Category

Career Advice

Mar 07
8

Life as a Product Marketing Manager at Big Viking Games

By | Career Advice, Culture | No Comments

Our series of Viking Profiles aims to shed some light on the some of the lesser-known roles in the gaming industry. Today we’re talking with Viking James to learn more about what it’s like to be a Product Marketing Manager at Big Viking Games.

What is your role at Big Viking Games, and how long have you been with the company?

James: I’ve been with Big Viking Games for over two years as a Product Marketing Manager for two of our titles YoWorld and Fish World.

What does a Product Marketing Manager do at a games company?

James: I work with the rest of the team to promote new features, events, and content that gets released into the game. We also work on the monetization aspects of our games, how to get new and lapsed players playing, and we analyze the team’s decisions to see what worked and what could be improved next time. It’s not all business though. We also do loads of fun things like put together email newsletters for our players, make trailers for exciting new features, produce fun social media content on Facebook, and conduct player feedback surveys which help us determine what our players like as well as what they want to see next.

What does an average day look like for you as a Product Marketing Manager?

James: The first thing I do is look at revenues from the previous day. I look at what went well and what could be improved. The rest of my day is dedicated to a variety of things such as planning for future releases and marketing campaigns, implementing these plans, or doing analysis on past marketing efforts.

“As soon as we started adding incentives like free items for returning, the click-through rates on the ads doubled.”

How did you become a Product Marketing Manager?

James: I went to university for business specializing in marketing. After completing the program, I started out my career as a Product Marketing Analyst at another games company called Magmic. There, I worked on mobile games like New York Times Crossword, Rubik’s Cube, Scattergories, and Apples to Apples. After a year or so I owned the marketing strategy for all of Magmic’s Mattel branded mobile games as their Product Marketing Manager.

How has your career progressed at Big Viking Games?

James: I started at Big Viking Games as a (lonely) team of one. Over time and as responsibilities increased, I was able to grow the team and we have since added six fantastic members across the Marketing and Content Marketing Teams.

Read More

Jan 27
7

What it Means to be a Producer in Video Games

By | Career Advice, Culture | No Comments

Our series of Viking Profiles aims to shed some light on the some of the lesser-known roles in the gaming industry. Today we’re talking with Viking Robyn to learn more about the process behind game production and what, exactly, is produced by a Producer.

What does a Producer do

What is your role at Big Viking Games, and how long have you been with the company?

Robyn: I was hired to be an Associate Producer (on both YoWorld Mobile and Tiny Tappers for Kongregate), and when one of those games wrapped I was transferred to the other full time. After shipping both, I was promoted to Producer.

What does a Producer do at a game company?

Robyn: One the favourite jokes of my developer friends is “a Producer doesn’t actually produce anything!”, which is hilarious to devs, but less funny to Producers. Producers are responsible for making the hard decisions to keep everything on track and make sure a game ships.

The role varies from company to company. I’ve had it be a catch all, where I, as the Producer, did everything except code or draw, including marketing material, community outreach, and social media. I have even been responsible for video editing!

Thankfully at BVG it is a very defined role: managing the team and working with the Product Manager to deliver a game. The Product Manager handles the creative decisions of what goes into the game, and the Producer decides how we execute on that vision, which involves a lot of planning and scheduling of sprints.

So, though a Producer might not produce anything, they do make sure that everyone else is producing on schedule!

“Producers are responsible for making the hard decisions to keep everything on track and make sure a game ships.”

Read More

Jan 20
3

Want to work in Canada? We want to help!

By | Career Advice, Recruiting | No Comments

Move to Canada work at Big Viking Games

The Big Viking HR team has been receiving a lot of questions from talented professionals located outside of Canada who are interested in joining the horde. Big Viking Games is a proudly Canadian-based company, and a big part of that identity is being welcoming to talent from all over the world. In the hope of answering any questions you might have about immigrating, or what it’s like to live and work in Canada, we’ve put together the following site: Work in Canada

With more than a dozen positions currently open, and plans to hire for many more, we’re eager to hear from you!

Dec 12
4

The Life of a Game Designer

By | Career Advice, Game Design, Games, Viking Profiles | No Comments

There is a fierce demand for game designers in the gaming industry, but most people are unsure of what, exactly, a game design job entails. To help us better understand this essential role, we sat down with our very talented game designer, Stojan. In this Viking Profile, Stojan shares how he got into game design, what makes a well-designed game, and how aspiring game designers can break into the field.

Game Designer at Big Viking Games Stojan

Q: What is your role at Big Viking Games, and how long have you been with the company?

Stojan: I was hired by BVG as a game designer in February of 2013, so I’ve been with the company for nearly four years now.

“Game Designer” can tend to be a misunderstood role. What does a game designer do?

Stojan: The short answer? A game designer is somebody that creates an experience that succeeds in maintaining the interest of a player for as long as possible, using various game design conventions.

The longer answer is that a Game Designer is the one who is responsible for a game’s core loop and builds out detailed specifications for features in the game. Depending on the type of game, this specification could include an overview of what the effect of certain features will be (short and long term), the proper math, the proper economy balance and impact, and the necessary high-level user experience flows.

The designer also has to verify any features before they are rolled out by ensuring that any new features are consistent with the game’s existing design. And, of course, a successful game designer needs to stay on top of the current trends in game design, particularly Free to Play trends. Read More

Nov 01
14

Five Years of Working at Big Viking Games

By | Career Advice, Culture, Games, Viking Profiles, YoWorld | No Comments

In October of 2011, Big Viking Games was formed. From that start with only 6 employees, to the BVG of today, with over 100 Vikings, our team has come a long way. Fish World and YoWorld, two of our earliest games, are still running strong, and years of research into HTML5 have paid off with titles like Tiny Tappers and Galatron.

To celebrate 5 years of BVG, we sat down with Gary Stevenson, Senior Product Manager for YoWorld and Fish World, who has been with us since the company started. From a humble beginning as a customer support representative, to now being responsible for two of our highest grossing games, Gary shares how he has grown at BVG in this Viking Profile.

Gary Stevenson Big Viking Games

How long have you been working at Big Viking Games?

Gary: I was actually hired prior to BVG’s existence, back in October of 2010, when we were still known as Tall Tree Games. So I guess you could say I’ve worked for Big Viking Games for its entire existence.

Please tell us what life was like at BVG when you started working here. Read More