Lectures
Lectures at Casual Connect are programmed to focus on cutting edge topics in the casual games space. Join us 7 - 9 of February 2012 along with over 1500 industry professionals for the seventh Casual Connect Europe to discuss the future and the brutal truths the game industry will face in 2012.
If you are new to the casual games industry, we strongly suggest that you visit the Casual Connect Archives to familiarize yourself with topics that interest you as Casual Connect lectures are designed for experienced industry professionals.
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The Future of Games is in the Journey, Not the Destination
Riccardo ZACCONI, CEO and Co-founder, King.com
Riccardo Zacconi is the CEO and co-founder for leading provider of casual social games company, King.com. With nearly 200 games and over one billion games played per month, King.com has a proven track record of developing successful social, competitive and pastime experiences to millions of people across the globe. The company has been profitable since 2005, with investments from Apax and Index Ventures. As CEO, Zacconi leads the overall strategic direction of King.com, establishing the company with influential team members from his previous roles and ventures.
Prior to forming King.com, Zacconi was vice president of sales and marketing for the successful dating service, Udate.com, which was bought by InterActive Corporation (IAC) for $150M; he was entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital; and CEO for online portal, Spray Network, whose parent company sold to Lycos for $760M. Zacconi also worked in strategy consulting for over eight years, primarily for the Boston Consulting Group in Germany.
[Email Riccardo]
The casual games space has consistently evolved and grown over the last several years. Within that, new ways of interacting with users, monetizing, adapting to new platforms, game development methods and the way we think about gaming has transformed. It’s no longer simply a “product” focus, developing a one-off game that fizzles out quickly after launch. It’s becoming an emphasis towards games as a “service” – games that don’t end at the launch, but begin there.
This keynote, presented by the co-founder and CEO of long-time industry leader, King.com, explores the dramatic transition of the industry from games as a product to games as a service. He will dissect the evolution of how game developers have grown their content offerings with the intent of strengthening the connection with the audience over a much longer period of time vs one-off offerings. The presentation will discuss the concept of games that aim to create a journey with users that is nourished by game developer’s ability to create addictive story lines, compelling social interaction and a strong consumer experience.
Riccardo will take a case study approach to share with attendees the potential for widespread global adoption with data points, best practices and lessons learned from King.com’s very own treasure chest of games as they have evolved over the last several years. He will dive into the lessons learned that helped shape the convergence of the industry and will explore the impact across the board from design to customer service/experience. -
The Era of Convenience and Why The Browser is the Next Big Thing in Games
Trip HAWKINS, CEO & Founder, Digital Chocolate
Trip Hawkins is the founder and CEO of Digital Chocolate, a leading publisher of social games like Millionaire City and Zombie Lane. Trip played a key role in defining the personal computer as one of the first Apple employees from 1978-1982. He founded Electronic Arts in 1982 and built the company into the industry leader, serving as its first CEO and Chairman of the Board from 1982-1994. He then founded 3DO, a pioneer in digital video, network gaming, and social communities. The author of three patents, Trip introduced the concept of game development as a creative art form and the use of celebrities and athletes in video games. His design credits include award-winning best-sellers such as John Madden Football, Army Men, M.U.L.E., Doctor J and Larry Bird Go One on One, and High Heat Baseball. Trip created the first college degree in video games, graduating magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree in Strategy and Applied Game Theory. He was the first, and is still the only, business executive to be inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.
[Email Trip]
Remarkable discoveries about product disruption will drive game industry trends as games become more convenient and interoperable across all screen sizes as the browser becomes the ubiquitous mass market game platform. As an early manager at Apple and the founder of EA, Hawkins will draw on 40 years of game and consumer product design experience to explain the next phase of games and what developers should do about it.
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Flash to the Core
Andre Jay MEISSNER,
Business Development Manager for Web Technologies, Adobe
Andre Jay Meissner is Business Development Manager Web Technologies at Adobe Systems. With his focus on Adobe's Mobile and Web Authoring Tools and the Flash Platform, Jay is working with a broad range of creative professionals at Lighthouse accounts as well as the designer and developer community. Before joining Adobe, Jay has been working for 15 years in Software and IT Engineering as a Consultant, Developer, Interaction Designer and Product Owner, building a strong focus on workflow and usability analysis and -optimization. He ran his own Software Company and led a team of about 30 experts releasing both HTML and Flash-based Weblications, plugins to Adobe CS Software, a large scale SaaS-Application and is always keepin’ an eye on the fun side of life – Online Gaming.
[Email Jay]
You are right - and billions of internet connected devices and gamers prove your decision to opt for the Flash Platform. Find out about the artillery of game changing tools that has just been added to Flash and see what's cooking at Adobe Labs to thrill up your games experience even more in the future!
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Lunch Session with Microsoft : Gaming across multiple devices - connected by the Cloud!
Tom WENDEL, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Germany
Patric BOSCOLO, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft
Before becoming a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Germany, Tom Wendel studied computer science at the University of Karlsruhe and worked as a freelance software forger and consultant for tricky software questions. Through close cooperation with artists and designers, he is crafting an interface between art and technology, combining freethinking and inventiveness with down-to-earth machines. In his spare time he is enjoying his predilection for classical musical theatre and is promoting punk rock concerts. He also claims to be the undefeated 1972 Super Mario Kart world champion.
[Email Tom]
Patric Boscolo is Developer Evangelist at Microsoft. He works in IT since 1998. Starting Software Development in 2004, he today develops Software in C/C++/C#. Before he joined Microsoft in 2011 he worked for the Automotive Industry. His Projects had a focus on real time 3D interactions in the cloud. Patric today is responsible for the Windows Azure Platform and Windows Client Development with the Microsoft .net Technologies.
[Email Patrick]
Consumerization of IT and the Mobile Web are the two major trends in today’s IT. These latest trends are giving huge influence on the creation of modern IT applications, like Games and “Software-as-a-Service” Applications, as they require new approaches in Software Development. In this session Tom and Patric are going to have a look at necessary steps, when building a scalable backend to serve multiple games platforms, ranging from PC to Phone. Technologies like XNA, enable you to build Games, that are available across multiple form factors and connected through the internet. See what it means to have a reliable and scalable backend, that enables you to serve millions of users and get to know Game Applications, using the Microsoft Development Platform and Windows Azure’s Cloud services.
The session will start at 12:15. Bring your lunch - we have cookies. -
Building Games with Amazon Web Services
Matt WOOD, Technology Evangelist, Amazon Web Services
Matt Wood is the Technology Evangelist for Amazon Web Services. In his role, Matt educates customers on the technical and business aspects of cloud computing, mentors start-ups and coaches developers throughout Europe. Before joining Amazon Matt worked in the field of life sciences and built web-scale search engines at Cornell University, sequenced DNA in Hinxton and developed analytics software in Cambridge. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences, a blogger and published author.
[Email Matt]
Since 2006, Amazon Web Services have been providing on demand, pay-as-you-go infrastructure to game producers of all sizes. This talk will introduce the cloud platform offered by Amazon, and use real world case studies to discuss how you can make use of Amazon's massive scale and operational experience to build highly available games easily. We'll discuss:
- Fault tolerance and scale with Amazon EC2 Scaling SQL and NoSQL
- databases Asset delivery with Amazon S3 and CloudFront Security in the cloud
Game makers such as Playfish, Zynga and Wooga are using Amazon to deploy games quickly, at scale with no upfront investment. Join this discussion to learn how to launch your game into the cloud. -
Providing Customer Care Though Multiple Platforms and Channels (Without Hiring an Army)
Matt PRICE, Vice President and General Manager, EMEA, Zendesk
Nils REBEHN, Business Development,Zendesk DACH
Matt is responsible for growing and supporting the Zendesk customer community in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Since starting his career on the Borland tools helpdesk, Matt has held executive positions in sales, marketing and product in the US and Europe at high-growth software companies such as ATG, Wily Technology and Troux Technologies. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Reading. Matt is successfully using Zendesk to support his two teenage children: managing tickets for IT support, transport, funding and handling complaints on his dress sense.
