We talk to the new director of Kolibri Games (Idle Miner Tycoon), Guillaume Verlinden.

With Idle Miner Tycoon and Idle Factory Tycoon, the ­Berlin-based studio Kolibri Games became famous. More than 150 million downloads worldwide speak for themselves. Of course, this success has not gone unnoticed by the industry giants and so Kolibri Games was taken over by Ubisoft at the beginning of 2020. In the meantime, the three Kolibri founders Daniel Stammler, Janosch ­Sadowski and Oliver Löffler have left the company. The new studio director since June is Guillaume Verlinden. Guillaume comes from Barcelona, where he previously held leadership positions at Tilting Point and Social Point.

Making Games spoke with Guillaume ­Verlinden about where the ­journey with Kolibri Games is headed.

Making Games: First, please tell us ­something about yourself and your career.
Guillaume Verlinden: I have always been passionate about video games, but during my studies, I was unaware it was possible to join the industry without being a developer, an artist, or a game designer, so I went in a different direction and began my career in management consulting.
After a few years, I had the opportunity to join Social Point, where I led and grew the main top-grossing titles Monster ­Legends and Dragon City, which gave me a great understanding and expertise in ­scaling live games. Later, I joined Tilting Point, where I led a large portfolio of very diverse live games, from Leo’s Fortune to Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest, and high-potential new games.

How did it come about that you became Managing Director at Kolibri Games? What were the most important reasons for you to change jobs?
I’ve been a long-time fan of Tycoon Games on PC and fell in love with the simple and powerful gameplay of Idle Miner Tycoon when it was released. Since then, I’ve ­always enjoyed the Kolibri Games releases. To join them at this point is an exciting challenge and an opportunity for me to be truly able to forge my management style: trusting the teams with a high level of ­ownership, focusing on results rather than on tasks to be completed, and being fiercely player-obsessed.

Kolibri Games has grown incredibly fast since it was founded in 2016. Idle Miner ­Tycoon alone has been downloaded over 100 million times. Is that more of an opportunity or a burden for you?

Having a large audience of loyal players and acquiring thousands of organic installs every day are a fantastic opportunity for us, I can only see this in a positive light.

So far, Kolibri has been managed by the German founders. What challenges does this pose for you? There might be people who think, “Now Ubisoft – a French company – is placing a French studio head”. Do such prejudices exist, and if so, how do you deal with them?
Ubisoft is a multinational company that ­values impact over people’s nationality. I am 100% confident that my nationality did not influence the recruitment process, ­actually the three founders Daniel, Janosch and Oliver played an important role in ­driving the hiring process which brought me to the company.
Also, there are over 30 nationalities at Kolibri and most of the Leadership is ­composed of people with international ­profiles: Brazilian, Portuguese, Greek, ­Chinese, etc. so this has never been a ­challenge.

How close is the cooperation with Ubisoft? In which areas is the support most significant?
Being part of the Ubisoft family is a great asset in many aspects. We have direct ­access to world-class experts in all the fields that share their experience with us and vice versa: Tech, UA, Legal, Product, etc. We are also exploring some other one-off opportunities like we recently ran an ­Assassin’s Creed Event in Idle Miner ­Tycoon. This turned out to be a huge ­success with the highest ARPDAU in the game history. To share these successes and the resulting learnings with each other is a total win-win situation for both sides.

Part 2 coming soon!

Guillaume Verlinden
Managing Director

Guillaume started his career in gaming in 2014 at Social Point where he worked as Product Lead on titles such as Monster Legends and Dragon City. After holding leading product positions there and later serving as Vice President of Products and Head of Studio at Tilting Point, he joined Kolibri Games in June 2021 as Managing Director.