DDM’s Jeff Hilbert shows how to take Western mobile games over the Great Wall

Whenever I’m in a crowd and I see Jeff Hilbert, the co-chief executive of game-related talent agency Digital Development Management, he’s always on his phone. If he stops to talk with someone, he’s immediately interrupted by someone else he knows. That’s the life of a busy agent who puts people and deals together in the game business. And lately, his business connections have been taking him overseas to Asia.

Hilbert and his team of video game experts represent game developers, helping them put together game deals with publishers. DDM also takes successful games and finds a home for them in other markets. Plenty of that is happening in mobile gaming, a $30 billion market. Hilbert’s job is to create the relationships among the right people in the industry. That may sound vague, but it’s not an easy to do in China, a country of 1.4 billion people and a bewildering array of games, app stores, and publishers.