Speaker Highlight: Teemu Haila | PocketGamer.biz

• Pocket Gamer Connects Hits Helsinki on October seventh and eighth 2025.
• Trade-leading convention brings hosts, audio system, spherical tables, panels and networking

Pocket Gamer Connects hits Helsinki subsequent week, happening on October seventh and eighth, bringing in combination over 1,500 delegates from greater than 50 nations for 2 days of periods, networking, connecting and finding out.

Around the tournament, you’ll be able to be expecting a bunch of talks, panels and seminars overlaying quite a lot of well timed video games business subjects from AI to reside ops consumer acquisition, monetisation and extra.

One of the crucial high-profile audio system on the tournament is Teemu Haila 

Teemu has lengthy been a well-known face in Finland’s gaming business. As a teen, he constructed one of the most nation’s first on-line gaming communities and established supporting charities. He joined Wooga in 2010 and co-founded Playraven in 2012. After Playraven’s 2019 acquisition by way of Rovio, Teemu co-founded Metaplay to deal with a commonplace problem for recreation builders – scalable and customisable backend tech. His 15+ years advancing the business have been recognised by way of IGDA with the 2018 Lifetime Fulfillment Award.

We spoke to Haila about his consultation at PGC Helsinki and his ideas at the demanding situations going through the worldwide video games sector in 2025 and past.

Let us know what you might be making plans to hide at PGC Helsinki.

I’ll be speaking about learn how to send world-class reside provider video games with out burning via budgets. After six years of creating backend tech that powers a few of nowadays’s top-grossing video games, I’ve noticed the place groups waste cash and the place good possible choices make all of the distinction.

The panel is set sharing the ones classes, learn how to keep environment friendly, keep away from scaling traps, and center of attention assets at the portions of the sport that avid gamers really care about.

What’s the most typical mistake you notice being made within the video games sector?

Too many groups underestimate how complicated reside provider infrastructure turns into as soon as a recreation begins to develop. They depend on off-the-shelf answers that paintings high-quality for a prototype, however as soon as the sport beneficial properties traction, the cracks start to display.

The crew is then compelled into the painful strategy of rebuilding or migrating their backend whilst looking to stay avid gamers satisfied, burning time, finances, and morale. Beginning with cast, scalable foundations was once out of succeed in for smaller studios. With our newly launched Starter plan, we’re converting that by way of giving each and every crew reasonably priced get admission to to confirmed backend tech from day one.

If you’ll want to give different cell video games corporations one piece of recommendation, what would it not be?

Take into consideration scale from day one. It’s simple to center of attention simplest on getting the primary model of a recreation out the door, however when you be triumphant, you’ll briefly be coping with demanding situations round infrastructure, reside ops, and international succeed in.

The studios that thrive are those that construct with a long-term mindset. They don’t waste power reinventing techniques that others have already solved, they usually stay their groups excited about gameplay, content material, and neighborhood. That self-discipline is what makes enlargement sustainable.

What’s the unmarried largest problem going through the cell video games business nowadays?

Discovery is the largest hurdle. The retail outlets are crowded, consumer acquisition is pricey, and it’s tougher than ever for a brand new recreation to face out. That drive forces studios to take dangers, take a look at new issues, and iterate briefly to search out what resonates with avid gamers. The issue is that doing this at scale is pricey, and maximum studios would not have Supercell-sized budgets to experiment freely. That is the place the appropriate equipment topic. At Metaplay, we center of attention on giving groups the power to transport sooner, stay prices beneath keep an eye on, and building up the chances that their inventive concepts can succeed in avid gamers.

What key pattern must we be being attentive to within the subsequent three hundred and sixty five days?

One necessary pattern is the shift towards smarter reside operations. Lots of our consumers are already experimenting with AI to decrease the price of their content material pipelines and give a boost to reside updates. This adjustments the equation. Older video games that have been too pricey to care for with common occasions or updates can now get a 2nd lifestyles, and smaller groups can ship the type of reside provider reports that was once out of succeed in.

Within the subsequent 12 months, I be expecting we will be able to see extra studios the usage of those approaches to increase the lifespan in their video games and compete in ways in which weren’t imaginable ahead of.

What’s a method attendees can get ready on your dialogue?

One of the simplest ways to organize is to take into accounts the demanding situations your crew is going through at the moment. It may well be getting a reside provider recreation on-line cost effectively, managing infrastructure as your participant base grows, or understanding learn how to stay prices beneath keep an eye on whilst nonetheless assembly participant expectancies.

The panel is supposed to be sensible and in accordance with actual revel in, so the extra explicit the questions, the extra helpful the solutions might be. Come in a position to proportion what helps to keep you up at night time in construction, and we will be able to do our absolute best to provide recommendation you’ll be able to take immediately again for your challenge.