Game Company Patterns for
Non-game Organizations
PROBLEM
SOLUTION
• How could non-game products become
more attractive and satisfying for
customers like games do?
• Can the key success factors of game
development companies be applied in
non-game companies?
• How can such elements be leveraged to
achieve their specific business goals?
Based on the results of our interviews and
public data sources, we have recognised
some 30 patterns that, depending on the
context, could be used in other organisations
as well. The compiled pattern map (see next
page) can be utilized in practice as follows:
The Research Design figure below depicts
such a holistic frame.
 Bottom-up: Examine the different
patterns and consider whether and how
they could work in Your context.
 Top-down: Distinguish Your current
high-level goals (areas) and traverse the
map according to the main categories.
What are the most
successful business
models?
What is a "game"
anyway:
• entertainment product?
• "vending machine"?
• engagement system?
• advertizing platform?
How to collect gaming
data (even in real time)?
What are the key roles and
most suitable organization
designs?
What are most highperforming development
methods and work
practices?
What are the core
technologies like (including
gaming data analysis)?
PATTERN MAP
RELATION OF PATTERNS
The pattern map above can be
comprehended from the following overall
points of views to begin with:
N4S Company GOALS
PATTERN CATEGORIES
Wants to be high-performing
in terms of ability to deliver
Needs to have an accurate
understanding of customers
Needs to have the ability to
do quick strategic changes
and have fast business
reactiveness
3. Ways of working
1. Product (Tools)
1. Product (Data analysis)
4. Business framework
4. Business framework
1. Product (Platform strategy)
2. Organization
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Invest On User
Experience
KEY
• You want that people will immediately like
your product, continue using it and share
positive experiences to others. You want
your users to be continuously happy with
using your application.
• If user experience is neglected users may
not understand how your application
works or are not happy with the
experience, or there is a risk for that.
• This pattern suits for companies
developing software for direct end-users.
• The larger the expected user base, the
more important investing on user
experience becomes.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Shadowing
KEY
• This pattern is useful when
• you do not know well enough how users
feel about your product and you want to
make improvements to it.
• However, you do not want to use too much
time or resources.
• There may also be additional incentives,
like you may want to find bugs and other
problems early.
• You may want to estimate the product’s
opportunities for success as well.
• For this pattern you need to have a mature
prototype or a working product. The
product must not contain such product
secrets that would prevent it from being
given for temporary use for outsiders.
SEE ALSO
• INVEST ON USER EXPERIENCE
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Killing Gates
KEY
• There is a need for ideation, but only the
best ideas will be realized as a final
product.
• You need a systematic process where
selected ideas will be implemented to a
working product.
• The ideation process can be unorganized,
but then there is a risk that good ideas will
be killed and for bad ideas will be used too
much resources.
• This pattern is suitable for a software
development company where new
products are being constantly developed.
SEE ALSO
• SOFT LAUNCH
• LOW-COST DATA ANALYSIS
• BIG DATA ANALYSIS
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Invest On High Quality
KEY
• You are planning your product and
customer strategy.
• By quality we mean that the product must
• be free from the most obvious
errors that would affect user
experience
• have high level of user experience
compared to similar products on
the market
• be easily maintainable and
preferably also upgradable
• You want the users of your product to
think it is good compared to what the
market has to offer.
• Especially in a gaming context the
product must also be fun.
• You want your users to make good
reviews, recommend your products also to
others and try your other products.
SEE ALSO
• INVEST ON USER EXPERIENCE
• LOW-COST DATA ANALYSIS
• BIG DATA ANALYSIS
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Selected Platforms
KEY
• You are selecting the product strategy for
product development, meaning selecting
platforms you will support. You want to
concentrate your resources for making
high quality products.
• You have to choose if you make
applications to several different platforms
or concentrate on one or couple of
platforms.
• The decision can be based on your existing
product strategy or you may be changing
or creating your product strategy.
• In addition, you may want to consider the
technology development and user
preference trends to make strategic
choices of the supported software and
hardware platforms.
SEE ALSO
• MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
• INVEST ON USER EXPERIENCE
• INVEST ON HIGH QUALITY
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Multiple Platforms
KEY
• You want to achieve customers on several
different platforms.
• You have enough resources to develop and
support applications on several platforms.
• Likewise in the SELECTED PLATFORMS
pattern,
• you have to choose if you make
applications for several different platforms
or concentrate on one or restricted
platforms.
• This allows to achieve high coverage and
being one of the first ones on the market.
• Moreover, this allows you to build
products that a user can access from
several different types of devices.
SEE ALSO
• SELECTED PLATFORMS
• INVEST ON HIGH QUALITY
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Low-Cost Data Analysis
KEY
• You need to make your product to collect
data of its usage.
• You want to track your product usage and
make decisions based on it.
• You want to analyse your application
usage, but you do not want to invest much
resources on this.
SEE ALSO
• BIG DATA ANALYSIS
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Big Data Analysis
KEY
• Your application is getting more and more
popular and you want to deeply
understand your customer behaviour.
• LOW-COST DATA ANALYSIS does not
bring enough information and
• you want to make most out of the data.
SEE ALSO
• LOW-COST DATA ANALYSIS
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: A/B Testing
KEY
• You have a product or beta version that
has large target customer segment and you
have a mechanism to select restricted
target areas.
• There is a choice that has fundamental
difference to the usage of the product and
its customer behaviour.
• Before placing the product to the final
market you want to know which of the
alternatives is the best one.
SEE ALSO
• SOFT LAUNCH
• LOW-COST DATA ANALYSIS
• BIG DATA ANALYSIS
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Soft Launch
KEY
• You have a product that has large target
customer segment and you have a
mechanism to select restricted target area.
