Hello Everyone!

About Me:
-3 Time College Dropout
- Former Bumhunter / Staker / Coach
- I'm a Jewish Filipino in my late 20s

I've been on quite a journey these past 7 years which has led me to following my true passion, creating Video Games. It's an amazing field that's growing faster than almost any other industry right now. The beauty of it is, that all of us love Video Games - I mean, poker is a pure strategy victory game where there's a big winner (the house ), a winner (good players), and losers (the fish).

We're on the cusp of releasing our first major title which has been in the works for over 18 months. Along the way, I've learned so much about social media, Facebook, Google, data science, marketing, branding, affiliate marketing (I knew a bit about this before ), leadership, risk taking, and finding my heart and soul again...We have over 50 games coming out this month and about 40 already in the iOS App Store. We're developing for a variety of platforms (10+) so our first title will be available for everyone all over to play

I am asking for donations for Typhoon Yolanda relief. If you don't know about Yolanda, it was a super typhoon with winds topping 360 km/hr that has affected millions of people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan

The foreign aid has been ****ty as hell (China gave 150,000....) and the people are suffering. If you want a way out of the hellhole of poker swings, loneliness, and battle I can give you a path to your own freedom.There is a bright future for the world if we can learn to come together and share our resources instead of fighting. Lets show the world we're not a bunch of greedy kids only interested in accumulating material wealth. All of this goes directly hand to mouth or for medical supplies. I'm not promising to answer all questions if they are really personal, but it's my passion helping people find happiness. That's what I can share with you.

If you'd like to help, please PM me.

One Love - Ask away.

M

Hey Max, I remember being in a FF league with you back in 2007, good to see your doing well. Congrats on the company, and was wondering if you could share some insight on the whole experience.

1) Where are you based? Do you find location to be important to your success, and if so, how?

2) Have you raised capital? Can you explain your thought process on how/why you did?

3) How did you come about putting together your team? Top lessons learned on managing egos in a start-up environment?

4) I love your industry, but it seems to be a very "non traditionally educated" field (please don't take this the wrong way, I mean it as a compliment). I'm going to be graduating with an MBA from what people tell me is a good school and going into management consulting for at least the next few years, could you shed some light on how people in your industry would view candidates like me in a few years?

Thanks in advance.

50 games? That seems like a strange approach to development.

I remember that league. You were always picking up the FAs like a boss and then trading off that depth. I was impressed with your skills. I've never won a Fantasy League on my own.

1. Location is definitely important - you need to be with the same page as everyone you work with. There's an energy and flow to working with a team that's difficult to capture through outsourcing work remotely. If you want to be truly creative and innovate, you have to be with team.

A global approach to business is massively valuable for would be entrepreneurs. There's tons of talent in developing countries all over. It's much harder to achieve success as an unknown in the U.S. or other countries without a track record. By looking at the talent in other countries and moving there, you can really build something special with a team that becomes your family. In a financial bonus, it allows you to stretch your money much further by looking at the disparities between earn rates.

In an ideal world, there's no reason why a Black coder who's the greatest coder ever should get paid less than a white coder with the equivalent skill levels. However, markets aren't efficient so there are diamonds to be found in the rough.

It's important when working in another country to really take in the cultural values. You are a guest there and should act as such. Aligning interests with your team allows everyone to win when your company hits big - which is inevitable if you align the mathematics. Don't be a Borat King of the Castle type boss - be a leader and constantly learn about whatever industry you want to go into. Do everything yourself at least once and show people how to do it. SHOW don't tell, travel the world, make new friends, and change lives.

You can only do so much with Outsourcing through oDesk. Being a leader is about love and teaching. Make an investment in helping people grow and you won't be disappoint.

