"Why do successful companies collapse again?" "Game companies that astonished the world with a single game—what was their secret to overcoming failure and achieving success?"

"Up Down Up" is a book in which the author, who personally experienced the ups and downs of global game companies such as King and Paradox Interactive for 20 years, interviews over 100 game industry leaders and analyzes the clear patterns that emerge from their successes and failures.
This book not only presents specific survival strategies and core principles for each stage of a company's life cycle—from startup and growth to maturity and stagnation—but also offers practical and insightful answers to all leaders seeking to build sustainable companies.

People who talk about 'luck' are actually often talking about 'timing'.
Timing is about making decisions that affect the entire company and being prepared for the moment when you need to be 'ready'.
The ability to manage this tricky balance will be key to the success of any new gaming company.

Nicklas Head, co-founder and first CEO of Rovio, provides a good example.
Before creating 'Angry Birds,' Rovio spent most of its time working on outsourced projects.
Niklas said this wasn't what he wanted to do, but at the time, Rovio felt he had no choice.

“Before the first-generation iPhone, there wasn’t really an ecosystem for developers to release mobile games.
“We wanted to make our own games, but at the same time we realized there was nowhere to publish them.”

Apple launched its first-generation App Store for the iPhone in mid-2008, and Rovio released Angry Birds in late 2009.
The game topped the US paid app charts in mid-2010, holding that spot for 275 days.

Joachim Achren, co-founder of Next Games and an elite game developer, said:

“I try to encourage founders to focus more on new market possibilities than on new game ideas.
Gretzky's words mean that we must develop the ability to anticipate future trends and stay ahead of the times.”

The ability to understand and prepare for market timing is key to creating a successful gaming company.
This may be the most important thing.
I call this the 'Level of Urgency'.

This is, above all, a ‘thinking process’.
Your goal is to identify the types of foreseeable upcoming changes in your industry and determine which of them will impact your company.
After that, your job is to prepare for such changes.

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