[Email Matt]
Nils looks after Austria, Germany and Switzerland for Zendesk and is part of the team that won the best-in-cloud award for Zendesk in Germany 2011. Nils works with leading gaming brands to help them take their customer care to the next level. Nils strives to maintain the right balance between gaming and work but somehow figures out how to fit the real world into his busy schedule.
[Email Nils]
New methods for handling global customer care are doing the impossible: lowering support costs AND increasing satisfaction. This session shares the support insights learned from some of the world’s largest casual gaming companies, and discusses strategies for emerging social channels.
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How Game Publishers Dramatically Grow Ad-Related Income through Direct Deals
Pepe AGELL, Sr. Director, Worldwide Publisher Relations,
Chartboost
Pepe Agell is Senior Director of Worldwide Publisher Relations at Chartboost.
In his role, he oversees the global expansion of the company's publisher base, strategic partnerships, and customer relationship management (CRM) to ensure the highest standard of service and support. In addition, Agell translates feedback from and interaction with the company's worldwide publishers to inform the technology development of the company's leading direct-deal advertising marketplace.
[Email Pepe]
Find out how new freemium ad-server technology offers a “game-changing” shift for mobile game publishers. Attendees will:
· Learn how to leverage the distribution power of their apps to cross-promote their other games to build a stronger user base or drive revenue by promoting other publishers’ apps through direct deals
· Learn best practices around doing direct deals with other game publishers
· Learn what types of in-depth metrics give both direct-deal parties 100-percent transparency into the campaigns they execute together
· Learn how new freemium ad-server technology will forever change their publishing profitability model -
Building Casual Games for the Web: How New Technologies and the Chrome Web Store are Changing the Equation for Game Developers
Philipp KARMIRES, Business Development, Google
Philipp Karmires is responsible for New Business Development for Google’s efforts in Europe, Middle East and Africa. This group works with Google Product and Engineering teams on incubation-exploratory efforts, technology and meta-data licensing, strategic partnerships, special projects and alternative distribution for existing and new business initiatives. Philipp joined Google in 2007 from Autonomy, where he was responsible for Business Development in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
[Email Philipp]
The web is undergoing a revolution. Modern browsers are becoming faster every day and are now used by the majority of users. At the same time, technologies like HTML5, WebGL and Native Client are providing game developers with the capability to build compelling gaming experiences that run on the web. Philipp Karmires from Google's New Business Development team presents Google's take on how casual gamers can take advantage of these trends to build great games and distribute them through the Chrome Web Store.
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Building a Media Sharing Platform on the AWS Cloud
Carlos CONDE, Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services
With over 12 years’ experience in the IT industry, Carlos began his IT career in when he founded IWorks, a company dedicated in building web interfaces to AS400-backed legacy systems. Having a strong technological background with an entrepreneur mind set, he then went on to cofound Newaxe, a software start-up providing a management and monitoring platform for enterprise-oriented software. He also worked for three years as an independent consultant, focused on IT architecture, and implementing pragmatic solutions for customers.
Carlos now works as a Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services where he is dedicated to helping customers with the adoption of cloud computing.
[Email Carlos]
This session will demonstrate how to build a production-grade media sharing website on AWS. During the workshop we will take you through the process of building a video sharing platform and will cover features including content delivery, video streaming, data storage, video transcoding, and real world case studies. Delegates will learn how to:
• Scale resources, both up and down, according to the demand
• Set up video streaming
• Store large amounts of media data
• Perform parallel processing (video transcoding) efficiently
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Online Games on the AWS Cloud
Carlos CONDE, Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services
With over 12 years’ experience in the IT industry, Carlos began his IT career in when he founded IWorks, a company dedicated in building web interfaces to AS400-backed legacy systems. Having a strong technological background with an entrepreneur mind set, he then went on to cofound Newaxe, a software start-up providing a management and monitoring platform for enterprise-oriented software. He also worked for three years as an independent consultant, focused on IT architecture, and implementing pragmatic solutions for customers.
Carlos now works as a Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services where he is dedicated to helping customers with the adoption of cloud computing.
[Email Carlos]
Online games platforms can be challenging to deploy and maintain. This workshop explains the different strategies and architectures for building online games on the AWS cloud. We will demonstrate how to architect for peak loads, how to store and process large amounts of data, how to build scalable games with AWS and share real world case studies. Attendees will learn about:
• Flexible and scalable architectures
• Data storage solutions for online games (relational and NoSQL)
• Trends and data analysis
• Best practices for online games in the cloud -
Player Type Theory: Uses and Abuses
Richard BARTLE, Professor of Computer Game Design, University of Essex, UK
Dr. Richard A. Bartle is Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK. He is best known for having co-written the first virtual world in 1978, MUD, and for his 1996 Player Types model which has seen widespread adoption by the MMO industry. His 2003 book, "Designing Virtual Worlds", is the standard text on the subject, and he is an influential writer on all aspects of online design and development. In 2010, he was the first recipient of the prestigious Game Developers Choice award of Online Game Legend.
[Email Richard]Online games now sit firmly on the casual player's daily to-do list, thanks to the liberating effects of social media. With the leading developers forging ahead, those in their wake are looking for an edge that will allow them to catch up and overtake the leaders.
Such a secret sauce is Bartle's Player Types model, which has met with success across a range of online applications and is being adopted with enthusiasm by increasing numbers of ambitious social game developers. It's a proven tool - but is it always the right tool for the job? Bartle himself explains. -
Payment Managers Panel - The Inside Truth Behind Real Monetization
Waldemar ERDLE, Head of Billing, Mail.ru
Hein KRENZ, Sr. Manager Payments, Innogames
Victor BACRE, Payment Manager, JustAGame
Mark GERBAN, Sr. Manager Business Dev and Payments, gamigo
Udo REB, Head of Business Development, GameArt Studio
discussion led by Janis ZECH, Co-founder, SponsorPay
Waldemar Erdle is Head of Billing at Mail.Ru Games GmbH in Hamburg, Germany. The company is part of the Mail.ru Group, the largest provider of digital internet services in Russia. Waldemar has run various companies in the service sector before he took over leading the billing department of Mail.Ru Games GmbH in 2008. He has gained a deep understanding of monetization, the integration and management of payment systems as well as fraud management.
[Email Waldemar]
Hein Krenz is the Senior Payment Manager of InnoGames, which has more than 50 million players worldwide, and is one of the leading developers and operators of online games. Hein has accrued more than eight years of online payment experience, where he previously worked for such companies as Goodgame Studios, gamigo, BigPoint and Atlas Interactive. At Innogames, Hein is responsible for running the payment operation.
[Email Hein]
Victor Bacre is Director of Business Development & Payment at Just A Game GmbH, a Berlin-based subsidiary of the publically listed company, Bob Mobile AG. Previously, Victor worked at ATLAS Interactive GmbH and Webbilling, where he developed a deep insight and understanding of the online payments industry. He also lived in Barcelona, where he worked at Emagister, part of Grupo Intercom, one of the most successful internet companies in Spain.
[Email Victor]
Mark Gerban is the Senior Manager of Business Development & Payment of gamigo AG, the online-games subsidiary of Axel Springer AG, one of Europe's largest media companies. Mark oversees both the business development and payment operations at gamigo. Prior to working at gamigo, Mark worked at the online payment company BillingPartner GmbH, where he was involved in international business development. He was also a freelance consultant for various businesses in Germany. Mark is currently an American living in Hamburg, Germany, and is also a former World-Class athlete.
