We talk to the new director of Kolibri Games (Idle Miner Tycoon), Guillaume Verlinden.
Part 1 is here!
So far, Kolibri Games have specialized in idle games – with great success. Will you stick to this focus or do you want to try your hand at other areas as well?
We have seen a lot of “Idle Games” being released over the past years, this is definitely a trending category and “idle” or “AFK” are successful keywords to drive installs.Nevertheless, one could argue if this is a real category, I tend to see it more like a mechanic, or even a concept where players know they will not need to spend hours and hours every day to enjoy their game but playing a few short sessions per day is enough to have fun and progress. While our expertise and success lie in understanding the players who play these kinds of games, our goal is to push the limits of the genre by creating new idle gameplays and matching them with the right meta.
Idle Miner Tycoon was released on July 1, 2016, so it just celebrated its fifth birthday. In 2020, the game generated 38 million euros in sales.
What potential do you see for scaling live mobile games like Idle Miner Tycoon? What content innovations are planned?
We see a lot of potential in Idle Miner Tycoon: both in terms of business performance, and in the learnings from our players. We will continue to serve our players with extensions of the existing content, and we are currently working on adding more depth to the game with new systems and meaningful interactions among the players.
You currently have numerous vacancies to fill. How hard is it to find good people?
We are currently investing heavily in growing talent internally and attracting top talents from the industry at the same time. As I said, we want to accelerate the transformation of Idle Miner Tycoon as well as the creation of New Games, so bringing in external expertise is helpful. We currently have open positions in most teams (UA, Product, Data, Tech, etc.), so if you want to join a very dynamic company and enjoy focusing on impact, please reach out to us!
There are now 125 people working at Kolibri Games in Berlin – most of them, of course, working from home a lot over the last 18 months.
What do you need to bring to fit in with the Kolibris? What is your philosophy?
You should not only need to bring an understanding of Idle Games, but also of the culture at Kolibri Games. The company has grown a lot over the past years, and our focus went from a solely centering IMT to multiple games and multiple company projects. With such a fast-growing studio, building and maintaining a great company culture needs a lot of focus. I follow a bottom-up approach, setting long-term goals and concentrating on the people. I like to say that my objective is to ensure every employee is better at what she or he does than me. My job is to bring these amazing talents together and set a focus.
Where will Kolibri Games be in five years?
Our vision and our ambition for Kolibri Games is to become one of the industry champions next to big names like Supercell or Playrix, to be recognized for the quality of our talent and the reach of our games. Idle Miner Tycoon will continue to grow, and our objective is to increase the contribution of our new games to over 50% by the end of 2024. To do so, we need to bring people together and help them realize their potential. This will allow us to create the games players will enjoy for many years.
Guillaume Verlinden
Managing Director
Guillaume started his career in gaming in 2014 at Social Point where he worked as Product Lead on titles such as Monster Legends and Dragon City. After holding leading product positions there and later serving as Vice President of Products and Head of Studio at Tilting Point, he joined Kolibri Games in June 2021 as Managing Director.
The post Kolibri Games: Flying even higher (Part 2/2) appeared first on Making Games.