Poker I've funded myself. I always knew that poker wasn't a long term solution for happiness. The mental imbalances caused by financial swings add so much stress to your life. Cortisol causes stress, which causes hair loss - which in my case would lead to depression. Love my locks of Love

When you get VC, your company is no longer just your own. There are other people's interests that you must take into account in order to make the deal fair. VCs are looking to make the most money possible and take the company public or end game goals such as eventual private sale. My #1 priority has been trying to make products that I can be proud of balanced with quick games that make people laugh and cheer up their day. Laughter is the best medicine - not money

The nice thing about VCs is that they are willing to take chances on people if you really know your stuff. I'd rather try and define my own path and be agile and figure out where I want to go and what I want to do. By building a team who believes in your abilities, you're able to shift with the fast changes in technology today. In a world changing so fast, those who stay abreast of information have the most ability to create solutions for change.

I don't work with people who have big egos.
There's only room for one of us here

You want team players who can think outside the box, adapt, and move quickly. People who believe in what you're trying to do... that having been said... it's important to know what your goals are before you begin! Otherwise, that leads to a lot of confusion as I learned early on.

They'd look a lot more highly upon you if you knew your stuff down pat.
PM me if you're looking for a list of books to read. I was impressed with your quick moves in Fantasy Football - you were so active it seemed unfair

Just like in Fantasy, if you keep abreast of the news in an industry - you'll do great. The trick is to finding all the best resources for every industry, adding them to a data aggregator, and reading it every day religiously.

Google News is great because you can add keywords. As a followup, I'm not quite sure how the big corporations work in regards to hiring people - but I do know that smart, hardworking, passionate people are wanted on any team. I'll choose passion, work ethic, and an eagerness to learn over a Harvard MBA with a prick attitude attitude on my team. As creativity becomes more accessible to the masses through education, those who refuse to stop trying to control people will find themselves obsolete.

Long time!

Development on multiple projects can be done simultaneously pretty easily with the right method and planning. One of my biggest mistakes early on was trying to tackle about 20 projects at once - it wasn't realistic, but I had to push myself to see what could actually be done.

I hope you're doing well!

Oh, if you live in New York - Billy Joel is back at the Garden!

when will you find your passion for your bros on IRC again bro

Which has been your most successful game?

Was it a surprise?

How much influence did the marketing have on the success of the games?

Any games do significantly worse than expected? In hindsight, why?

Do all your games have in app purchases? How vital are those to your success?

A lot of stuff I can't comment on and not here to plug myself so I'll talk more about industry in general.

In the beginning, people would play almost anything on mobile. It was the ability to have it in your pocket at all times and be entertained in minutes that we would otherwise spend idle. Snake being a good example on Nokia phones way back in the day with the ABC123 typing method.

The iPhone represented a historic change in the video game industry because it made development accessible and interconnected. Your phone could receive data and send data to other phones through other frequencies once they improved the antenna to receive multiple bands of waves required to be on the different data networks across the country.

Before the iPhone, breaking into the video game industry was tough because all access to markets was blocked by big corporate gatekeepers. What resulted was an explosion in growth of small developers with neat ideas. Being small means you're agile and can move faster and adapt to change. The paradigm started to shift with all sorts of unknown companies like Supercell (now worth 3 billion dollars after a Japanese company bought 51%)

Outside the box thinking and great ideas combined with IAPs for those who can afford it, but not requiring them to advance allows everyone around the world to enjoy the same experience.

I shun pay to win - I want everyone to be able to win. The best game is one that presents hard challenges that you can overcome through trial and error. Too easy - you get bored. Too challenging - you give up. Pay gates are economic discrimination at it's worse. Everyone should be able to win - you either can pay money for help or spend more time to beat it.

Wilt, Loved your videos on DC

So, is your gaming company profitable?

Or are you in the red.

Thanks! And thanks for the answers. I have a mobile app (not a game) coming out soon so this thread is very interesting to me.

I am Jewish and live in the Philippines. You know any pretty 20s-ish yentas around Manila?

First major title will be on app store? What's it about?

he can't comment on that in this Ask Me Anything

how about an explanation of how babies are made instead

Do you hire staff on a project basis or by salary? Any freelancing if so suggestions on finding devs?

Are you using any white labeling source code or just developing from scratch?

How do you manage the projects between project manager, developers, testers, and yourself. Do you use a platform like Jira or something else?

What percentage of your players use IAP?

Do the IAP players follow the 80/20 rule where 80% of the IAP is coming from the top 20% of your purchasing players?

Thanks,

Josh