Interview with Gametoc: How investment helped Huuuge make the impossible comeback
Reaching 100M+ player connections has been a dream come true for us. Reaching this milestone wasn’t easy, and we wouldn’t have done it without all you players out there that keep us going and our stellar Team Huuuge, but also the investors who have believed in our vision. Recently, our CEO Anton Gauffin was interviewed by Gametoc about our growth and the Korean investment market. You can read the original here, or the English translation below.
1.Please introduce Huuuge Games to the Korean gamers and the Korean game industry.
Founded in 2014, Huuuge Games is the no 1 fastest growing real-time mobile games developer and publisher (top 3 grossing casino games in the US), focused on the rapidly expanding the multi-billion-dollar social casino gaming market worldwide.
Huuuge’s mission is to become the global leader in real-time free-to-play casual gaming by re-defining the category experiences, offering a massively social experience for millions of players all across the globe. Recently the company achieved a major milestone of powering 100 million+ player connections within their unique gaming platform.
Our flagship app ‘Huuuge Casino’ offers the best social gaming experience where players are able to interact, engage, play and — most importantly — have fun with other players in real-time while playing exciting free-to-play social casino and slots games unseen anywhere else.
Huuuge Games publishes on all major mobile gaming stores, including the iOS App Store, Android Google Play and Amazon App Store. The company is blessed to have broad support from leading venture capital firms, including best in class Korean investors from Woori Technology Investment, Seoul Investment Partners, Kiwoom Investment and Korea Investment Partners (KIP). Based out of the US, with studio operations in Poland, Germany, Israel and Hong Kong, Huuuge employs 350+ people and is always looking for more talent around the globe, and as we’ve known about the amazing talent in Korean gaming for a while now and we are keen on building partnerships, relationships and hiring more exceptional people to join Team Huuuge.
2 Why have you decided to join the social casino market? At the beginning, what was your vision?
The Huuuge story for me is the absolute comeback story ever. The best story ever told and the best part is we are still yet to see its best chapters. With Huuuge we wanted to revolutionize social gaming and make it massively social right from the beginning.
Our core DNA goes back to the start of mobile gaming, way before we were known as Huuuge Games.
In my case, the story started in 2002 when I founded my first mobile gaming company in Finland. The company was called Gamelion. These were the days of indestructible Nokia phones, mobile games other than Snake, Tetris or Pacman were a new concept, the first iPhone was to be launched 5 years later and already at that time our team was pushing the envelope by developing games like the first mobile 3D FIFA Soccer (EA Mobile) and this background and experience what we have with Huuuge makes us very special.
Later in 2007 I sold the company, only to buy it back in 2014, which marks the start of a Huuuge era for me.
As you can imagine, a lot happened during those years, and when it comes to social casino and slot games, our team had already developed many games, including casual, arcade, mid-core and casino games in the past before getting the band back together and starting Huuuge.
When we started Huuuge in 2014, we believed that we can disrupt the market by coming in with a much more social experience and allowing people to play together in real-time. This is why millions of players love Huuuge. It is a very different experience to play alone vs. playing together with people.
3.’In Huuuge Casino,’ there are very unique and various slots. What are the major elements for you to make design decisions, when you create new slots for the game?
I guess it won’t be surprising if I tell you that we approach designing social casino gaming from different angles since our games are not just slots. That is true. But what’s the most important part here is to keep looking for solutions which will make our games more and more social, because that is fundamentally why Huuuge Games exists: to help players play together.
Just like in Vegas, it’s easy to get lost in the flashing lights and spinning wheels, but it’s the little moments that make Huuuge Games great. In the last few seconds, a player in Huuuge Casino has shared some of their winnings with another player that’s low on chips. Thousands of conversations are going on in game rooms. And a league has celebrated reaching one of their goals with players spread across the Americas, Europe and Asia. They might not even all speak the same language, but our players are connected by taking risks and celebrating Huuuuge wins together.
This is the power of social gaming. We make games on our platform that are easy to play, great for small breaks, and are a lot of fun to bond over with new friends. In a big way, this is the core of mobile gaming. We’re not about inventing new complicated games with ten-minute tutorials and tough learning curves, but about placing the fun one tap away and letting our players get straight to winning together. This is the way we achieved 100 million+ player connections and why we are quickly gaining more and more.
4.What’s your studio’s main competitive edge in the social casino game market?
I’ve already told you about the most important — truly social casino experience which dragged players from around the world to join our amazing global gaming community. While technological innovation elevated us throughout the years, we’d be remiss if we wouldn’t mention the impact our Company Culture and our fantastic team have on our products and the way we design them.
