The DeanBeat: Will your mobile game strategy take you more global or more local?

Every game developer is about to make the strategic bet of a lifetime. You have to go mobile, as there are now a billion smartphones and tablets being sold a year. You either do it right or you mess it up. But how do you do it? I had the fortune to attend the Global Mobile Internet Conference this week and interview a number of CEOs and former CEOs. Naturally, I got many answers.

The folks doing it right are the teams at Supercell, which was valued at $3 billion in a recent deal with SoftBank, on the strength of its Hay Day and Clash of Clans mobile games. London’s King reportedly filed for a secret initial public offering at a $5 billion valuation, thanks to the success of Candy Crush Saga. And Japan’s GungHo Entertainment has struck gold with its Puzzle & Dragons game, which is generating more than $5 million a day. These are today’s mobile role models, said Robert Xiao, chief executive of online game publisher Perfect World, in an interview with GamesBeat. We’ll be talking a lot about these role models next week at the GamesBeat 2013 event on Oct. 29-30 in Redwood City, Calif., and I don’t think we’re going to come up with just one answer.