[Email Mark]
Udo Reb is Head of Business Development and Payment at GameArt Studio GmbH, an innovative developer and publisher of browser games. Udo also directed GameArt Studio's localization and customer care program, as the company established their international business. Prior to GameArt Studio, Udo worked as freelance business consultant for several technology startups. He also operated the media and technology funding programs for the State of Berlin at InvestitionsBank Berlin.
[Email Udo]
Janis is co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at SponsorPay. He helps publishers all over Europe, US and Asia achieve their monetization goals and has in-depth knowledge of the virtual goods industry worldwide. Previously he was project manager at Team Europe Ventures where he was responsible for investment proposals and the company’s own startup projects. Janis developed his passion for starting businesses during his business studies at the University Witten/Herdecke.
[Email Janis]
As we have heard in the past from payment companies presenting about monetization and upcoming industry trends, we would like to introduce a new perspective to the Casual Connect - the Payment Manager. In this open panel, the payment managers from GameArtStudio, gamigo, Innogames, JustAGame and Mail.Ru will give their unique perspective on online payments, industry trends, and what they are really looking to expect from game monetization. Don't miss this unique opportunity to hear from some of the top payment managers in the industry!
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Trouble On The Homefront? The Changes in The Browser Games Market
Heiko HUBERTZ, CEO & Founder, Bigpoint
Markus BUECHTMANN, Managing Director,
ProSiebenSat1 Games GmbH
Florian BOHN, CEO, Travian
Hendrik KLINDWORTH, CEO, Innogames
Carsten van HUSEN, CEO, Gameforge
discussion led by Jan WAGNER, CEO,
Cliffhanger Productions
Heiko Hubertz is the founder and managing director of the Hamburg-based Bigpoint GmbH and San Francisco-based Bigpoint Inc. Founded in 2002 in Düsseldorf, Bigpoint has become the world’s largest portal for browser games and ranks among the top three gaming portals worldwide. Hubertz started Bigpoint GmbH by developing the first game, Hockey Manager, himself. Since its founding, Bigpoint has expanded to 700 employees from 35 nations who utilize cutting-edge technology to develop and operate a diverse range of browser-based games that are enjoyed worldwide by well over 200 million registered players and growing.
[Email Heiko]
Büchtmann has worked at the ProSiebenSat.1 Group since 1998. He began working as an online producer for ProSieben.de before being appointed as the project manager for the Internet portals ProSieben and SAT.1 by SevenOne Intermedia (now ProSiebenSat.1 Digital). He was subsequently appointed to Senior Manager Business Development. In this role, he held various positions in the games sector of SevenOne Intermedia; most recently he was Head of Online Games and Product Management. As Head of Games Markus Büchtmann has been responsible for the entire games portfolio since October 2010. This includes the development and marketing of cross-platform game projects, with focus on the online segment.
[Email Markus]
Florian started his career as lead key account manager & project lead at Loyalty Partner GmbH in Munich, followed by his work as Manager at von Nordeck Holding in Hannover. Since 2009 he is responsible for Travian Games GmbH as CEO and took the challenge to grow it up to one of the world's leading providers of browser-based online games. A motivated team of over 200 employees develop and market online entertainment, translated into up to 42 different languages, enabling the games to be used around the world by fans who appreciate lasting gaming entertainment.
[Email Florian]
Hendrik Klindworth (27) is Co-Founder and Managing Director of InnoGames. He began to program when he was 14 years old and entered the browser game sphere in 2003, when he created the game Tribal Wars together with his brother Eike Klindworth and his school friend Michael Zillmer. Today, Tribal Wars is one of the most successful browser games, with 40 million registered users from nearly 200 countries. InnoGames was in 2007 founded as a consequence of this huge success.
Hendrik Klindworth studied IT with a focus on Information Systems and Software Engineering in Oldenburg, Germany and has remained passionate player with Age of Empires 2 as his all-time favorite.
[Email Hendrik]
Carsten has been operating online games since 1999, first founding and trade-selling a web 1.0 games company to ISP Freeenet.de. Later, as Director Games International of pan-European ISP Tiscali, Carsten launched the first commercially successful Asian MMORPG in Europe in 2001. Carsten served as Founding President of PEOGA (Pan-European Online Games Association) and is a Jury Member for the Deutscher Computerspielepreis (German Computer Games Award organized by the Federal Ministry of Culture and the trade associations G.A.M.E. and BIU) and the EIGA, (European Innovative Games Award).
[Email Carsten]
Jan Wagner has been involved in the industry for almost 20 years with his experience spanning producing, PR and product management along with QA, localization and game design. He was Head of Product Management at Vivendi Universal Games and worked on over 100 titles during this time including Half Life, Warcraft, Empire Earth and Diablo. Trying to get back to the creative side of the industry, he co-founded a consulting agency whose customers included Blizzard Europe, Vivendi Universal, Massive Development, Tilted Mill and JoWooD and worked on titles like SpellForce, Gothic and Ground Control. He went on to found Cliffhanger Productions, a production studio, with his partner Michael Paeck in 2006 trying to support the creation of more original games. Cliffhanger now focuses on premium browser and trans-platform games like it’s upcoming Jagged Alliance Online and new project Shadowrun Online.
[Email Jan]
For years browser games have seen tremendous success and growth rates. However, recently success has been less of a given and new challenges have presented themselves from increasing acquisition cost, growing development budgets and new technologies to mobile and social games growing aggressively - the market is clearly entering a period of consolidation. Which strategies, target audiences and business models are still relevant? This panel will unite the leading publishers of browser games in Europe and discuss their approach to the future of the market.
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M&A Bootcamp: Preparation, Strategy, Execution
Miro PARIZEK, Managing Director, Corum Group
Miro joined Corum in 1998 and has since advised clients in over a dozen countries on three continents. He was appointed Managing Director of Corum Group International S.à.r.l. at the end of 2005 and is responsible for Corum’s international business.
He has advised privately held sellers and publicly traded buyers ranging from 30 to over 1,000 employees in sectors as diverse as 3D-imaging, business performance management, compiler software, CRM, document and content management, enterprise systems management, ERP, human capital management, storage area networks, supply chain management, telecommunications, video editing and various other verticals.
Miro has 25 years of experience in the software and IT industry, and prior to Corum had founded and ran three software and IT related firms in the ‘80s and ‘90s, including a leading software distributor, North American Software. He was a founding member of the German Software Association (VSI), since merged with the local Multi-Media Association (dmmv) to form the National Association for Digital Economy (BVDW), where he had served as a board member for over a decade.
Miro is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Management and Technology Dual Degree Program, with degrees in International Finance from the Wharton School and Computer Science from the Moore School of Engineering.
[Email Miro]
Corum Group takes us through a condensed, 60-minute bootcamp on how to prepare your software/internet company for an eventual strategic sale. Miro Parizek will walk us through the 5 vital steps of Preparation, Valuation, Structure, Due Diligence, and Negotiations. The expanded version of this presentation has been running in major cities around the world for over 20 years, helping founders and CEO's create additional value for their companies.
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Fundraising 101 for Game Companies
Paul HEYDON, Managing Director, Avista Partners
Paul covers the digital media sector at Avista Partners with a strong specialization in the game sector. Paul is also a Partner at London Venture Partners which invests in the game sector. Previously, he served as Managing Director at Unity Capital, a firm he founded in London in December 2004 advising on the Digital Media sector. Prior, Paul was the Head of Interactive Entertainment at Commerzbank Securities for about 4 years where he had global responsibility for the interactive entertainment sector. Prior to Commerzbank, Paul was on the media team at ING Barings for 2 years. Paul has helped digital media companies globally on transactions with a total value of over $1 billion. Paul has worked on a variety of transactions including cross-border M&A, IPO's, convertible bonds, private placements and strategic advisory with many digital media companies including: PlayJam, Unity Technologies, Channel Four, Infogrames, Ubisoft, Canon Europe, Criterion Software, Endemol, Teliasonera International Carrier, and Lionhead. Mr. Heydon earned both a MBA and a HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
[Email Paul]
Raising money is not an easy task no matter how successful a game company is or how great the team is. There are many issues to deal with and timing is one of the important ones. With over $1 billion raised in venture capital by game companies in each of the last 4 years and over $5 billion in exits just in 2011, most VC’s, strategic investors and even many angel investors are keen to invest in the next great game company. So now is the actually the best time ever in the history of the game sector to raise money.The question is how to do that successfully with fair terms. Paul's session will address this question using both his insight from over 12 years advising game companies as an investment banker but also as an investor in game companies in the past 3 years.
