! • No less than 25 new game ideas

  21. how we build | Dream Big, Build Small • Let your ideas be as grand as possible, but understand your limitations • Razor sharp focus on what could be built in a few months • Get a first version up and running as quickly as possible

  22. how we build | Easy Prototypes!

  23. how we build | Be Willing to Change • Remain open to iteration and changes • Get as much feedback as possible • Augmented by transparent team communication

  24. how we build | Stay Connected • Utilize the ways that mobile devices connect people • Opportunity to grow features with your users • No feature is cut because of time, only pushed

  25. how we build | Simplicity and Polish • Remember your audience! • Devices are made for pick up and play games • Launch times, responsive UIs and simple choices absolutely matter • Polish phase never compresses, only moves

  26. the process

  27. the process | Don’t Rebuild • Middleware is easy to embrace • With smaller projects, each piece has a huge impact • Literally thousands of developers solving the same problems as you • Open source is huge! Use it and give back • Reuse your own code, make a Toybox

  28. the process | What We Use Cocos2D Ruby / Rails CocosDenshion Memcache FBConnect Redis UISpec ActiveScaffold JSON MySQL UIKit Perl GHUnit PHP

  29. the process | Know Your Limits • Compromises with team size and schedule • Contract out work to make additional content • The feature cuts at the end of the project are often the best!

  30. the process | Pivotal Tracker

  31. the process | App Distribution

  32. the process | Games as a Service • 1,000 moves made per second • 220,000 requests per minute • All started on slicehost • Profile and scale up the pain points as they appear • Keep 24 / 7 maintenance outside of development team

  33. the process | Long Term Success

  34. the process | Learn from Your Users • Metrics give you insight into your users • If it’s at all important, track it • Combine with direct player feedback • Constantly evolve your tracking

  35. moving forward

  36. moving forward | Post Acquisition • The Jetpack • Biggercompany != bigger processes • A culture of collaboration • Lessons learned in both directions • Amazing capabilities of metrics

  37. moving forward | What Next? • We prototype fast, lots to execute • Balance between live development and new products • Never stop improving and growing our processes • Contributing back to the communities

  38. Wrapping Up • New strengths of the mobile platform • Small, agile approaches have huge potential • Start everything with a small scope and grow • Leverage existing work and fellow developers • Make mistakes and evolve!

  39. | QUESTIONS? vthakkar@zynga.com http://zyngawithfriends.com

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