• You wish to know how well your product
will perform in the market, but you are not
ready to launch it to the whole target
customer segment.
• You may also wish to find out early bugs
and make improvements to the product
before final launch.
• You may even decide to terminate the
development if the feedback suggests low
business potential.
SEE ALSO
• LOW-COST DATA ANALYSIS
• BIG DATA ANALYSIS
• A/B TESTING
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Building Organisation
From Interests
KEY
• You or someone has some hobby or
interest that has potential for making
living or business out of it.
• You want to do living based on your
interests or a company wants to start trials
or internal start-ups based on employees’
interests.
• An internal start-up may be an experiment
for non-game companies for learning
purposes although the actual business
would not incorporate game development
at all.
• This pattern suits for start-ups or
companies aiming for internal start-ups.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Recruit By Teaching
KEY
• You need employees that have certain
special skills that require time and effort
to learn.
• Learning the skills takes time, skills and
motivation.
• It is hard to find talented employees and it
takes time to learn the required skills
when someone is recruited. Finding such
people from the work market is hard or
not possible.
• An example of such skill could be a
programmer that can make fluent and
creative animations.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Verify Employer Skills
During Recruit
KEY
• You need employees with special skills.
Examples of such skills could be special
coding skills, graphics design, network
security, cryptography etc.
• You want to ensure that the employees
have correct skills during employment.
• You could perform interviews just in a
traditional way without testing skills.
However, then chances for a wrong recruit
will increase.
• Once you have employed a new person
and if it appears that he or she is not
correct for the position, this will mean
costs to the company and may affect
negatively to work atmosphere.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Multicultural
Employees
KEY
• You will be recruiting people to your
organisation and
• you have products or services that need to
reach different cultures around the world.
• You need to understand behaviour in
different cultures, their circumstances and
market potential. You need to tailor your
services and understand your customers.
• You need to have interaction with different
cultures, possibly all around the world.
• This is especially important in small
countries like Finland where even start-up
game companies aim to attract global
markets from the beginning (“born
global”).
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Failure Culture
KEY
• You have a creative company or
organisation that has resources for taking
risks.
• You are making innovations and trials.
You want to promote creativity and taking
risks.
• You are not taking enough risks or your
employees do not feel comfortable with
failures.
• This could also mean that some employees
must face their own ideas to be
discontinued but for valid reasons.
SEE ALSO
• KILLING GATES
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Avoid Bureaucracy
KEY
• Employees cannot concentrate fully on
their work and this will hinder
productivity or you wish to avoid this
situation. Employees must do extra tasks
that are not directly involved with their
core task.
• You want that your employees can
concentrate on their work and avoid
routines that are not necessary for their
core task.
• You want to improve productivity and
creativity as well as the working
environment.
• This pattern can be considered almost in
any organisation, although it is easier to
apply in starting companies, small
companies or as an experiment in a big
company.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Optimum Team Size
KEY
• You want to work efficiently and increase
creativity and/or productivity with correct
size of teams.
• You want to increase work efficiency.
SEE ALSO
• AVOID BUREACRACY
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Hackathon
KEY
• This pattern fits to an organisation that
needs ideas, concepts or prototypes.
• You need plenty of fresh ideas and/or
prototypes in a short time frame.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Branding Inside
Organisation
KEY
• This approach suits for various type of
creative organisations.
• You want to motivate employees with
simple measures.
SEE ALSO
• BRANDING
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Revenue Agreement
KEY
• You have an existing product or product
portfolio with large customer base.
• You wish to generate additional revenue
by utilising your current customer base.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Freemium
KEY
• This pattern is suitable for companies who
develop applications to platforms that
offer large customer potential, like iOS
and Android.
• You want to take the most out of the
market.
• You have a product that you want to offer
free, but you want to get income from
other ways, like internal purchases of the
product.
SEE ALSO
• INVEST ON USER EXPERIENCE
• INVEST ON HIGH QUALITY
• ONE-TIME PAYMENT
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: One-Time Payment
KEY
• You have or will have an application that
will be appealing for one-time purchase.
• You do not have infrastructure for the
freemium model or you are not ready or
willing to try it.
• This fits also to your business model.
• You may not have service oriented
products or need for them.
SEE ALSO
• FREEMIUM
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Branding
KEY
• You want to promote your organisation or
product.
• You may also want revenue from licensed
products.
• You need users that will recognise and
value your product or organisation.
SEE ALSO
• BRANDING INSIDE ORGANISATION
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Advertisements Inside
Product
KEY
• You have an application that has large
enough user base.
• You want income by utilising your
customer base.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Trials With Steady
Financial Background
KEY
• You have steady financial background and
you want to extend your potential. You
have either investors or you have steady
income from other sources.
• You have achieved one goal of the
organisation - steady financial
background, but you do not want to stop
there.
• It may also be that investors or owners of
the company expect something to happen
that may increase income over time.
SEE ALSO
• FAILURE CULTURE
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Fan/User Engagement
KEY
• You have large customer base around a
product or service.
• Some customers are committed for
creating their own content.
• You want to increase your customer
commitment and increase your product
value.
• You want also feedback from your
customers.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Fan/Customer Forums
KEY
• You have large enough customer base.
• You need feedback from your customers,
but also ideas and problem solving.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)
PATTERN: Fan/User Events
KEY
• You have large enough customer base and
a product that will have committed
customers.
• You need feedback from your key
customers, but most importantly you need
to build positive brand and take care of
your customers.
REFERENCES
• Helenius, M., Kettunen, P., Frank, L., Learnings from
the Finnish Game Industry. In: Proc. VikingPLoP
(2016)