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Next Generation of Online Games
Ilkka PAANANEN, CEO & Founder, Supercell
Ilkka was the founding CEO of Sumea, which grew into one of the top developers and publishers of mobile games, with a massive distribution network of over 100 channels that included every major European carrier. Based on Sumea's leadership position in Europe, Ilkka and the company's founders sold Sumea to Digital Chocolate in 2004. After the merger, Ilkka served as the Managing Director of the European operations for two years before being promoted to President to lead the global publishing operations of the company, which consisted of the studios in Helsinki, Barcelona and Silicon Valley.
In late 2010, Ilkka joined Supercell as the CEO to lead the growth plan of the company, raising a total of $15M in funding and help it become the leader in the next generation of online games. Ilkka has graduated with Honors from the Department of Industrial Management at Helsinki University of Technology.
[Email Ilkka]
Most people find games more fun when they are played with other people, be it friends from real life or new acquaintances met via the game. Hard core MMOs have proven this in the core gaming market, but how do you bring this type of experience to a broader audience via the more casual and social platforms? What are the do's and don’ts?
This session will provide a list of opportunities and threats that are related to developing deeper gameplay experiences with social features for the casual audience and how game developers can tackle them. -
Mid-core Gaming. Sizing and Profiling the Opportunity in Western and Emerging markets
Peter WARMAN, CEO, Newzoo
Peter Warman (1971) is Managing Director and Founder of Newzoo, the games market research and consulting firm, servicing clients across all game business models, such as Ubisoft (FR), GREE (JP), Kabam (US), SpilGames (NL), Blizzard (US) and Jagex (UK). Newzoo is also publisher of the global B2B market place Gamesindustry.com and the Games Industry Black Book. After being responsible for sales and business development at Europe’s largest interactive agency (LBi), he was responsible for internet development at Reed Business and operated as commercial director for a MMO for kids. Peter is a frequent speaker on the business aspects of the games industry. Peter enjoys opera as well as good German techno.
[Email Peter]
More than 70% of “core” gamers also play “casual” games but on different platforms, at different times of day and with a different purpose. The industry has defined “mid-core gaming” as a new opportunity, combining elements from the casual and core gaming space. What defines a mid-core game and more importantly, is there a need amongst consumers and willingness to spend money on these games? Peter Warman will make a serious attempt to size this opportunity and profile the “mid-core” gamer using cross-platform consumer data involving more than ten Western and emerging countries.
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State of Global Investment
Hany NADA, Co-founder & Partner, GGV Capital
Jan BECKERS, Managing Director and Founder, HitFox
As a leading venture investor, Hany made his first investment in China in 2001, and has led the firm's successful investments in athenahealth (NASDAQ:
ATHN), Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU), Kintana (acquired by Mercury Interactive) and Xfire (acquired by Viacom). Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors for Tudou, China's leading video content provider, Vocera Communications, and three gaming companies, Glu Mobile, Turbine and Wild Tangent. In addition to actively making investments in the mobile and gaming sectors in the US and China, Hany is responsible for one of the industry's most successful China/US investment teams as well as general oversight of the firm's funds.
Before entering the venture capital business, Hany spent ten years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst at Piper Jaffray focusing on Internet software and infrastructure. Hany is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where he earned a B.S. in economics and a B.A. in political science.
[Email Hany]
Serial entrepreneur Jan Beckers has founded 5 successful companies before starting game marketing company HitFox. Most recently he has been Co-Founder and Managing Director of SponsorPay - a leading global monetization platform for Online, Social and Mobile Games with 100+ employees headquartered in Berlin. Prior to that Jan co-founded Mobile Marketing Platform Madvertise, Job-Platform Absolventa and two event-related companies Studenta.de and Private Productions. Jan has invested in Internet Start-ups such as Brands4Friends, Lieferheld and Clio and is a Pre-IPO-Investor in Facebook and Linkedin through secondary investments.
[Email Jan]
Where is investment in games heading? What do investors think of Mobile? Social? Tools? Development? Hit or Bust? What should you be doing to attract the attention of international investors? Hear it straight from the lion's mouth. Join Jan Beckers of HitFox and Hany Nada of GGV Capital for perspectives from both sides of the fence: the entrepreneur and the investor.
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Why Social Mobile Games Need a Platform Now More than Ever
Ethan FASSETT, SVP of Product, GREE International
Ethan Fassett is the SVP of Product for GREE International, the leading mobile social gaming company that is currently developing a global platform with a focus on free-to-play games. Ethan is a 10+ year social and mobile veteran, having launched and managed many large social gaming, mobile and Web2.0 products for companies such as Playdom, Gaia Online and Yahoo! Prior to GREE, Ethan was Executive Producer for Playdom’s San Francisco studio, where he oversaw the launch of two major social game titles. Ethan is co-inventor on several patents in search and social media technology, gameinterface design and mobile-social applications.
[Email Ethan]
Many mobile social games are freemium but lack strong social effects. Only with the help of SNS platforms do mobile social games truly become social and achieve cost-effective acquisition, retention, and monetization rates. Join Ethan to learn about the current state of the platform market. He’ll discuss how platforms interact with social games, why social games greatly benefit from platforms, and how game developers can leverage platforms today. Finally, he’ll show how this plays out in different markets by drawing on case studies from the US and Japan.
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Battle of The Marketing Executives
Angus LOVITT, Director of Performance, King.com
Oliver KERN, Director of Performance and Intelligence, iQU
Julia LEBEDEVA, Head of PR & Advertising, Nevosoft
Malika RIADI-SCHULZ, Director, Business Development, Electronic Arts
discussion led by Jill SCHNEIDERMAN, Director of Business Development, MindJolt
Angus Lovitt is Director of Performance Marketing at King.com, where he is responsible for the leading casual social games company’s global media spend. Prior to this he worked for the Publicis Groupe, where he was responsible for performance-driven media planning for such clients as Capital One and Royal Sun Alliance. Angus also has a background in marketing in the Australian ICT industry.
[Email Angus]
Oliver Kern is Director of Performance and Intelligence at iQU, where he oversees the development of IQU Performance Network and GameriQU, a sophisticated platform for mapping gamer behavior across platforms.
Prior to joining iQU, Oliver was Head of Online Strategy at Jagex, the UK’s largest independent games developer and publisher. While at Jagex, he set up the marketing department and defined the online and publishing strategy for the company. Prior to that he was leading the International Marketing at Oberon Media. His experience in the online games industry includes tactics such as paid search, SEO, display media, affiliation, social media, content aggregation and syndication, game monetization, micropayments and more.
[Email Oliver]
Julia joined Nevosoft and the casual video games industry as a public relations manager in 2009 and took a fresh look at interacting with the casual games audiences. She has a master's degree in linguistics and more than three years experience in the entertainment industry, first working as a PR manager and announcer and then as the program director at a radio station. Now Julia is a head of advertising & PR department and her responsibilities include planning PR campaigns, interaction with mass media and working with the players on the Nevosoft’s Russian portal. She also coordinates Nevosoft's participation at various conferences, prepares marketing materials and makes presentations. In addition to her PR duties, Ms. Lebedeva acts as a partner relations manager, responsible for finding new game content and localizing it into Russian.
