Interview: Paul Thind, CBO, Outspark
MMO publisher Outspark (Fiesta, Secret of the Solstice) announced the appointment Habbo veteran Paul Thind as the company’s chief business officer recently, and as he is notable as an instrumental member of Sulake's North American Habbo team (serving as general manager across a period where the virtual world grew to 20 million users) we thought we'd talk with him about his past and future with Outspark.
You were in command of one of the biggest names in virtual worlds today - somewhere people would consider to be at the top of its game, so why join Outspark?
Paul Thind: Outspark has been able to accomplish so much in a short time as a company and I recognize the opportunity for exponential growth. Outspark already has a loyal user base of more than 3 million and I’m excited about working with the team to help grow this base and push Outspark forward as a leader in the gaming and interactive entertainment space. On a professional level, the fact that Outspark is strong in the online game industry allows me to complement my experience as I previously was involved in community based online businesses focused around music, social networking and virtual worlds.
Outspark offers a very different service from Habbo. What are the challenges you think you're going to face?
PT: Outspark is perfectly positioned in the gaming space to become the first vertically integrated casual games platform. We are not only a publisher of games, but we also offer our audience, which happens to be predominantly North American, a playground for socializing, interacting and sharing. In addition, Outspark has the experience and resources to internally monitor and analyze our audience so that we can better serve the Outspark community. The only challenge I see will be to continue to scale the business and manage our internal growth strategy. Fortunately there’s a lot here to build on with a great team, a dynamic business model and a solid revenue stream.
What do you think that you've learned from your time at Habbo that is going to help you?
PT: Three and a half years of implementing and executing on a number of best practices to monetize a casual community was a great experience. However, there is nothing much in Habbo to keep a user engaged beyond hanging out with friends and buying virtual furniture. That was quite a challenge. While status and gifting are some of the reasons people buy things in many virtual worlds, there should be more for a user to actually do in these ‘virtual hangouts’.
I see Outspark as more of a complete user experience and a stronger value proposition, allowing one to not only make new friends but to play different games with those friends online. This kind of experience adds another dimension in user interaction. It also allows a user to experience some pretty amazing games for free, and enhance their own game experience by paying small amounts, if they choose to, along the way.
Can you talk about your time with Habbo?
PT: I started at Habbo in July 2005 when I moved to L.A. to head up the US office as country manager. The business had a small team at the time and only a couple of ways to pay for Habbo Coins (Habbo’s in-world currency).
Being an unknown site dealing squarely with a mass-market teen audience had several challenges. We were not dealing with a core group of gamers, a niche audience, or a group that we had much information on in regards to their habits online. Deploying surveys and studying site behavior certainly helped that as time went on. Monetizing the community was a priority since teens can be a fickle group to keep entertained and the business model was predicated on micro transactions. I led the effort to add prepaid cards and US based payment partners to the payment mix. We were the first virtual world to launch a prepaid card in the North American market as a result. The focus was on convenience and availability since teens don’t always have access to credit cards. Building engaging localized events and celebrity visits increased time on site and user familiarity with Habbo. This led to solid brand awareness. With the help of Ad Agencies, we were able to further monetize the non-paying users by introducing in-world advertising focused around certain events.
Habbo grew to more than 20 million registered characters in the North American region while I was with the company and has enjoyed an increase in the unique user base and revenues along the way. While Habbo continues to grow and remains a great company, I felt it was time to move on to my next challenge.
And as far as challenges go, Korean free-to-play games always seem like such a hard sell to me in North America.
PT: There are plenty of success stories around these games, so I don’t believe the business model or games to be too unusual. When I first joined Habbo, many people did not think that business model could work in the US. That’s why I don’t believe these games to be a hard sell. If anything, there is no sell. Entertainment has no bounds. At Outspark, we want people to come for the games and stay for the community and to meet like-minded people and connect. I’m confident they will.
A lot of people see free-to-play and prepaid cards as the future of gaming now, especially as the economy is struggling. Do you see it that way?
PT: Yes, absolutely. Not only is this business model proven in generating revenue, it has proven itself to be somewhat recession proof. Outspark is in a great place since the majority of our revenue is generated from the sale of in-game items. One good thing about the model is that you don’t pay upfront. You only pay for what you want to enhance your game experience.
What are you planning for Outspark going forward?
PT: I’m interested in connecting with growing the community and the business through media content partnerships, additional payment gateways, in-game sponsorships and ad sales. We have a large community here at Outspark and I’m looking forward to our future!
