Lessons from scaling AppQuantum: Learning from mistakes, maintaining focus, and team motivation

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This article was written by AppQuantum founder Evgeny Maurus.

We've been on a fast track, growing rapidly as both a publisher and developer. But, to be honest, we’re not moving as fast as we could. We’ve got the ideas, the confirmed hypotheses, the cash, and even the market space, so why aren’t we smashing through all our goals simultaneously?

Well, because in the midst of all this business hustle, there are people, and people are complicated. And that's where I think the main growth point lies - not just for big companies, but for startups too.

If there’s one thing we've learned over the years at AppQuantum, it’s that growth often comes through a mix of pain, mistakes, and good old-fashioned trial and error. I know that might sound cliché, but trust me, behind those words lie the growth opportunities that can help studios stuck on a plateau finally break through and hit profitability.

Some of what I’m about to share might seem obvious, but after two decades of chatting with developers, I see the same hurdles tripping them up time and again. I hope this article will help you take a step back, see the bigger picture, and finally make the moves that’ll take you where you want to go.

Let’s kick things off with some background and dive into the real-life cases that have shaped our journey.

First steps in publishing and initial failures

Back in the early 2000s, I was knee-deep in the game journalism scene, rubbing shoulders with publishers and developers, doing interviews, writing reviews, and getting a front-row seat to the game-making process. The gaming industry got its hooks into me, and I just couldn’t shake it off.

In 2013, I made the jump to influencer marketing, and by 2015, I teamed up with two partners to launch an agency. It wasn’t just a career move but more of a “follow your heart” kind of thing.

I was tired of being an outsider in game development. But it didn’t take long to realise that the agency business wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows; in fact, it quickly became clear that it was more of a transition point before moving into publishing and in-house development.

Many clients just didn’t want to hear our advice on how to improve their projects. They’d thank us for helping them in tough spots, then just walk away. We wanted long-term partnerships to really help develop products together.

That’s when publishing started to look like the answer to our frustrations, and by late 2017, I was fully hooked on the idea. We built a team dedicated to finding studios to partner with for publishing, and after a year, we had nothing to show for it. Just a couple of half-baked projects that even the developers didn’t care about - best left forgotten.

We had to rebuild the team from the ground up. Letting go of someone who clearly wasn’t invested enough was better than wasting another year. Sure, it was tough, but sometimes it’s the best way forward. 

When you haven’t made any progress, starting over isn’t as scary as it seems.

First success

I realised it was time to pivot fully into publishing, and around the same time, I met the folks at Red Machine.

The conversation was pretty funny:

• “Can we help you with anything? Need any support?”
• “Nah, we’re good. Making games, turning a profit.”
• “Cool, we’re doing well too. The agency’s in the black.”

And then, as conversations tend to do, it drifted. We ended up chatting about life. Turns out, the guys had this game called Hell Clicker, which another agency was handling marketing for. They didn’t want to shake things up - ”Why risk it?” they thought, “What if things get worse?” But we found a workaround. They made a clone of their game for Android, slapped a new name on it - Evil Clicker - and handed it over to us.

That was our first real crack at publishing a project that was actually making some money.

Three months later, the Android version alone was pulling in more revenue than the original game on both platforms combined. That’s when we took over the iOS version and became the game’s full-fledged publisher, started making product changes, added monetisation features, and really honed in on marketing.

Nine months of hard work later, and this project that had been bringing in about $50,000 a month was now raking in $3.5 million in revenue.

We did a tonne of work with marketing, especially Facebook, finding strategies that clicked with the audience, leading to a massive number of impressions. Sure, Facebook changed its rules later, and a lot of those strategies stopped working, but the success of Evil Clicker - growing more than 100 times in profit - put us on the map as more than just an agency.

Other projects started coming our way, and the company grew quickly. However, we needed to find new ways to develop our marketing and business strategies.

At first, we took on any project that came our way - whether it was 2D racing games or farms, we didn’t care. We didn’t have a strategy yet; that came later as we gained more experience and a clearer sense of direction.

But in the early days, we spent a lot of money without seeing much in return (which is why it pains me to see talented studios without a hit). We tried every trick we could find in the market and cranked out prototypes in different genres, but we spread ourselves too thin.

Quick success can fizzle out just as fast - especially if you don’t know where to focus.

The main reason why many studios fail

If you want to make serious money, it’s not just about chasing the cash (yeah, I know, it sounds contradictory). It’s mainly about focus. When you’ve got people in the studio who live and breathe the product, there’s a huge risk if they start doing something that doesn’t resonate with them.

If they force themselves into marketing or something else that goes against their nature, they’ll end up so scattered that instead of creating a top-notch product, they’ll churn out mediocre marketing and a mediocre game.

In my opinion, this is the biggest reason why so many studios fail. They try to succeed at everything, and because of that, they end up succeeding at nothing.