[Email Julia]
Malika Riadi-Schulz is Director of Business Development Europe for EA where she is responsible of supporting all Business Units of EA. Prior to this she was in charge of strategic partners account in EU and Latam for King.com for 5 years. And prior to that she was responsible of all pan-European publisher account for Yahoo! EU Search Marketing.
[Email Malika]
Jill Schneiderman is the Director of Business Development for MindJolt Games, focusing primarily on the licensing and production of games for MindJolt’s social properties. Previously, she headed up domestic business development and international sales for traditional board game company, Imagination Games.
[Email Jill]
It’s time to play! Battle of the Marketing Executives, the game show where top-level marketing mavens compete to see who can come up with the best marketing plan for a cross-platform game.
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Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Mobile Gameplay
Robert BOEHM, Photon Evangelist, Exit Games
Matthias HELLMUND, Head of Mobile Development, Exozet Games
Robert is a senior entertainment software professional with over 10 years experience at the forefront of technology and games. He started his career in the mobile entertainment space and then moved on to build an international network of clients and partners for the online games technology provider Exit Games where he works on establishing the cross-platform network engine 'Photon' as the market's leading multiplayer tool.
Next to working for Exit Games, Robert is running his own gaming company Playjoo (www.playjoo.com), the studio behind "Giana Sisters Young Generation" (apps.facebook.com/gianasisters) an action-oriented branded social & browser multiplayer game which is in closed beta currently.
[Email Robert]
Matthias leads the mobile unit of the Berlin-based Exozet Games, creating award-winning games and lifestyle applications across a broad range of mobile platforms. Titles include popular board game adaptations such as Catan and Carcassonne. With his 10+ year experience in mobile development, Matthias also advises Exozet's business clients in the fields of technology and design. His background is in Media and Computer Science with stopovers in Tampere (Finland) and San Francisco.
[Email Matthias]
Mobile devices now allow us to be online almost all the time, but most mobile games are still focused on single player experiences. Robert Boehm from Exit Games and Matthias Hellmund from Exozet Games will explore what is involved with creating successful multiplayer games on mobile and the differences between real-time (Synchronous) games and games, which can be played together even when the players are online at different times (Asynchronous games).
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Economics of Living Outside the Box
Joost van DREUNEN, Managing Director, SuperData Research
Joost has over fifteen years of commercial research experience in interactive entertainment and technology industries. Prior to founding SuperData he held senior positions at Nielsen Online and DFC Intelligence. Joost is an affiliate researcher at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, a member of the Center of Organizational Innovation, and teaches at New York University. He holds a doctorate from Columbia University.
[Email Joost]
In only a few short years, the games industry has made a dramatic change from selling boxed products to digitally downloadable and browser-based games. This shift affects everything from game design to publishing, distribution and revenue generation. In this lecture, I will discuss key market forces in the industry’s new ecosystem, how game companies can make the most out of them, and what to expect next. Central to this presentation is the use of current market data and primary research. The audience will gain a better understanding of the overall games market and its drivers. No previous knowledge on the subject is required.
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From Core to Casual – The Importance of Diversification
Jan-Michel SAAKSMEIER, Executive Producer, Bigpoint
Jan-Michel Saaksmeier is Executive Producer New Games Development. In this position as Executive Producer New Games Development he is responsible for production, game design and virtual economy in all new games. He worked for Bigpoint since 2009. Jan-Michel holds a Master of Business and Computer Science. He started as the producer of Farmerama one of the most successful farm simulations in the world. After the huge success with Bigpoint’s first casual game Jan-Michel has constantly worked on expanding the company’s portfolio in casual games.
Jan-Michel Saaksmeier studied Business and Computer Science at the University of Paderborn and collaborated as Freelancer on diverse Indie Games developments.
[Email Jan-Michel]
The typical casual game often loses players within weeks of its launch, while action- and strategy-oriented games can attract, retain, and grow a community of players for many years. How can casual games achieve the same success? Join Bigpoint Executive Producer New Games, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier, as he discusses the opportunities and challenges of enhancing casual game development with the addition of core game mechanics. Discover the importance of integrating high-quality game content in an easy way that casual gamers will engage, and learn the advantages (and risks) of expanding a company's game portfolio beyond purely casual titles.
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Lunch Session with Kongregate
Real Numbers from Kongregate: Comparative Stats for MMOs and Social GamesEmily GREER, COO, Kongregate
Emily co-founded Kongregate in 2006 with brother Jim and as COO oversees most day-to-day operations including product development, marketing, community, and monetization. Prior to Kongregate, Emily worked in marketing/e-commerce for various catalogers & retailers building statistical and financial models predicting customer behavior as well as doing product analysis, customer research, strategic planning and website development.
[Email Emily]
Kongregate (A GameStop Company) is a distributor of nearly 100 virtual-goods games developed by developers small and large, Eastern and Western, casual and hardcore. As such, it has a unique perspective on what types of games have the most success monetizing. This talk will look at site-wide trends and dig into specific game metrics. Attendees will learn about what metrics correlate strongly to high ARPUs and general recommendations for how to design and optimize a successful virtual goods game.
The session will start at 12:15. Bring your lunch - we have cookies. -
10 Million Casual Game Downloads on Android
Vlad SUGLOBOV, CEO, G5 Entertainment
Born in 1977, Vlad Suglobov possesses 14 years of industry experience. Before co-founding G5 in 2001 and serving for 8 years as CEO of the group, Vlad graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University with M.Sc. in Computer Science, and worked in a number of Russian and US companies in the games and IT industries. Growing with G5, Vlad was active in many essential roles, establishing the company’s strategy, client relations, product development and sales. Today, Vlad is concentrating on expanding G5’s business internationally.
[Email Vlad]
Android is probably the fastest growing platform for casual games. The Android Market and Amazon Appstore provide great opportunities to monetize popular downloadable casual games. At the same time, the Android platform hides a number of pitfalls that are difficult to avoid for developers new to mobile platforms. There are also obstacles to monetization on Android. Vlad will share how G5 achieved success on Android and overcame these difficulties. Statistics gathered from over 10 million+ installations of G5's casual games on Android devices will be presented.
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Kaching! Where Premium Content Can Still Make Money
DeVaris BROWN, Chief Developer Evangelist, Marmalade
DeVaris is a technologist that gets his kicks from tackling difficult issues. Currently, he is employed by Marmalade as their Chief Evangelist, increasing adoption of their SDK around the world and developing partnerships with strategic third party tool companies, operators, and OEM's. Prior to joining Marmalade he was an Academic Evangelist for Microsoft for 3 years, evangelizing mobile and web to top institutions around the globe. He frequently spoke at major conferences and community events on a variety of topics.
[Email DeVaris]
With the iOS and Android stores pushing over 500k and 400k apps respectively, it's becoming increasingly harder to stand out in the crowd. By adopting cross-platform tools, developers now have proper ammunition to test new platforms with ease. These tools provide gateways into less crowded spaces and give developers the opportunity to make more money.
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The Evolution of Brand Advertising: How Brands Are Changing Game Monetization
Jim GERBER, SVP of Sales, TrialPay
Jim is responsible for publisher partnerships and business development at TrialPay. Prior to TrialPay, Jim spent 8 years at Google, most recently as Senior Director of Partnerships. At Google, Jim worked on various initiatives with publishers across products such as AdSense, Book Search and News, among others. Earlier in his career, Jim managed sales and business development teams at companies including Ashford.com and Clarify Software. Jim holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford.
[Email Jim]
Companies have already started to spend more on online content to reach out to the hundreds of millions of people on Facebook rather than simply buying ads. Sony is reallocating 30% of its ad budget to social sites while Diageo (maker of Smirnoff and Guinness) has pledged more than $10 million this September to advertising on Facebook.
