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Artikkelit kirjoittajalta Antti
Toiminta
10 t. seuraajat
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänAre loops enough to sustain modern games? Players don’t just play anymore. They solve, optimize, and burn through content. Once the loop is "cracked", the experience fades. So the real question isn’t how to improve the loop, it’s what shapes it. In my latest blog post, I explore how systems like quests, events, social features, and matchmaking can stop being content layers and start reshaping the game itself; with same being applicable to other systems. The best games aren’t just loops, they’re living systems. Originally published via my Games Alchemy Substack. Want to get more similar analyzes? Make sure to directly subscribe — it's completely free.
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänSome games are worth existing, especially in a time when safe bets dominate. I believe 𝐍𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐞 from Northern Lights Entertainment is one of them. They’ve just launched a Kickstarter to bring their mobile experience to PC, and it deserves a shot. If you’re into MMOs, politics, sci-fi, and deep social systems, this is one to watch (and back): https://lnkd.in/dvq5BxRe Wishing the best of luck to Pavel Afanasiev, Julie Bonnecarrere 🍓, and the team!
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänFor years, we’ve optimized the core loop to perfection. And yet, players are burning through content faster than ever while also developing fatigue. This isn’t because loops are bad, but because loops alone are not enough to build longevity. The same applies to basic meta systems. Players today don’t just play games. They solve them. They optimize them. And once the loop is “figured out,” the experience starts to collapse. So the real question isn’t how to build a better loop. It’s what shapes the loop. In my recent article, I explore how systems like quests, events, social systems, and matchmaking can move beyond being “content layers” and instead start reconfiguring the game itself. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dZB49EKz The future of games isn’t just about what players do. It’s about the kind of world they step into every time they press play. Best games are living systems.
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänExperience Systemization as a better way to building games. We are living through a structural reset in the games industry. Budgets are rising, production is slowing, and content pipelines are becoming increasingly fragile. At the same time, players are no longer satisfied with static products. They are gravitating toward systems that e.g., evolve, adapt, and persist. This creates a tension the industry has not yet fully resolved. We are still largely building games as if they are finite products, while players are increasingly consuming them as infinite experiences. And that gap is where most of today’s inefficiencies, risks, and missed opportunities live. The traditional model focusing on building, shipping, operating, and moving on struggles under this pressure. It scales poorly, accumulates cost, and forces studios into a constant race between content production and player churn. Even highly optimized live-ops systems often end up extracting value rather than compounding it. But there is another way to think about building games. Instead of building content, you build systems. Instead of shipping a game, you launch an experience engine. Instead of optimizing a product, you evolve a platform. This is what I call experience systemization. It is not just a design approach. It is a structural shift in how games are conceived, built, and scaled. It's something that aligns creative ambition with economic sustainability. And more importantly, it is how games can evolve beyond games. Originally published via my Games Alchemy Substack. Want to get more similar analyzes? Make sure to directly subscribe — it's completely free.
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänWe are living through a structural reset in the games industry. Budgets have inflated. Production cycles have slowed. Content pipelines have become heavier and less predictable. Science-based optimization has been optimized for squeeze that churn users. Players are spreading time among multiple medias more, and many claim “AI is going to kill our jobs”, and such. While this all is cumulating, at the same time, player expectations have shifted toward something entirely different, e.g., living, evolving, and social experiences that persist over time, or just towards wanting, well, better games and experiences. Growth is no longer driven by acquisition alone. It is driven by retention, depth, and long-tail engagement. Similarly, the industry is no longer rewarded for producing just more content and squeeze over it. It is rewarded for producing better games, and, as I get to discuss this topic on my latest article more, better systems around them. This creates a fundamental shift in how games should be designed, built, and scaled. Read more here about such a shift here: https://lnkd.in/d255gy53 When you are as a reader exploring this topic, please note that lots of the examples lie around games and genres I like to blog about, e.g., Shooters. This doesn’t say, though, that Shooters are best benefitting from experience systemization alone. As I see it, there are multitude of genres and experiences these same principles and models can be used for, e.g., even for simulation / tycoon games / idle games, puzzle games, and such. The key lies in understanding a market, and its near-by markets deeply, and using experience systemization as the main anchoring method for pulling things together the way this article discusses about experience systemization. #GameDevelopment #GameDesign #Games #SystemsDesign
