Q&A with Glu Mobile’s Chris Akhavan

ironSource sat down with Glu’s SVP of Biz Dev to discuss the publisher’s M&A strategy, the power of IP, and trends in the gaming industry

2020 has been quite a year, with mobile gaming continuing its meteoric rise in the interactive entertainment industry. Despite a global pandemic, there’s been a flurry of financial activity in the gaming space, and one company set to contribute to this is Glu Mobile, who recently raised $151.8 million to help pursue M&A.

We caught up with Chris Akhavan to discuss Glu’s content and M&A strategy, the value of IP, and industry trends he’s most excited about in 2021.

You’re the Senior Vice President of Business Development, Corporate Development and Advertising at Glu Mobile. Tell us about what sort of games your company makes, and what your job entails?

I oversee global business development (such as IP and platform partnerships), corporate development (leading all M&A efforts) and advertising revenue at Glu. Glu has a diverse portfolio spanning different genres and player demographics, leveraging both licensed and original IP. Glu publishes lifestyle games like Covet Fashion and Design Home alongside our sports franchise MLB Tap Sports Baseball and strategy RPG title Disney Sorcerer’s Arena.

What is Glu’s content strategy today, and how has that changed since you joined?

When I joined Glu in 2013, the company was publishing as many as 12 games per year. Over time we’ve refined that to a heavy focus on LiveOps and nurturing franchises like Design Home and MLB Tap Sports Baseball that have long-term growth potential, what we call our Growth Games strategy.

Back in June 2020, Glu Mobile raised $151.8 million in a secondary offering, which you’ve said previously will be used to fund new M&As for the company. As someone who has played a key role in several successful acquisitions, like PlayFirst, Crowdstar, and Pick6 Studios, what are the criteria you look for when weighing up a potential acquisition?

It always starts with the team first. We look for teams that have a track record of success and really understand what drives modern free-to-play games and effective LiveOps strategies. On the quantitative side, we spend a lot of time going deep on KPIs to understand what the potential of a title or studio could be. We always seek acquisition opportunities where it becomes evident that Glu can add significant value to the team that will be joining us.

We’ve already seen deals this year like Zynga and Peak Games, and Embracer going on a spree. What are your thoughts on the recent M&A activity in the gaming industry?

The mobile gaming M&A landscape has accelerated rapidly over the past few years, and I think there’s still a lot of consolidation ahead. As the industry continues to evolve, scale continues to be essential. Independent studios who join larger companies through acquisitions will be able to focus on creating great games while tapping into the distribution and support that a larger, scaled publisher can offer. While 2020 was a very active year of consolidation, I’m confident we’re going to see just as much activity in 2021.

When acquiring a studio, what are the main challenges in terms of integrating it into the company’s DNA? How do you find the balance between letting them get on with things without interference and getting actively involved?

Glu’s approach is to empower our studios, and tailor the support we provide to each studios’ needs. We approach acquisitions the same way we approach our internal studios. We encourage each of our studios to maintain their unique cultures and creative independence while holding some key shared values that resonate across the company. Studios we acquire get to leverage a broad range of central teams and infrastructure ranging from UA to CRM to Ad Revenue to Analytics. Our approach always comes down to adding value to studios we acquire, and as such, we never approach integration from a top-down one-size-fits-all perspective.

Why is it such an attractive proposition for both the IP owner and the games publisher to launch an IP-based game?

Game publishers get to tap into rich character universes and existing emotional connections with an IP’s audience. It’s incredibly hard to build those things from scratch, so there can be major benefits in tapping into an established, strong IP. IP owners get a lot of value from the added engagement (and obviously revenue) they can gain through licensing to game developers.

What’s a surefire way to fail with IP in gaming? Are there any common mistakes you see from other publishers?

Slapping IP onto an existing game, not being thoughtful enough about how to integrate that IP. It’s so important to make sure that the IP and game suit each other, and that usually means the game needs to be centered around the IP from the very early stages of development.

Do certain genres work better with IPs than others? If so, why?

Character-based IP with extensive casts of characters generally work best. There are many examples from Pokemon to Star Wars to Marvel that show the power of IP that have a rich character universe. These IPs give game developers a lot of content to work with from a LiveOps and monetization perspective to keep players engaged year-round.

And finally, is there a general trend in mobile gaming that you’re most excited about right now?

I’m excited about the growth of cross-platform play. Free-to-play games that are playable on mobile, PC, and console have had enormous success over the past five or so years. Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox, PubG and Among Us are good examples. The cross-platform social connectivity really amplifies communities surrounding these games and there’s a massive opportunity to bring content to a much bigger player base no matter which platform they prefer to play on.

When you can tap into all of these platforms, you’re expanding your market opportunity exponentially. However, this requires investment; building a game that is playable on different platforms is very difficult. I still think most mobile games will remain pureplay mobile, but there’s no doubt that we’ll see more massive cross-platform hits as we move forward. Players will increasingly expect to be able to play any game on any platform — seamlessly.

The future of mobile gaming isn’t linear, and I’m excited to see where things go from here.