The influx of brand dollars presents a unique opportunity for game publishers to thoughtfully and creatively integrate brands into the game experience. Instead of simply adding an offer wall to the payment page or putting disruptive banners inside the game, game publishers can now leverage brand ads to both increase revenue and enhance gameplay. -
2012 – All Aboard, the Connected TV Game Train is Leaving the Station
Jonathan YAARI, Founder & CEO, Appside, Inc.
Jonathan Yaari is the founder and CEO of appside – the
world’s first gesture-controlled apps and games marketplace. Prior to founding appside, Jonathan served as a SVP and head of global VAS at Comverse (NASDAQ: CMVT). Before Comverse, Jonathan headed Western Europe at Pontis – a venture-backed startup providing targeted marketing solution to mobile operators.
Prior to Pontis, Jonathan served in a variety of marketing, and product management positions at Comverse Multimedia Messaging (MMS) Business Unit where he part of the founding team, white.cell – where he led the definition of the company first product offering, and others.
[Email Jonathan]
SmartTVs are coming of age. So is the gesture-controlled living room, which will soon become a reality. Encouraged by the phenomenal success of Microsoft’s Kinect, computing giants(e.g., Asus, Intel, Lenovo) and TV manufacturers (e.g., LG, Samsung), are rolling out gesture-controlled media centers, set-top boxes and SmartTVs.
Throughout this session, we'll discuss the potential of this emerging market, the implications for casual games developers and best practices how to build gesture-controlled games which are compelling, exciting and fun. -
The New BlackBerry: We Play!
Volker HIRSCH, Global Head of Business Development – Games, Research In Motion
Volker is the Global Head of Business Development – Games for Reseach In Motion (BlackBerry) where he arrived via the acquisition of mobile social gaming platform Scoreloop where he was Chief Strategy Officer. He is also a co-founder of Blue Beck, a game and app development studio.
Volker has been in mobile since 1999. He worked with music artists like Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg and Duran Duran on the world’s first mobile artist services and has been in the mobile games sector almost from its start with Mforma/Hands-On Mobile and Connect2Media (which he co-founded) where he oversaw licensing and corporate development and worked with Marvel, Hasbro, Activision, LEGO, BMW, Konami, the World Poker Tour, Universal, Viacom, and many developers along the way. He also struck more than 200 distribution deals with carriers and OEM around the world.
Volker is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He regular speaks at top mobile and technology conferences around the world (incl. Mobile World Congress, CTIA, Oxford University, SXSW, MIP TV, etc.) and is a co-organiser of TEDx Youth @ Manchester. He blogs at http://vhirsch.com/blog and tweets @vhirsch.
[Email Volker]
Volker will introduce the audience to the new Blackberry platform, demonstrate its advantages and explain why and how it can and will be relevant as a platform of choice. Attendees will find out why BlackBerry's platform is easy to address, powerful socially and offering great monetization opportunities - also for games!
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App Discovery: How to Get Your Content In Front Of Your Audience
Oscar CLARK, Evangelist, PapayaMobile
Oscar Clark, Evangelist for Papaya Mobile, the leading mobile games social network, has been involved with putting social and games together since 1998. His career has been at the cutting edge of online, mobile and console social games and includes roles at British Telecom (Wireplay), Hutchinson Whampoa (3UK) and Sony's PlayStation Home.
[Email Oscar]
The rise of AppStore has revolutionized the way we consume content on mobile and opened up the market for every developer on the merits of their content. However, the sheer volume of applications added each day makes it nearly impossible to be found. This presentation will look at the different techniques to help players discover your content and in particular the role of Social Discovery.
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Sex and the App Store: Finding Love for Your Mobile Game
Julia LEBEDEVA, Head of PR & Advertising, Nevosoft
Julia joined Nevosoft and the casual video games industry as a public relations manager in 2009 and took a fresh look at interacting with the casual games audiences. She has a master's degree in linguistics and more than three years experience in the entertainment industry, first working as a PR manager and announcer and then as the program director at a radio station. Now Julia is a head of advertising & PR department and her responsibilities include planning PR campaigns, interaction with mass media and working with the players on the Nevosoft’s Russian portal. She also coordinates Nevosoft's participation at various conferences, prepares marketing materials and makes presentations. In addition to her PR duties, Ms. Lebedeva acts as a partner relations manager, responsible for finding new game content and localizing it into Russian.
[Email Julia]
Publishing mobile games on the App Store is not as simple as it can seem. With more than 500 000 apps already published on the App Store, just having a great product is not enough. How can you reach millions of users, climb the charts and earn millions of dollars? A successful publisher knows the answers, and Julia Lebedeva from Nevosoft will compare the experience of launching App Store hits… with the experience of dating. How to get a date, have it the way you want it and live happily ever after? Get ready to see that on the App Store everything works exactly like in a real life.
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Monetizing Each of Your Games on a Dedicated Website - Taking a Different Angle for Game Monetization
Konrad HOLUBEK, Head of Communication for Games Passport, Mediastay
Konrad Holubek is Head of Communication for Games Passport at Mediastay and as such deals with the overall communication of the Games Passport network and platform. Prior to entering the fun world of gaming, Konrad worked as a business developer for various industries in Poland, Austria and Spain.
[Email Konrad]
This presentation will explain how a platform is taking an innovative approach to help game developers monetize their content. Contrary to traditional game portals, we will analyze a network of casual games where each one of them have a dedicated website and where the platform directly handles all user acquisition (sourcing traffic, end user registration, activation) and monetization (advertisements, microtransactions, loyalty programs). In addition, we will look at how the platform works and what the key metrics are, based on a real-life case study.
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What's a Mobile Game Anyway
Marc HEHMEYER, CTO, Fishlabs Entertainment
Following his studies of Computer Science at the University of Paderborn, Marc was responsible for graphics and environments in virtual reality tank combat simulators at Atlas Elektronik GmbH. He then moved on to being technical director overseeing the work on MMOGs and online racing games at Paraworld. Ever since the founding days of FISHLABS in 2004 Marc has been CTO and chief developer of the mobile games engine ABYSS®. He has technical responsibility for all of FISHLABS’ titles. Furthermore, in the area of OpenGL ES he is working closely with NOKIA, Sony Ericsson and NVIDIA in the field of pre-loading Fishlabs games on mobile devices.
[Email Marc]With smartphones and tablets featuring rendering power at console level, evolving digital download platforms for PC and console games, cross-platform engines running inside internet browsers and, fueled by LTE networks, cloud gaming services finally merging also into mobile, the lines between gaming platforms are blurring more and more. Theoretically, any game can run on any platform. At first glance, this seems to offer great opportunities for developers to reach new audiences. However, every platform has its own challenges and not every game is suited to go cross-platform. Having released Galaxy on Fire 2 almost code-identical across various mobile and PC platforms starting from a 1 MB to 1 GB footprint version, Marc Hehmeyer, CTO of Fishlabs, will talk about the technical challenges but also the opportunities in bringing a mobile game to other platforms. Developers will learn how to cope with different graphics APIs like OpenGL and DirectX as well as different sound APIs and engines, how to adapt the mobile controls to keyboard, mouse and game pad as well as dealing with screen sizes from standard iPhone resolution all the way to the Apple Cinema display.
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Of Cardboard And Pixels: What Happens When Boardgames Meet Smartphones?
Yann CORNO, Co-founder & CTO, Days of Wonder
After a successful entrepreneur experience in Silicon Valley during the 90's as co-founder and CTO of 3D software maker Ray Dream, in 2002 Yann Corno co-founded board and online games publisher Days of Wonder. Yann drives all of the company’s digital games development on many target platforms: Web, iOS, Mac OS X and Steam.