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänIt was a pleasure to work with AppMagic on this article we've published together via their site and my Games Alchemy blog. Go read and check it from the original post by AppMagic!Antti Kananen jakoi tämänResearching Mobile Games: The Essential Steps With Antti Kananen ☝️ Product leader, system designer, angel investor — our good friend Antti Kananen has worn many hats. This diverse experience allowed him to develop a unique approach to efficient game analysis using AppMagic. He shared this framework with us in our latest article ✨ Here’s what you’ll find inside: 1️⃣ The key steps Antti follows when making investment decisions or evaluating new product opportunities 2️⃣ Real examples of how he used AppMagic to reach actionable conclusions 3️⃣ Why AppMagic stands out as one of the best solutions for end-to-end mobile games analysis Find all the insights via the link: https://lnkd.in/dx5UDkfp
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänArticle about discussing 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢-𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 over 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐫-𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. We’re seeing more AI-driven segmentation, dynamic events, and playstyle-based live-ops. On the surface, it makes sense: deeper data, better targeting, improved retention. But heavy personalization can increase costs, fragment players, inflate live-ops complexity, leave engagement and cash on the table, and mask shallow system architecture. If your game needs constant hyper-tailoring to keep archetypes engaged, it's usually a sign of lack of systemic elasticity. Before splitting players into narrow silos, ask: have we built interconnected systems that naturally serve multiple archetypes at once? Hyper-personalization has its place, but multi-archetype systems design should come first. More of this in the article. Originally published via my Games Alchemy Substack. Want to get more similar analyzes? Make sure to directly subscribe — it's completely free.
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänLately many games industry’s conversations have been about hyper-personalization and how this is the future. ➡️ We see talks about dynamically segmented events. ➡️ We see talks about tailoring offers to specific cohorts. ➡️ We see talks about AI-driven playstyle detection and behavioral clustering. ➡️ We talk about live-ops engines that mutate the game experience per user. And yes, in many ways, this direction makes sense. But the means to reach this direction properly? Many times not so much. For example, mobile F2P, in particular, has reached a maturity point where improving retention and financial performance increasingly requires understanding playstyles at a granular level. AI and data-driven product management are pushing us toward systems that detect intent patterns and serve personalized content accordingly. In many ways, this is progress. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: 𝐇𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐫-𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐳𝐲 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦. Heavy segmentation can: ➡️ Increase production cost. ➡️ Fragment the player base. ➡️ Reduce cross-archetype exposure. ➡️ Create event fatigue. ➡️ Inflate live-ops complexity. ➡️ Shrink systemic depth. ➡️ Leave engagement and money on the table. And worst of all: It can mask weak core system architecture. If your game requires hyper-personalized event design to keep archetypes engaged, that’s often a signal that your systems aren’t intrinsically elastic enough. So, instead, before building systems that split players into increasingly narrow silos, you should always ask: "𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒔𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅/𝒐𝒓 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒊𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒚𝒑𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆?" Because if you haven’t, you’re patching over shallow design with algorithmic band-aids. This is something where 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢-𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 approach and mindset grows importance over single-purpose design approaches. There is place still for hyper-personalization, as/if needed. It's more about your strategy and order of steps to take over your roadmap. Read my latest take on this here: https://lnkd.in/dTrTWcPS
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Antti Kananen jakoi tämänArticle about 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨-𝐨𝐩 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐑𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 & 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐍𝐀, incl. mentions about how Housemarque, Bad Robot Games and latest co-op game developments are (and can become) part of larger equation for years to come. Originally published via my Games Alchemy Substack. Want to get more similar analyzes? Make sure to directly subscribe — it's completely free.The Next Evolution of Co-Op Shooters: Roguelite Systems & Extraction DNAThe Next Evolution of Co-Op Shooters: Roguelite Systems & Extraction DNA