I’ve talked to a lot of studios - some have been struggling for a decade or more - and I see the same harmful pattern. About 70% to 80% of their passion is poured into the product. They love what they do and dream of what the game will become. But only 20% to 30% of their attention goes to marketing, and even that’s an afterthought.

There are still developers out there (no joke) who believe that if they just create a cool game, the marketing will somehow take care of itself, and they’ll become millionaires. They think that having a great product alone will get them into ad auctions with rock-bottom CPIs.

This is a very important obstacle for developer growth I’ve been witnessing for many years. Back in 2013, when I was globetrotting for marketing and influencer work, developers from all over would tell me: “I’ll make an awesome game, organic traffic will come in from the stores, and I’ll hit it big.”

Sure, the odds were a lot better back then - hundreds, if not thousands of times better than now. But here we are in 2024, and a lot of developers are still stuck in that mindset. Not everyone, of course, but there are still too many who think this way.

In the beginning, there really wasn’t much competition. There were only a few hundred games in the entire store, and they were featured and promoted everywhere, practically for free.

But once the market took shape, developers flooded in, organic traffic dried up, and player expectations skyrocketed. For a long time now, organic growth has been directly tied to the amount and quality of paid traffic.

This might sound obvious - basically common knowledge at this point - but it’s true. Publishers know it, and yet, many studios are still hoping for a word-of-mouth miracle. They live in this illusion that all they need is some gameplay footage on their page, and users will start flocking to their game.

That’s why we see so many projects that hit a certain number and then plummet. They just can’t keep up - whether it’s marketing, content, new features, polish, ASO, live ops - the list goes on and on. And it’s a long list.

Making a game and launching it is only 10% of the work if you want to succeed in this business. To make a project thrive and bring in serious, long-term profits, you need to be constantly operating on a million fronts - ASO, community building, marketing experiments, global features - you name it.

Those success stories where a game becomes a hit thanks to word of mouth? That’s not a strategy for success - it’s a lottery. If you want guaranteed success, you need to be in it for the long haul, with focus and hard work. And yeah, admitting that takes some guts.

How to connect focus and business diversification

When it comes to the publishing business, there are even more nuances.

If you want to grow your capital, you’ve got to diversify your portfolio - not just with publishing, but by investing in studios, exploring different genres, building internal expertise, all while keeping your focus sharp. I know it sounds contradictory - doing everything without losing focus. But let me break it down.

For us, it’s all about taking things step by step, not all at once. For example, we’ve got tons of expertise in idle games, which cater to a predominantly male audience that we know inside and out. But something like merge-2 games with their female audience? That’s not really our main thing, at least not yet.

Jumping headfirst into a new genre where we lack expertise isn’t smart. We want success, not just another game for the sake of having another game.

So, we decided to stick to related genres where we could apply the expertise we already have. Games that everyone here plays, loves, and understands.

There are things we’re really good at, things we know like the back of our hands because we’ve done them so many times. It would be a huge mistake to just pivot away from that.

That’s why we’re taking an evolutionary approach, gradually branching out into new genres. We’ve got an idle merger with Gold & Goblins, an idle tycoon with Lumber Empire, an idle RPG with Idle Outpost, and so on. We’re exploring other genres, but only if we know we can leverage our expertise. That’s how you diversify while staying focused.

If we know how to grow a project and how to transfer all our knowledge to make something new, then we’ll go for it. The result? Organic growth, without spreading ourselves too thin.

Admitting your strengths and weaknesses - first to yourself - isn’t just some abstract piece of advice. It’s one of the keys to growth. If your studio’s strength is in puzzles, maybe you should keep iterating in that direction instead of hopping on the latest genre bandwagon that you know nothing about.

Growing pains and the limiting factor

So, you’ve got the money, you’ve got the business know-how, everything’s running smoothly, but you need to scale up.

Here’s where you hit the biggest limiting factor - people. You see this written about in business books all the time.

There really aren’t enough studios out there that are fully committed to this business. For a publisher, that means one studio can’t handle an infinite number of projects at once. And it’s hard to find studios to which you can hand over a promising, high-level project.

One of the most common mistakes in game development is when a studio spends years “finishing” the same project, and it’s still not a success. They try adding global features (which take ages to develop), reworking the balance and progression from scratch, changing the setting - but the metrics still aren’t good enough to scale and start spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on acquisition.

Studios often go under because of these kinds of projects. Companies go bankrupt when they take an “almost there” approach, thinking, “We’re so close, just a little more. Yeah, I know it’s been three years, but we’re about to hit it big”. Your project might be on its last legs, but you’re still holding on, afraid to let go. It’s scary, but sometimes you just have to face reality.

A great example is Rockbite studio. They were on a similar path for part of their history, but the founders had the guts to accept reality and move on. They released games on their own, then did a reskin with us - nothing worked out.