[Email Yann]Days of Wonder, a publisher of the award-winning Ticket to Ride, Small World, and Memoir '44 board games has always developed digital versions of its games in parallel with the cardboard versions, since its founding in 2002. In line with this unusual strategy, Yann Corno will describe the recent developments of the company on the iOS market - both for the iPad and iPhone. Discussion will cover all aspects, including game design choices, technical issues and business results.
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It's Not Just About The Payment Methods - Monetizing in Latin America
Ricardo CARVALHO, Co-founder & Managing Partner, TIMWE
Ricardo is a co-founder and Managing Partner of TIMWE, a global provider of mobile monetization solutions, with operations in more than 75 markets in five continents, managed through 26 offices. Having launched TIMWE operations in LATAM in 2003, Ricardo continues to head TIMWE’s business in the region.
Prior to TIMWE, Ricardo was an entrepreneur and an advisor in the digital and technology arenas for 12 years. Before 2000, Ricardo owned and managed the sports web portal infodesporto.pt, which he co-founded in 1996, and sold to Portugal Telecom in 2000. Between 2000 and 2003, Ricardo was strategic advisor to leading mobile marketing and entertainment firms. Between 2000 and 2001, Ricardo was a Board Advisor of the leading Portuguese media group Cofina, specializing in Media, Internet and CRM fields.
[Email Ricardo]
The world of mobile monetization is changing rapidly and companies need to constantly update their methods to answer demands of the growing public, of the shifting markets and the always evolving technology. In large part, Latin America has remained an un-tapped market and virtual goods sales are expected to increase strongly by 2014.
With a vast experience in emerging markets, we aim to share our knowledge of what makes the monetizing world go round in LatAm and discuss the importance of localization and carrier billing as a way to get ahead, focusing on the Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Peru markets. TIMWE’s focus is in the most effective way to monetize mobile marketing and entertainment content and the several steps for that goal to be achieved.
This session will explore the difficult challenges of developing and monetizing a successful mobile app to reach your audience when extending a social game into the mobile market. Using user survey results, as well as user data and purchasing trends, this session will look at how users interact within a mobile app and where there are opportunities to profit from user interactions. -
Online Marketing Under Pressure: How to Market Smarter, Not Harder
Oliver KERN, Director of Performance and Intelligence, iQU
Oliver Kern is Director of Performance and Intelligence at iQU, where he oversees the development of IQU Performance Network and GameriQU, a sophisticated platform for mapping gamer behavior across platforms.
Prior to joining iQU, Oliver was Head of Online Strategy at Jagex, the UK’s largest independent games developer and publisher. While at Jagex, he set up the marketing department and defined the online and publishing strategy for the company. Prior to that he was leading the International Marketing at Oberon Media. His experience in the online games industry includes tactics such as paid search, SEO, display media, affiliation, social media, content aggregation and syndication, game monetization, micropayments and more.
[Email Oliver]
Player acquisition costs are skyrocketing and more and more games are flooding the market. Is your marketing plan still achievable? According to research by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) analyzing large data sets—so-called big data—will become a key basis of competition, innovation, and consumer surplus. This session will show how this applies to the world of online games and how online marketers and game publishers can escape the growing pressure from spiraling player acquisition costs.
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From Showboating to Show Jumping: How NaturalMotion Went Freemium
Struan ROBERTSON, Product Director, NaturalMotion
Struan Robertson held a variety of senior roles in production and design before joining NaturalMotion Games as Product Director. He has played an active role in the development of the Championship Manager franchise on consoles and handhelds as well as producing a variety of golf, cricket and sports products from console games and MMOs to Facebook titles and serious advertising games. At NaturalMotion Games, Struan is responsible for delivery of all internally and externally developed games.
[Email Struan]
Moving from making premium iOS games to free-to-play games can be a challenge for mobile games developers. Come listen to Struan Robertson as he reflects on NaturalMotion’s transition from making premium iPhone games such as Backbreaker and Jenga to free-to-play games like My Horse.
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Big Games Become Location-Enabled, or Increasing Engagement and Revenue with Location Features
Christian PETERSEN, VP of Community, CloudMade
Christian has over 20 years of experience within online and mobile app industry. He has worked internationally as an expert on mobile applications and advergaming for companies such as Macromedia, Microsoft, Symbian, Kellogg's, LEGO, Mars, and Nestle. Christian’s current role - VPof Community at CloudMade – involves regular communication with top game developers and publishers and provides a clear understanding of the main trends and challenges of the gaming market. Christian is a frequent speaker at mobile and developer conferences, the most recent examples – Mobile 2.0 and Where 2.0.
[Email Christian]In 2011 more and more game developers started to use the player’s location and things around the player as parts of the game, realizing that this can enhance engagement, drive word-of-mouth promotion and open up unprecedented monetization opportunities that not only drive revenue, but also add value for the players.
But what was really happening in the market was that, having lots of cool ideas for using location and being aware of the benefits it can bring, many mobile developers were still waiting for one of the big guys to make their top game location-enabled and show the whole world how exciting this can be
With the first big titles already out there and things really getting traction with location in games, it is about time to start thinking how YOUR game be enhanced with location. -
Social to Mobile: How to Build and Engage a Profitable Mobile App Audience
Celia FRANCIS, CEO, WeeWorld
Celia Francis, CEO of WeeWorld, has two decades of experience leading innovative mobile and internet companies. Currently, Celia sets the strategic direction for WeeWorld’s continued growth and innovation as a popular mobile and internet entertainment company.
A proven leader spanning industries such as consumer electronics, the Internet, media and mobile, Celia has developed and managed a plethora of original, well-designed and fun consumer experiences. Previously, Celia lead product development and marketing efforts for T-Mobile as EVP of Marketing.
Prior to T-Mobile, Celia worked at IDEO, one of the world’s leading product design consultancies. As VP of Marketing for Xtime, she helped grow the company from five individuals to 50 employees. In addition, Celia also served as Director of Marketing for AltaVista and as Director of the Consumer Internet Division for Compaq. Celia began her career in product and graphic design and advertising.
Celia earned a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, as well as an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
[Email Celia]
The evolution of mobile apps, and specifically the transition of an online social game to the mobile environment, requires a keen knowledge of your audience to stand out from the competition and to successfully extend your brand.
This session will explore the difficult challenges of developing and monetizing a successful mobile app to reach your audience when extending a social game into the mobile market. Using user survey results, as well as user data and purchasing trends, this session will look at how users interact within a mobile app and where there are opportunities to profit from user interactions. -
Mobile Mad Men: Acquiring and Monetizing Mobile Users
Nick BHARDWAJ, VP of Revenue, NaturalMotion
Nick Bhardwaj is the VP of Monetization and User Acquisition at NaturalMotion. NaturalMotion is a leading game technology and development company based in Oxford and San Francisco that is developing highly differentiated next-gen console and iPhone games. Bringing extensive experience from the advertising industry, Nick served as a Business Development Executive for W3i, a mobile advertising network. He has worked directly with top gaming studios to develop user acquisition strategies and new revenue models while providing insight on mobile game development, mechanics and heuristics. Nick is also an advisor and angel investor to mobile gaming and tech startups in the Silicon Valley.
[Email Nick]
Acquiring users and monetizing an application can be very difficult with so many companies and such little information. How does a developer find networks who are looking to build a partnership rather than make a quick buck? What is the right price point a studio should be acquiring users at?
Nick will explore key questions and stipulations gaming studios should be asking for when signing contracts with mobile ad networks, review current offerings and platforms in the space, and provide insight on how NaturalMotion has developed their own user acquisition and monetization channels.
Lastly, Nick will present case studies from NaturalMotion titles and share performance targets from major game studios in the industry to bridge the existing knowledge gap between developers and users. -
Improvise to Monetize: The Journey from Paid Download to In-app Purchase
Christian KLUCKNER, Managing Director & Co-founder, Chimera Entertainment
Christian Kluckner is Managing Director and co-founder of the independent games developer Chimera Entertainment. The company was founded by Christian, Creative Director Alexander Kehr and the production company remote control productions in 2006 in Germany. Christian acted as project manager for most of Chimeras earlier titles, including their PC debut “Windchaser”, and by now the company has specialized in browser and mobile games. Christian and his team have worked on more than ten titles, and he regularly speaks at national and international conferences and industry events.
