David Kim, the CEO of Animoca, was interviewed by Inside Mobile Apps on a wide range of topics including (but not limited to!) “his company’s 7-Eleven business approach, South Korea as trendsetters, Silicon Valley’s myopia and the mobile game industry tsunami in 2013”.

Hong Kong-based mobile game developer and publisher Animoca is known for its Android-focused development approach, with notable games in its “app supermarket“-sized portfolio including Star Girl, Aqua City and Pretty Pet Salon.

The company, which was founded in January 2011, has reached the 115 million downloads mark and now serves 100 million game sessions a month.

We sat down with Animoca CEO David Kim who filled us in on his company’s 7-Eleven business approach, South Korea as trendsetters, Silicon Valley’s myopia and the mobile game industry tsunami in 2013.

Being at the helm of a major Android games developer and publisher, David has many useful insights to share. He discusses some of the lessons learned, the booming development of the Android platform, the surprising advantages of not being based in Silicon Valley, and even what the future may hold for the world of smartphone and tablet gaming:

What are your mobile game predictions for 2013?

What I’m seeing is the tsunami of Android development that’s going on and there’s going to be additional platforms that are going to start making some noise. Samsung maybe. It’s only going to get more competitive. There’s definitely a shakeup that started in 2012 that’s going to carry on to 2013. There’s always going to be room for small guys and small games. There should always be an indie system that allows it to happen and celebrates that activity, but this is where you’re going to see the ones who really know what they’re doing start to shine. I make a lot of analogies to the Internet because that’s where I started, but a lot of the trends are the same but compressed. What on the Internet took seven to eight years is now happening in a year or two in the mobile space.

The importance of advertising will increase. Right now people are not paying as much attention to advertising…. Everything is happening a lot faster because people have confidence that [advertising] will be [important]. We’ve seen it with Web 1.0 and quasi 2.0, you saw that happen so people are a lot more comfortable…. what happened with Internet 1.0, is what will happen here, which is that a lot of companies will die off, as they should. I don’t want to get overly Darwinian about this, but this will be survival of, not necessarily the fittest, but the ones who at least know how to maneuver. Again, this is where sometimes experience does matter, because if you can see the trends coming a little ahead of time, as a business operator you’re a lot better off. We saw a little bit of this in 2012. 2013 will be the big swell, but by 2014 or later, this tsunami of activity will basically take over and get rid of a lot of the noise and we’ll have more clarity about what works and who’ll survive.

Read the full interview on Inside Mobile Apps: Animoca’s David Kim on his company’s 7-Eleven business approach, South Korea as trendsetters and Silicon Valley’s myopia.