Inside a Mobile Design Consultancy with Adrian Crook

Adrian Crook is an award-winning game design consultant with over 20 years’ experience in the social, casual, and core games sectors. He has produced and designed over two dozen products across platforms ranging from early Nintendo and Sega Genesis to PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, PC, Xbox 360, Wii, Facebook, iOS, and Online. In 2006, Adrian was named Producer of the Year by the Canadian New Media Awards and his products have won numerous awards, including “Game of the Year.”

In January 2008, Adrian founded Adrian Crook & Associates, a game design and strategy consultancy that has contributed to the success of over 90 valued international clients. Adrian’s experienced team is focused on social and mobile game design, gamification, business development, and startup growth strategy.

Adrian is an advisor to several game industry firms and is currently a creative mentor at Execution Labs, a game incubator, and accelerator. He has given interviews on G4TV and other TV, print, and online news outlets, and has spoken as a social games expert at conferences such as GDC, SXSW, ICE, Casual Connect, INplay, and GameON: Finance.

 

Connect with Adrian

http://adriancrook.com/

Selected Links for the Episode

Relic Entertainment
Zynga
iWin
Leigh Alexander
Klipfolio
Slack
http://teardownclub.com/

Featured Show Highlights

  • When starting out on your own, best piece of advice I can give is “have a good line of credit”.

  • The most rewarding aspect of going into business for myself allows me to spend more time with my family.

  • My suggestions of great B to B tools which helped structure my business for success.

  • It's satisfying knowing in the past 8 years we have worked with over 100+ studios

  • Many mistakes I see companies make is not planning for a long soft launch period to get the product right and lack of creating a comprehensive road map, understanding the customer, getting acquisitions, the list goes on.

  • Product development is crucial in designing and launching games

  • Highlights plenty of third party tools available to help you with design and planning process

  • Our goal in this business is to stay ahead of where the industry is going. We have an amazing group of talented people working for us.

  • qualities to look for and possess when building your team are solid game design ability and "the know how" to design and run a business