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Antti Kananen tykkäsi tästäSo happy to be among the first clients of #Ktrl by Kohort! The tool is truly a game changer or small and efficient company like Metamoki! To all UA managers and growth directors who struggle to solve cohort-level predictions and baking incrementality to your predictions, check out Ktrl.Antti Kananen tykkäsi tästäToday is an incredibly proud day for the Kohort team and I. Today, we're launching #Ktrl by Kohort. We built Ktrl to end the era of hoping your campaigns pay back, by putting pLTV at the fingertips of every UA manager. Confidence without nagging data scientists. Scale without wasted dollars. Ktrl has been in beta for the past few months, and since then it's grown to manage over $1 billion of annual UA spend. Thank you to all our clients for trusting us on this journey. "It's like having a senior data scientist reviewing every campaign, every morning, before we've finished our coffee. The accuracy of the predictions has fundamentally changed how we allocate budget." - Vincent TESSIER - CMO - 52 Entertainment "Ktrl significantly reduces the guesswork around early performance signals. UA Recommendations acts like a coworker you can consult for a second opinion, the confidence rate of the recommended action is very helpful when it comes to reliability." - Oyku Zeybek - UA Manager- APPS "Ktrl helped increase February revenue by 30% and is now the screen we pull up in every weekly UA sync." - Jukka Hilvonen - Director of Growth - Metamoki Inc. Link to our post on why we built Ktrl is in the comments. Special thanks to our team, early testers, advisors, partners and investors for all your support: Jon Bellamy Eric Seufert The Raine Group Eurazeo AlbionVC Triple Point Portfolio Ventures Jens Abke Sophie Le Roy Keith Pichelman Olivier Comte Vincent TESSIER Vincent Février Jukka Hilvonen Fabien Cambournac John Wright Angus Lovitt Aland Failde Janice Gao Martin Macmillan Matej 🦩 Lancaric Michail Katkoff Charles Tien Steve Tinkler William Planques Mathias Lino Dawnesh Mistry Jan Pickard
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Antti Kananen reagoi tähänAntti Kananen reagoi tähänWith a heavy heart, I want to share that in my fight against blood cancer, I am now on the losing side. Because of this, I need to focus my remaining time on my own wellbeing and maintaining my energy. As a result, I will no longer take on long-term mentoring or advisory roles. At the same time, I still want to contribute—using my experience, network, and judgment where they can make a difference. I will focus on two things: – Connecting great people with the right job opportunities – Providing feedback on pitch decks and early-stage ideas I’ve been on LinkedIn since the early days, when there were fewer than 25,000 users here. Along the way, many of you have received a message from me—introducing someone, opening a door, or suggesting a conversation with a startup. You may still get those messages. Thank you to all of you for being part of that journey.
Experience & Education
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tai
Lisenssit ja todistukset
Vapaaehtoistoiminta
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Staff Member & eSports Tournament Organizer
GetOnline 2013 LAN Party (Gardy-Party ry)
- 1 kuukausi
I was part of GetOnline 2013 LAN Party staff as a Staff Member & eSports Tournament Organizer. The event was held in Kajaani, Finland.
My role was to organize and manage one of the head competitive eSports gaming tournaments at the event. The announcements in social media (Facebook, twitter, IRC-channel) related to the tournament were also my responsibilities. I also broadcasted couple of games during the tournament, which were shown on Twitch.tv broadcasting service. The tournament was…I was part of GetOnline 2013 LAN Party staff as a Staff Member & eSports Tournament Organizer. The event was held in Kajaani, Finland.
My role was to organize and manage one of the head competitive eSports gaming tournaments at the event. The announcements in social media (Facebook, twitter, IRC-channel) related to the tournament were also my responsibilities. I also broadcasted couple of games during the tournament, which were shown on Twitch.tv broadcasting service. The tournament was successfully organized and the feedback were very positive.
Garde-Party ry is a computer and radio amateur club located in Kajaani, Finland. It organizes annually several small events such as LAN parties and radio amateur clubs for its members and people outside the association. GetOnline is a LAN Party that is organized in the city of Kajaani, which is located in the very heart of Kainuu, Finland. The event is aimed for teenagers interested in computers and gaming. GetOnline LAN Party is built around enjoying gaming and spending quality time with other people with similar interests in computers, gaming and technology.
More information (in Finnish):
http://www.getonline-lan.net/
http://www.garde.fi/
Projektit
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Pelitutka.fi Finnish gaming community
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Katso projektiI was part of the Finnish gaming community Pelitutka.fi development and management team from 2009 to 2015. My main tasks were service and community management, website and portal development, web design and game administration.
Pelitutka.fi is a non-profit gaming community held by Garde-Party ry and the community itself. Garde-Party ry is a computer games and radio amateur club located in Kajaani, Finland. It organizes annually several small events such as LAN parties and radio amateur…I was part of the Finnish gaming community Pelitutka.fi development and management team from 2009 to 2015. My main tasks were service and community management, website and portal development, web design and game administration.
