In this episode of ByteAction, I sit down with Miikka Luotio, VP Europe at Appcharge and a games industry operator with more than 20 years across development, production, publishing, partnerships and D2C commerce.

We talk about the early days of mobile games, why Finland produced such a strong generation of studios, and what has changed now that the market is more crowded, more expensive and harder to break into. Miikka shares a frank view on publishing deals, why studios need proof rather than a polished pitch deck, and why chasing the latest trend rarely beats building something players genuinely want.

We also get into D2C, what Appcharge is building for game publishers, and why a direct-to-player strategy is about much more than putting up a web shop.

Finally we touch on discoverability, direct-to-consumer gaming, payments, AI and where he thinks the games industry is heading next.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:32 Growing up in Finland and discovering games

03:41 Quake modding, game school and the early Finnish games scene

07:54 First games role at Frozenbyte

09:46 Learning to make mobile games at Digital Chocolate

16:10 Career moves and the boom years of mobile free-to-play

22:23 Discoverability, attention and the appeal of simple games

28:55 From production to publishing

34:00 What a healthier publisher-developer relationship looks like

40:08 Funding game studios: data, product and avoiding hype cycles

44:50 Why Turkey has become a games hotspot

48:45 The industry reset: consolidation, cost and discoverability

55:54 Appcharge and the case for D2C

01:04:50 Why D2C is about more than a web shop

01:10:39 The future of distribution, discovery and game business models

01:21:17 Persistence and relationships: career advice from Miikka

01:26:00 Close