The amount of investment and effort they put in had already exceeded what was agreed on several times over, but the guys themselves said, “Maybe this just isn’t our project. We need to close it down”. And do you know what happened next? They built Idle Outpost from scratch - a project that’s now the most profitable in its niche.

That’s the kind of courage almost everyone lacks - both studios and publishers.

At one point, we had about 20 projects, and only one was successful. But we kept dragging the others along, doing marketing, making creatives, and so on.

It seemed like they were earning something, but then you crunch the numbers, and it turns out the project is bringing in $3k a month but costing $10k to operate.

And it’s not just about the money. Why give false hope and “undermine” the studios working on these projects? They’re spending their time holding on to hope, but the chances are slim. During that time, we could’ve made something really cool and successful together.

So, a couple of times, we were the ones who initiated closing a bunch of projects at once.

Our main expertise is in marketing. We’re not miracle workers who can make a project successful for a studio. We focused on marketing from the start. Yes, we’ve got a tonne of product expertise, and we’re developing internal projects, but we’re still not magicians. Let’s be honest with each other.

Did you make an unsuccessful project? Congrats - you’ve just learned what not to do. Let’s take a deep breath, move on, and not repeat the same mistakes.

How to get to live ops

Live ops is a whole new level for a game developer. And here, no matter how you look at it, everything revolves around a few key points: focus, hard work, and mindset.

The first two are pretty straightforward. But what do I mean by mindset?

Have you ever noticed how different the people who launch products are from those who operate them? In the first case, you’ve got entrepreneur-types, startup folks ready to dive into anything new.

In the case of live ops, you need to build up cosmic levels of expertise. How do you get people to play your game for six, 12, 24 months? If you’ve never experienced it - at least as a player - you won’t know how to pull it off.

Most studios have a startup mindset. That’s not a bad thing; it’s just a fact. But to multiply your earnings, you need the expertise of the second type.

Here’s how it plays out: they launch a product, the most targeted audience comes in, and then, eventually, the metrics start to drop. Instead of diversifying the gameplay, the developers say, “Well, that’s it, let’s make another project”.

I’ve seen a lot of studios that, in 10 years, never reached live ops. They make games, earn something from them, but they’ve never hit proper live ops. And that’s where the big money is.

You’ve got to start learning from others’ mistakes. It’s the fastest and cheapest experience. But more often than not, people have to learn the hard way before they get it. That’s why studios try to do live ops on their own, blindly. But like I said, it requires cosmic expertise and a ton of resources.

Where should you start to at least minimise the chances of failure? First, find your genre. A niche you love, where your heart is. A game you enjoy and want to play for years.

Second, study that game inside and out. But not just as a mindless player going through the motions. You need to keep asking yourself questions like, “Why am I doing this?”, “Why did I come back to this game?”, “Why am I thinking about buying this item?”, “What did I feel when I got new armour?” - and so on. There are hundreds of such questions.

It’s like talking to a therapist, but it’s your inner voice you’re chatting with. Frequent, long conversations, trying to get to the root of your motivations.

Third, study the community. The same as the second point, but now look at others - what they’re paying attention to, what they’re discussing, what they like, what they don’t like, and so on.

If you’re making a game just for yourself and not for the players, then maybe this text isn’t for you. The fourth step is to understand the problems with the project through your own experience and community feedback. Because relying solely on player feedback can also be counterproductive. They might have the best intentions, but they can’t always foresee the consequences of a particular feature.

Then, apply these four steps to your own game, and you’ll start to see the problems and growth points come together in a clear roadmap with a specific action plan.

There’ll be plenty of obstacles along the way, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

A couple more keys to success

In our business, we’ve made almost every mistake possible. And that’s great. It’d be worse if we made the same mistake over and over.

One of the keys to our success is the sheer number of mistakes we’ve made and the huge amount of money we’ve “wasted” (actually spent on gaining experience). We haven’t learned everything, but we’ve gotten good at turning mistakes into lessons.

If you make a mistake but don’t draw any conclusions, you haven’t gained any experience.

There’s no silver bullet that guarantees 100% success. Sometimes, a product just doesn’t hit the market at the right time, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

That’s not the main problem, though. The real issue is motivation. This is the second key.

In many companies and studios, there are people who act as the driving force. Once the company hits some success, these people often take a back seat. It’s common that after that success, they won’t see another.

Find any founder and ask them what their motivation is. If they say their goal is to earn (insert your favorite number here) million dollars, gain financial independence, and find some inner peace, then you can roughly estimate how long that company will ride the wave of success. The same goes for studios.

As long as there are people in the team who relentlessly push toward the goal, who want to break the industry, who work their butts off - then the team will keep growing. It doesn’t mean everyone in the company has to be like that, but you need someone with the talent to push forward and not even see the horizon as a limit.