Our Core Principles have guided us from the outset of Huuuge’s existence. In a landscape dominated by a binary approach to creating content. We decided to challenge the status quo with something new. Our Principles are applied to every facet of our work — from HR all the way to development.
While the Core Principles are the lifeblood of our product, the people behind the scenes are even more critical. Over the years our team has become truly diverse, with over 350 employees from almost 20 countries in offices in Poland, Germany, Israel and Hong Kong. This diversity is one of our biggest strengths — with different cultures come different approaches. These differences create a broader, global perspective that makes Huuuge stronger.
Our diversity isn’t limited to where we are from, or what languages we speak. It’s what our team members have done before joining Huuuge and their collective and what their individual potential brings to the table. We don’t just try to hire people with “raw skill,” but people with an attitude that fit Huuuge’s values and a potential to grow their “raw skill” as we grow our Company.
This approach allows us to hire people who aren’t satisfied with the status quo; they challenge it. When creating our games, we cannot allow ourselves to fall into the trap of having tunnel vision. Hiring people from different places and different backgrounds ensures that our products become more diverse, and thus resonate with more people.
The Huuuge way isn’t one of complacency or taking the easy way out. We take risks. We are not afraid of taking on challenges or failing, and that is an attitude that we feel makes us stand out in the industry. Thanks to our team, we feel that we can climb any mountain, solve any problem, and conquer every coming challenge, which is why we’re happy that we can work with such smart and kind people.
5.How and why have you managed managed to get investment from Korea?
First of all, we feel blessed and lucky to be connected with the Korean investment partners. We respect the Korean gaming industry very much. To establish this cooperation, many circumstances had to occur.
I’ve been working with the gaming mobile business since 2002. After I sold my company (Gamelion) I moved to Silicon Valley and had an opportunity to study the most successful Silicon Valley companies and learn much about US mindset in business. Having a chance to buy your company back and enter it to its greatest times is something extremely rare. That background and connections were very helpful on our way to expand business and to get investors’ trust.
With series A we did a lot of legwork and spoke with an enormous number of investors. Korea Investment Partners (KIP) were the best match for us and it was no coincidence thanks to their prior experience in investing into both social casino and gaming companies. They understood our product and our vision right from the start and we are extremely happy to have such smart investors building Huuuge story with us.
6.What’s your impression of the Korean game industry, and social casino game companies in Korea? Anything you can remember from your past visit?
Huuuge Games is a global company, though we’re different than what I’ve seen in Korea. Our culture differs and our business differs, but — as I see it — what connects us is love for the games.
While visiting Korea, I was impressed with how big the gaming market is. People play games a lot more than in Europe! It is truly admirable that there are several 1 billion dollar + companies and also other social gaming developers listed on Korea Exchange — KOSDAQ. It definitely is a good market to be placed on.
I have a very deep respect for the Korean Gaming Industry. I find the game development great and I’d love to learn the art of Korean game design. What I consider beneficial for our business in the future would be bringing some of the best Korean practices into Huuuge Games — we’re open for new partners and talented individuals to join our team.
7.What’s the secret of your success in fast growth, and when you make social casino games, what is your main priority in launching the social casino game to the market?
The mobile gaming market is insanely big. If you’re asking me about a silver bullet — there is no such thing in this business. What I’m certain of though is that to become a global leader in what we do, you have to be learning and moving faster than others.
Let me tell you what I’ve learnt so far: we’re here to help people play and have fun together. Offering massive social experience to millions of players around the globe is and was always our main priority — it guides us in launching games to the market, managing our company and making business.
When we’re developing a game, we ask ourselves 2 crucial questions:
- Is this game fun?
- Is this game social enough, more social than other games on the market?
If the answer to any of those queries is ‘NO’, then we do not move forward — we change the vision. And we keep on going until we agree that the product is in line with our company vision of transforming mobile gaming into massively social experience. And we have to keep going fast!
8.What’s your studio’s next goal? Any personal goals?
Today, already 2.5 billion people are playing free-to-play games. Huuuge Games reached over 100 million player connections, now we’re on our way to reach first 1 billion Huuuge community members.
My personal goals are related to the company success, but when you’re speeding in that direction you have to stay wide-awake and always remember to love what you do.
For me it’s vital to remain happy. I’m happy when showing up at the office early in the morning, joyful when traveling around distant Huuuge locations on different continents, thrilled meeting all those exceptional people. I’m proud and honored to be a part of the amazing team Huuuge.
I will absolutely continue loving what I do, at the same time supporting our company culture and my people.
I won’t stop until we win the championship.