Pelitutka.fi is a non-profit gaming community held by Garde-Party ry and the community itself. Garde-Party ry is a computer games and radio amateur club located in Kajaani, Finland. It organizes annually several small events such as LAN parties and radio amateur clubs for its members and people outside the association. -
M.Sc. Thesis: Customer flow responding digital signage system
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Katso projektiMarketing and advertising have been digitalized rapidly by the development of Internet-based services and web stores. With Internet search and tracking services, advertisements and messages are targeted to potential customers. Targeting is based on customers’ search results and online behavior.
Traditional shops have tried to track customers’ shopping behavior by tracking customer flows, but this has always taken place afterwards. Analysis of the shopping behavior is possible only when…Marketing and advertising have been digitalized rapidly by the development of Internet-based services and web stores. With Internet search and tracking services, advertisements and messages are targeted to potential customers. Targeting is based on customers’ search results and online behavior.
Traditional shops have tried to track customers’ shopping behavior by tracking customer flows, but this has always taken place afterwards. Analysis of the shopping behavior is possible only when customers pay at checkout. Traditional shops have lacked the ways to identify customers same way as web-based services do, as well as to follow them in store’s premises.
In the context of this Master’s thesis, applied media screen technology balances out the competitive level of data collection compared to web stores. It has been developed and demonstrated for traditional shops. The principle is to track the movement of a customer in a shop and identify the customer’s gender, age and other possible features. Based on the identification of customer’s movements and characteristics the purpose is to target the content of media screens to the customer and find ways to improve shop’s business capacity.
The goal has been to find out the objects of interests of customers and customer groups, which is symmetrical with web-based services. A key finding is that the customers’ attention can be attracted with relevant content. This enables the characterization of the customers and the targeting of advertising. This can be used to justify the planning of media screen contents and functionalities.
My Master's thesis was made for Videra Ltd. I successfully developed a new effective solution for audience measurement and targeted advertising. The solution will be part of Digital Signage and Smart Retail/Banking services. -
B.Sc. Thesis: Machine vision applications in digital signage
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My Bachelor’s thesis introduces new innovative ways to use machine vision and face detection in Digital Signage systems. The thesis was made for Videra Ltd. It created a starting point for my Master’s thesis.
The most newest and promising ideas to create a real-time interactive system, which communicates with customer flow, were analyzed in this study. For these ideas the thesis presents technical solutions and platforms, which can be used to build these systems. Testing and analyzing…My Bachelor’s thesis introduces new innovative ways to use machine vision and face detection in Digital Signage systems. The thesis was made for Videra Ltd. It created a starting point for my Master’s thesis.
The most newest and promising ideas to create a real-time interactive system, which communicates with customer flow, were analyzed in this study. For these ideas the thesis presents technical solutions and platforms, which can be used to build these systems. Testing and analyzing methods were also introduced and discussed for technical solutions and platforms in the thesis.
In the end the thesis presents the most promising opportunities to develop these systems and how to find new trends for development. Also legislation, privacy, data protection and future perspectives were discussed in the end of the thesis. -
International project course: a real life business case project
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International business course (University of Oulu). We did a real life business case project for Viherio Technologies Ltd. Our task was to analyze Viherio's current international entry mode and develop an alternative entry mode using theories, frameworks and tools. We worked in a group of three students.
Literary used in the course: Grant, R. Contemporary strategy analysis. -
Kainuu Vocational College thesis/final project: embedded system
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Kainuu Vocational College thesis/final project. We designed and developed a simple embedded system. Our task was to create an external digital thermometer with four digital thermal sensors, which would be used for measuring air conditioner's all temperatures. We worked in a group of three students and completed the project as planned, and I acted as the main project lead for the group.
The work consisted of technical operations such as project planning and management, component sourcing,…Kainuu Vocational College thesis/final project. We designed and developed a simple embedded system. Our task was to create an external digital thermometer with four digital thermal sensors, which would be used for measuring air conditioner's all temperatures. We worked in a group of three students and completed the project as planned, and I acted as the main project lead for the group.
The work consisted of technical operations such as project planning and management, component sourcing, circuit design, hardware assembly, logic design, C programming, transferring programmed software into processor, device testing, debugging, problem solving and technical documentation.
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