The situation
Yes2Games is an HTML5 games publisher based in Singapore. Its 49-game portfolio is distributed through Playgama, which carries 220 million monthly active players, and Yandex. Growth needed more titles, and the Indonesian studio market was fragmented with no established price for a deal.
Studio acquisition
- 1SourceStudios across the Indonesian market.
- 2Vet50 studios screened against the same criteria.
- 3ModelA deal-economics model: what a title was worth to the portfolio against what a studio would accept.
- 4NegotiateI ran the negotiations myself.
- 5Close5 studios signed.
The model made each go or no-go a numbers question. It projected an 8% annual revenue lift across the acquisitions.
Spending where players stay
I built a D7 and D30 retention prioritisation matrix across the portfolio. D7 and D30 are the shares of players still active a week and a month after first play, so the matrix ranks titles by how well they hold an audience. Marketing spend then moved to the top-quintile titles, which lifted revenue per dollar deployed.
Pricing a title
I also worked on the pricing, strategy and partnerships for Zero One Protocol, a title that shipped on Android, iOS and Steam. This was title-level pricing, set alongside the launch strategy and platform partnerships.
What I would reuse
- Write the model before the negotiation. Knowing what a deal is worth to you sets the walk-away line before anyone is in the room.
- Keep the funnel numbers. 5 of 50 is a rate I can plan against. A partner pipeline can be forecast if you know what share of vetted candidates close.
- Rank by retention, spend on the top. Marketing dollars behave differently on titles that keep players.