Adam Telfer and Tom Kinniburgh started working on the Bible last year, bringing together different resources from across the web to lay the foundations for a one-stop-shop for free to player development. Now, several months on, the Bible pools together not only key insight from some of the games industry, but also the experiences of Telfer and Kinniburgh themselves.

The two currently run their own free to play consultancy - by no coincidence called Mobile Free to Play - with the Bible serving as a great starting point for developers looking to make their mark in mobile. Previously Telfer spent more than four years as a Senior Product Leader at German mobile giant Wooga having previously made his name at Canadian studio XMG, while Kinniburgh started out as a Producer at Chillingo before working as a designer at Wooga and Head of Business Development at Game Analytics.

“The bar for successful free to play development is being raised rapidly,” offers Telfer. “Years ago mobile was almost seen as an easy route into games development. Now, the amount of things you need to know is bewildering. It's not a case of understanding just mobile game design or understanding the limitations of touch controls, but you also need to have a handle on the marketing side, live operations, and economy side.”

As a result, the Bible is designed to break down each of these topics separately, making each one digestible with no one area deemed less important than another.

“We go from the basics of understanding the market all the way up to the masterclass in handling live ops and monetization,” adds Kinniburgh.

“We pride ourselves on knowing what it takes and we’ve created a free resource to help people at every position on the spectrum - from those indie developers in their bedrooms to 10-year veterans working for established companies. The Mobile Free to Play Bible is a free resource to help you make a better game.”
• To begin with, the Bible goes into the basics; how to get started in game design, what it takes to be successful as free-to-play, and the high-level view of the free to play the market.
• Secondly, it dives into free to play design topics; how do you design and articulate a core loop, what gameplay works best in free to play, designing for touch controls on mobile, and how to approach session design.
• Thirdly, it goes deep into the core systems of free to play games; improving retention and monetization, alongside evaluating economies.
• Lastly, it talks about the operations and growth side; how do you soft launch? How do you make money with ads? How do you grow a game?
The Bible, which will constantly be refined and updated throughout the months ahead, can be found over at MobileFreeToPlay.com/bible.

For more information and/or interviews with either Adam Telfer and Tom Kinniburgh, please contact:

Keith Andrew
[email protected]
+44 (0) 7834 237322