a Word from the CEO
Good Times Good Times together
Games are just more fun with friends. Of course we realize this from our own personal experiences, but more importantly we know this, because data from our more than 250 million players shows us evidence of this. In the future MAG will double down on social games where we’ve seen amazing traction historically and continuously see strong support. This is exemplified by our socially based evergreen games Ruzzle and Quiz Duel. Our recent launch of Word Domination shows the same great long term retention patterns as those evergreen games and enforces our belief that this is an area where we should focus our efforts going forward.
Our long term vision for MAG is to be a global leader in casual multiplayer games, and our product development strategy for new games is focused around that area. We will also double down on improvements of our live multiplayer games, particularly Quiz Duel and Word Domination, which both show a lot of potential for future growth. Our classic tag line about delivering Good Times has now evolved to Good Times Together to really emphasize the social aspect of our mission.
World class talent build world class games
We continue to recruit the best of the best from across the globe. Having shipped games in 2018 that rose to #1 in US casual games or have been selected as the Game of the Day by Apple shows that we have some of the best game teams, analysts and marketeers in the world and that we are really well positioned from that perspective. The fact that we have reached more than 50 million unique players during this fiscal year with our games shows our world class marketing capabilities and this is one of the keys to our future success.
“...we have reached more than 50 million unique players during this fiscal year with our games...”
MAG can offer these global talents an environment where they can thrive and make the most out of their creativity with the support of a highly professional business which makes sure their games make it to market and generate sufficient profits to enable continued investments in new games. We also welcome everyone to be part of our bonus and stock option programs so that all employees feel invested in delivering on the business goals of the company.
Our game development process is the key to the future
At MAG we have regular game jams where we meet and come up with new fresh game ideas about ten times per year. This results in the creation of a plethora of creative prototypes and game concepts. In a typical year we end up with tens of playable games and a larger number of simpler prototypes and game concepts. Through the refinement and selection process a few of those games make it all the way out to a test launch where thousands of people get to enjoy our creations. At the very end of our process we launch games globally and we have an amazing track record of 10 straight games breaking the million player milestone within the first year of launch. In fact MAG has yet to fail to launch a million player game, and we don’t intend to stop our winning streak anytime soon.
We are in the business of sustainable long term growth
With all the fun and games you could easily be fooled to think that at MAG that’s is all there is. Actually we are at the same time an extremely business focused and data driven company with profitable growth in mind. Despite the pain that comes with seeing our revenues decline we cut back on marketing investments for WordBrain during the year as soon as our ROI models indicated that this needed to be done. On the other hand when our models predict strong results, we double down and increase investments like we did end of this year, even though it might cause short term drops in the reported profits of the company.
A shareholder in MAG should always feel confident that the company is investing its marketing budget in a data supported and sustainable way with the sole purpose of creating long term profits. Building and running games with long term profitability in mind is the only way to stay in this business for as many years as we have and this is something that is an integral part of the the DNA of the company.
We will keep investing in product development and strive for our goal of leadership in the casual multiplayer space with the conviction that games are just more fun with friends!