What is LiveOps? — Interview with Vadim Bulatov

Alexander Semenov, App2Top: Hi Vadim! Let's start with the basics: what is LiveOps in game development?

Vadim Bulatov

Vadim Bulatov: LiveOps in game development is the organization of time-limited in-game activities to retain players and increase revenue.

Some gaming companies practice what's known as advanced LiveOps, which involves managing a personalized player experience in real-time.

Is this about configuring offers and prices based on previous behaviors or something else?

Bulatov: It's about configuring both offers and events based on player behavior.

For example, active players get more events, while paying players receive more expensive offers.

Organization, management, configuration—these concepts seem quite broad. Specifically, what tasks are typically assigned to LiveOps specialists?

Bulatov: The range of tasks is indeed broad. Here are the main tasks listed:

• Event scheduling;
• Organizing A/B tests;
• Real-time analytics for ongoing activities;
• Delivering server configuration changes.

Often, LiveOps managers also manage monetization. Sometimes LiveOps includes game design functionalities: feature ownership and event balance calculations.

So, is the work of a LiveOps specialist somewhere between account management, analytics, product marketing, with a sprinkle of game design?

Bulatov: It's more like designing specific features with added analytics and QA, without marketing.

What components are generally included in LiveOps when considered as a discipline?

Bulatov: I typically view LiveOps through four lenses:

• Product;
• Game design;
• Analytics;
• QA.

When teaching LiveOps, I divide the program into four blocks:

• In the product aspect, all in-game activities (events, offers, content updates) are seen as revenue drivers;
• The game design aspect covers economic models of events, creating balance for events and offers, preparing documentation;
• The analytics block focuses on conducting A/B tests and organizing analytics effectively;
• The QA block handles the technical aspects associated with managing server configurations.

When we talk about a LiveOps specialist, should they be proficient in all these components? Or are there no generalists in this niche, and teams consist of specialists with different profiles?

Bulatov: The above lenses typically boil down to product (working with activities) and technical aspects (configuration settings, testing, and change delivery).

In teams responsible for LiveOps, usually, some specialists handle the product side while others manage the technical side.

Nevertheless, there are versatile specialists capable of overseeing the entire LiveOps process.

As far as I know, programmers, who manage server operations and loads, are sometimes included in LiveOps. Is that not the case? Or isn't this practice very widespread?

Bulatov: They are more accurately part of the delivery unit.

What knowledge should those interested in working with LiveOps possess?

Bulatov: First and foremost, knowledge of product management and particularly experience in managing changes in the product. Such a person already has the core skills: game design, analytics, QA.

Are there requirements at a foundational level? I’m referring to basic disciplines taught in higher education institutions.

Bulatov: Microeconomics, statistics, analytics, product management.

Expanding a bit on the last two questions: what backgrounds do such specialists usually have, and where do they come from into this niche?

Bulatov: LiveOps typically attracts:

• Product managers who enjoy breathing new life into games through operations rather than launching new ones;
• Game designers willing to give up their creative side;
• Analysts or QA managers who actively play free-to-play games and spend money on them.

People without gamedev experience also enter this field. They often have an economic education.

There is a concept called GaaS, which is often equated with operations. Can we say that if we mention "operations," we immediately imply live operations?

Bulatov: Operations are a much broader concept. In addition to LiveOps, they include marketing, support, and delivery.

In successful game services, LiveOps will always be a crucial part of operations, as that's where the question arises: where's the money?

Despite live operations existing since the first MMOs, as a term, it only gained traction in the gaming industry after 2019-2020. Why was it needed when many tasks that LiveOps specialists handle today were previously assigned to other departments?

Bulatov: By 2011, Wargaming had a structure clearly focused on operations, even having an event department within the game client. At the time, I thought this was the norm, but it was an exception that was ahead of its time. Back then, in most companies, in-game online activities were handled by game designers if they had the time, or sometimes even programmers.

When most teams earning from game services realized that the primary revenue comes from players who play for several years, they began to form separate LiveOps departments.

Casual game developers realized that the main updates generating revenue were not 100 levels at the end of the game but events like a Halloween event around 2018-2019.

Additionally, games became more advanced technically at that time.

Another factor that played an important role was the increase in the role of UA analytics. Becoming a growth driver for game revenue in the early 2010s, it boosted data processing speeds, increased segmentation and personalization capabilities.

As a result, modern LiveOps entails managing a personalized player experience in real-time, rather than only working with last month's or earlier data.

Incidentally, I've come across many companies having their own understanding of LiveOps. Sometimes, even within a single company, it can differ from department to department. Why do you think there is such confusion?

Bulatov: As mentioned, LiveOps includes both product and technical sides. Sometimes, LiveOps is used to refer to only one or the other.

LiveOps can also be associated with different monetization structures. Monetization manages the offering of game values. LiveOps manages the demand for these values by organizing time-limited activities.

However, if you see a timed activity in a game that boosts demand for game values, the people who conceptualize, plan, launch, analyze, and improve it are LiveOps specialists, no matter what they are called in a company.

One last question related to processes: at what stage does a LiveOps specialist appear in a project? Is it after the release, or should they be there during production, planning the future event pipeline with game designers?

Bulatov: Of course, they join the project before release.

Even before early access release, you need to design the future system for delivering LiveOps changes, impact levers, A/B testing workflows, segmentation work, offer, and event systems. Doing this post-release would be painful.

Great, thank you for the interview.