Interview with Miniclip President and Founder Rob Small
As Founder of Miniclip, Rob Small has built one of the largest and most successful mobile games businesses in the world.
When you founded Miniclip back in 2001, what was the original vision?
I’m dyslexic and I found school and university to be hard. Founding my own business felt like a natural choice. I co-founded Miniclip after leaving university and we wanted to build a product that people our age wanted to engage with. Democratizing gaming was the theme – just like music at that time, distributing games for free over the internet was the idea. At the time the only way you could play games was by buying a physical disc from a retailer. I was thrilled by the idea of disrupting that. Now, over 20 years later – it’s amazing to see how popular online and mobile gaming has become.
A lot of successful mobile games companies today had their roots in online gaming in the early 2000s. When did Miniclip start releasing games on iOS and Android?
Miniclip.com grew steadily in its first 10 years with zero marketing spend and no external funding. In 2008, Steve Jobs announced the release of the iPhone 3G. Miniclip had been considering mobile devices for a long time, but we couldn’t imagine what we could offer to the old-school mobile devices. The iPhone 3G seemed to have much more potential, and we thought we had a lot of time to think about what we could do for mobile devices.
However, we soon started to see a decline in traffic and revenues on Miniclip.com immediately after the iPhone was launched, so we really had no option but to shift and bet on mobile.
In hindsight, that was the right choice, but at the time, we were so uncertain about how big the mobile gaming market would be. We did have unique skills and assets – we had a few good brands, and we created high-quality casual games, which helped with brand recognition on mobile platforms. Additionally, we had 1,000 web games that we could use as a catalogue to identify which games suited mobile platforms. The first couple of games we released were ports of web games adapted to fit mobile screens. We had some advantages over new entrants.
Miniclip has a diverse portfolio of games, but are there any common themes that are shared across them?
It goes back to the founding ideas when Miniclip was established in 2001. We believe accessibility is crucial. We noticed that game developers often tend to make games more complex to show off their skills, which makes them more difficult to play. We view our products through the eyes of consumers. If you look at our game portfolio, you’ll see that many of them are sports games – they’re easy to understand, and the rules are universally clear.
We also think organic growth is critical. We grew for 15 years without spending a single dollar on marketing – all through word of mouth because of our amazing games. Although we now invest heavily in user acquisition, we spend a lot of time ensuring our games have natural virality. I think this is proven by our 60 million daily active users.
The mobile game market has matured and although the market is growing the growth rate has slowed. How do you see the market evolving from here?
It is true that the market has entered a maturity phase. It has become more competitive and tougher for smaller studios to succeed. Additionally, there are challenges around regulations and GDPR, which are again very difficult for smaller studios to deal with. Many studios have good KPIs but struggle with low growth.
You need scale, cash flow and big analytics and marketing teams to grow. That’s why we see a lot of consolidation happening in the market. Miniclip is one of the biggest consolidators in Europe. I’m sure there will still be successful start-ups, but it’s nothing like the early days of mobile gaming. As a big company, we’re in a strong position to acquire other companies, use our expertise to help grow and expand their games and keep Miniclip growing.
Has the increased cost of user acquisition created an extra incentive to invest in acquisitions and expand your player base that way?
Growing your player base is definitely one important reason behind acquiring another games company. But I also believe that user growth should be driven by the product. We acquire products and companies because we believe in their longevity. 67% of IAP [in app purchase] revenues on the app store comes from games that are five years or older, which says a lot about how difficult it is to launch new titles in the current market.
Acquiring evergreen games ensures longevity, which helps us to scale our audience. This approach works well and creates synergy with our existing portfolio. Recently, we acquired Easybrain, one of the top puzzle game companies, for this reason.
Do you think the gap between “free-to-play” online or mobile games and PC or console games is much narrower today compared to ten years ago? Do you see opportunities for Miniclip to move into PC or console gaming?
If you look at the M&A we’ve done over the last couple of years, we’ve acquired a few PC game studios, most recently FuturLab in Brighton. There are techniques and strategies to make games cross-platform. Ultimately, players want to play their favourite games at home or on the move.
We’re seeing a lot of AAA games on mobile platforms – Call of Duty and PUBG are examples of phenomenal cross-platform success. I see platforms merging, and I think there are opportunities for Miniclip to leverage its scale with a cross-platform game portfolio.
In 2015, Tencent acquired a majority stake in Miniclip. What opportunities did this create for the business?
Tencent is the world’s largest games company, with some of the best, biggest, and most unique studios across the globe. Being able to talk to them and learn from them has been hugely insightful for us.
Another key lesson from Tencent was using M&A to accelerate growth. Before Tencent, we had done a few IP acquisitions, but we hadn’t made large studio acquisitions. Tencent helped us use M&A to deliver our vision of making games accessible. As developers at heart, we understand what it takes to make games. When we talk to founders, we use their language, and by this, we can help them succeed.
As an entrepreneur, how would you describe your journey?
I remember Elon Musk once said that being an entrepreneur is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss of death! It is challenging – just staying alive is extremely difficult at times. Fortunately, I had no Plan B. Having struggled at school and university, my only path was to found a business and make it work. Determination was probably the most important skill I had and a key reason as to why Miniclip succeeded. I wanted to prove myself and show all the people who had written me off that I could really achieve something.
What sort of culture have you shaped at Miniclip?
I want the team to feel connected to the games they create. I still remember when we were just three or four people in an apartment, feeling very connected to the games we were making. As we’ve grown to more than 1,600 people, maintaining that sense of purpose has been one of the challenges.
Saad (CEO) and his leadership team work hard to ensure that connection is still felt today. Miniclip has been around for two decades now, so there’s a strong sense of social cohesion within the business. It’s also very important to me to keep the company a fun place to work while providing entertainment to tens of millions of people. As long as we keep audiences entertained, our user base will continue growing for decades to come.
You’re a Patron of Make-A-Wish UK, a charity that helps fulfil the wishes of seriously ill children, and you assist with fundraising activities. Can you tell me about how the games industry and Make-A-Wish help children who are going through difficult times?
I’m incredibly passionate about what Make-A-Wish does. During the pandemic, the games industry grew 30%, but charities like Make-A-Wish struggled a lot. I felt personally, and as a company, that we should help.
I’ve worked to raise money and build meaningful relationships with other game studios. There’s also a growing number of wishes from kids who want to meet their favourite influencers or learn how games are created. Building strong relationships with game studios and fulfilling these wishes is really important.
Research shows that the escapism and happiness that playing games can create not only helps ill children to feel better, but it can also help medical outcomes too.
About Neon River
Neon River is a headhunting firm, founded by Peter Franks, that helps games and broader technology companies to hire the best leaders from around the world. If we can help you in the future, don’t hesitate to reach out hello@neonriver.com
Peter Franks is the founder of Neon River and an expert in advising games companies how to find and attract leaders across all key functions. With twenty years’ experience in executive search he has deep experience of helping games companies to craft world-class headhunting processes.
See Also
- Our list of the Top 30 Leaders in Mobile Games
- Our mobile games industry guide