We continue to summarize the results of 2021 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with Sergey Neskin, CEO of Neskin Games.
How did 2021 go for the company?
The outgoing year was not only the most successful, but also the most conscious for Neskin Games. The experience squeezed through a merciless funnel of experiments and live data helped a lot with making the right decisions.
Dozens of new game events and features have appeared in EverMerge. We have learned to formulate business goals for each individual feature more clearly. In addition, now we necessarily measure the performance of features with A/B tests before rolling them out to the entire audience. Nothing is more invigorating than the fear of missing a mistake against the background of hundreds of millions of dollars that investors have invested in attracting users. Sometimes we want to work “as before” — both more and faster — but without following the processes, it’s easy to turn the wrong way. In general, we have saved all the crazy creativity and spontaneity for the coming 2022.
We also made analytics more transparent for the whole team. Now any employee can find out at a daily meeting how the released feature affected the game metrics. We share both successes and failures, draw conclusions and fly on!
In the spring, in honor of the decade, the companies held an internal conference dedicated to growth — it turned out to be an incredible event in the atmosphere. We will do this on a regular basis.
What event or trend of 2021 do you consider central within your niche?
In the spring, due to Apple‘s new IDFA policy, it became more difficult for all of us to navigate the effectiveness of advertising companies. This prompted bold experiments, including with advertising on TV.
I am glad that the market of games in the merge-3 genre is developing rapidly. With the advent of many new products in the segment, a desperate war for users unfolded, which directly affected the cost of the installation. In order to maintain the growth rate of attracting users, we had to pay more attention to scaling the product. As a result, the growing competition has only made us stronger.
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2022?
To work effectively on EverMerge, we have to increase the product team to 120 people, so in 2022 we will iteratively revise the approach to work and modify existing processes. We have already managed to switch to working in the format of small feature teams, and next year we plan to group these teams into units. Each of the units will work on its business goals. We are actively looking for analysts and product managers.