Half Moon Studios - Background
Half Moon Studios keeps growing. Our flagship mobile game, Ball Guys: Stumble & Fall has generated over 1.5m downloads in the last 6 months and we haven’t even touched the surface. Or UA, for that matter… as our distribution has all come through our innovative approach to social distribution.
In Q4 2024 we launched Ball Guys after a 3-week development sprint. It was designed to be a game that can be played by and with TikTok, Twitch and Youtube streamers. Since, we’ve been adding features & minigames on a regular basis whilst growing our capabilities around Organic and Social distribution.
Senior LiveOps Manager - The role
Remote, with 2-3 days per month in person in London (UK).
We’re now looking to advance our team’s capabilities and are hiring an experienced LiveOps Manager to join. Ball Guys’ metrics are looking great already; you need to make them insane & you will have ownership and agency around the building the following:
- New player onboarding & FTUE. Identify and remove friction from install through the first session, first gameplay and first social interaction… including store pages!
- Retention & engagement. You own D1/D7/D30/D365 retention and build in-game systems and events that create reasons to come back.
- Game economy & progression. Ensure we rebalance currencies, rewards, sinks, progression and unlocks to keep the economy healthy as the game scales.
- Player LTV & monetisation. Identify opportunities to increase player value without compromising the fun or accessibility of the game.
- Promotions & offers. Design, test and optimise bundles, offers, rewards and promotional mechanics.
- In-game events & seasonal calendar. Own the LiveOps roadmap across events, minigames, seasons, content drops and cultural moments.
- Player segmentation & personalisation. Understand different cohorts and tailor events, offers, rewards and experiences accordingly.
- LiveOps experimentation. Build a relentless test-and-learn cadence across onboarding, economy, difficulty, rewards, events and monetisation.
- Live game analytics. Turn player behaviour and funnel data into hypotheses, experiments and product decisions.
- Churn & reactivation. Understand why players leave and develop mechanics, content and campaigns that bring them back.
- Social & creator-driven LiveOps. Invent events and mechanics specifically designed to work with TikTok, Twitch and YouTube creators and their communities.
- Community-driven development. Use player, team & streamer feedback to identify opportunities, rapidly prototype them and get the best ideas into the live game.
- Live game health. Monitor the game day-to-day, spot emerging problems and opportunities, and move quickly when something needs fixing or exploiting.
- Competitive & market intelligence — know what the best live games are doing, steal the principles that work, and find ways to do them differently.
- LiveOps tooling & processes. Utilise our existing (or help build new) internal tools, dashboards and workflows that let a small team operate Ball Guys at increasingly large scale.
That being said, at Half Moon Studios we all wear multiple hats… everyone builds prototypes, some of us even stream on TikTok. This is not a team for someone who wants to stay in their corner & fight it.
Experience Required
- 3+ years’ experience in a hands-on LiveOPS role for a 100k+ DAU mobile game.
- Proven experience owning and improving core LiveOps metrics including retention, engagement, ARPDAU and player LTV.
- Strong understanding of F2P game economies, progression systems, currencies, rewards, sinks and sources.
- Experience designing, launching and optimising in-game events, seasons, promotions and LiveOps calendars.
- Hands-on experience running A/B tests and turning player data into product decisions.
- Experience with player segmentation, cohort analysis and lifecycle strategies.
- Proven track record of identifying retention or monetisation opportunities and shipping changes that measurably moved the numbers.
- Strong analytical skills… comfortable getting into and building dashboards, interrogating data and forming your own hypotheses rather than waiting for an analyst.
- Experience working closely with game designers, developers and artists to take LiveOps initiatives from idea through to launch.
- Comfortable operating a live game day-to-day: spotting problems quickly, prioritising ruthlessly and reacting when the data or community tells you something isn’t working.
- Deep understanding of the mobile F2P market and the mechanics that drive the world’s best-performing live games.
- Comfortable in a small, fast-moving team where your remit extends beyond your job title and good ideas get prototyped quickly.
Experience that would help your application
- Knowledge of ad monetisation systems like Max Ads, Google Adx, mediation tech or even SSPs or DSPs;
- A genuine love for games & gaming;
- Having failed or succeeded as an entrepreneur;
- Experience as a streamer or social content creator on TikTok.