[Email Christian]
During the last year, buying behavior of the average App Store user changed rapidly. While developing physics-based puzzler “Happy Hills” for iOS and Android, developer and publisher were forced to reconsider the monetization model of their game while it was nearly finished.
Christian will present a case study, offering a short overview of the most important aspects of developing a cross-platform mobile title using Unity3D. He will point out pitfalls and best practices, focusing on the monetization aspects of the game as well as on the challenges presented in the wake of changing the way it was meant to be played.
While the game was being developed, learnings from previous titles were already being taken into account, but with a new genre and a new monetization model to boot, things were upside down again, and the development team strived to keep up with the growing demand of quality and customer satisfaction – the highest possible entertainment for the lowest possible price. -
Social Gaming Crystal Ball: 2012 Edition
Dave ROHRL, Creative Director, Playdom
David Rohrl is a Creative Director at Playdom where he develops the creative vision and manages the design process for many current and upcoming Playdom games. Rohrl has over 15 years of game development experience and previously occupied senior production and game design roles at Zynga, PopCap, EA/Pogo and The Learning Company. He has produced more than two-dozen published titles—most notably, Word Whomp and Tumble Bees —and has served as managing producer on a dozen more. A respected industry thought leader, Rohrl was a long time organizer of the annual Casual Games Summit, he chairs the IGDA Casual Games SIG, and and speaks regularly at major industry events.
[Email Dave]
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Growing Big on Facebook: A Case Study
Dan LAUGHLIN, Executive Director Business Development, 6waves Lolapps
Dan Laughlin is the Executive Director of Business Development at 6waves Lolapps, where he is responsible for setting strategy and growing the company’s global portfolio of developer partnerships. Since joining the 6waves Lolapps team in early 2011, Dan has played a key role in solidifying the company’s position as the largest publisher of independent games on Facebook. Prior to joining the company, Dan worked at Microsoft Game Studios, where he gained a balanced understanding of game development via positions as a Lead Producer and a Senior Business Development Manager. Dan also spent time at Thomson Reuters and MarketOne International. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a BA from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
[Email Dan]
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Mathematical Analysis of Game Mechanics
Nick BERRY, President, DataGenetics
Nick Berry is the President of DataGenetics, a consultancy firm specializing in data mining and privacy. Although educated as a rocket scientist and aircraft designer, Nick has worked in the casual games industry for over a dozen years, including over ten years at Microsoft, and more recently, as the GM for Analytics at GameHouse.
[Email Nick]
An increasingly larger number of games are being developed using the freemium payment model. These games use in-app currency to unlock features in the game, and this currency can either be earned or purchased with hard currency.
A well balanced game controls the sources and sinks of in-app currency helping keep the game stable. If, however, a game is release that is too 'loose', the resultant devaluation of the currency could cause rampant inflation, eliminating the need for external currency and damaging profitability.
Game modeling is essential to balance the mechanics of a game (and to make it fun to play).
This presentation will walk through a selection of mathematical techniques that can be used to model games to understand how often players win, and how long average games take.
The presentation will feature walk-through examples of the application of these techniques on half a dozen classic card and board games. -
Design Meets Data: Creating Social Games That Delight Players
Cara ELY, Creative Director, Zynga
Cara Ely is a Creative Director at Zynga Inc. based in both Seattle and San Francisco. Her responsibilities include leading the creative team for the launch of Zynga’s first social hidden object game, Hidden Chronicles.
Cara has been making casual games since 2000, and has shipped more than 60 titles as a Creative Director, Designer, or Producer. Prior to joining Zynga, she was the Creative Director and Designer at I-play Games where she created the Dream Day series, which generated more than 60 million downloads. Cara also worked on the best-selling You Don’t Know Jack and Hoyle Games series during her time at Sierra Online.
Cara was previously named as one of the 100 top women in Seattle tech, and her expertise in casual gaming has been featured in both Seattle Women and Seattle Business Magazines. When she is not playing hidden object or puzzle games, she is always ready for a round of Yahtzee.
[Email Cara]
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Now You Have Analytics…So What? How to Build a Team, Culture & Process to Actually Do Something With It!
Dan KIMBALL, CMO, Kontagent
Nikita VLADIMIROV, Consultant, MTG Online
Dan Kimball is CMO at Kontagent, the leading provider of user analytics to social and mobile businesses. Prior to joining Kontagent, Dan held several senior marketing roles in various industries, including Financial Services, Consumer Internet, B2B SaaS and some time as a partner at a digital agency. Most recently, Dan served as CMO and head of product management for Jobfox, one of the web’s leading job boards and an innovator in the emerging social recruiting space.
Dan is fascinated by the transformation and convergence that is occurring across the web, social and mobile mediums, and the unique challenges this movement is creating for businesses across every industry.
[Email Dan]
Now that you have the data, what's the plan? Using customer data to understand and optimize your social or mobile game can produce huge returns. But, there are also dangers of relying too heavily on data without the proper level of controls, data science and overall process. Fortunately, there are now tools, technology and talent available in the market that are enabling forces for studios who want to be more data-driven. This session will analyze what it takes to become a data-driven organization, and look at some lessons learned from our experience working with some of the top grossing social and mobile game studios.
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Lunch Session With Google
Jumpstart Your Game with Google!Konstantin DIETERLE, Account Manager Gaming, Google
Marc PREUSCHE, Startup Consultant, Google
Konstantin is managing and supporting Germany based online gaming customers with their online/performance marketing strategies. He has a deep understanding of the Google Display Network and has developed successful YouTube and Mobile Games Strategies in Europe.
Konstantin joined Google in August 2010, after his previous experience at Oracle as a Business Development Consultant.
[Email Konstantin]
Although he takes care of startups in general, young gaming companies are still Marc's favorites! For almost 2.5 years he has been satisfying his personal and professional interest in games at Google, consulting in all Google advertising matters and helping games companies scale their business internationally.
[Email Marc]
More and more games and gaming companies are entering the competitive market and it has become increasingly important to find the right approach to do so. As a strong partner Google offers numerous ways of advertising your game. The great potential and reach of channels like the Google Display Network, YouTube, Search and Mobile will be presented in this session.
The session will start at 12:15. Bring your lunch - we have cookies. -
Big IP - Big Gains?
Ralf ADAM, Head of Game Development, Travian Games
Malte BARTH, Co-founder & Executive Director, IconicFuture
Jan WAGNER, CEO, Cliffhanger Productions
Christian GODORR, Head of Game Design & Item Selling, Bigpoint
Christian SAUER, Head of Product Management, gamigo
discussion led by Heiko KLINGE, Editor-in-Chief,
IDG Entertainment
Ralf Adam got his start in the computer game industry in 1993. Since then he has worked for a multitude of publishers and developers in different positions, among them Infogrames/Atari, Gameforge, Sunflowers Entertainment and JoWooD Productions. His portfolio also includes freelance work for Disney Interactive, Eidos and Vivendi Universal as well as writing for numerous games magazines.
With experience and expertise in producing, writing, game design, localisation and project management, Ralf has contributed to a wide variety of titles such as "Desperados 1 & 2 " (Spellbound/Atari), "Die Gilde 1 & 2 (The Guild)" (4Head/Jowood), "Spell Force - The order of dawn" (Phenomic/Jowood), "Sacred: Underworld" (Ascaron), "ParaWorld" (SEK/Sunflowers), "Die Siedler 6" (Blue Byte/Ubisoft) and - more recently in the F2P segment - "Ikariam", "Gilde1400" or "Star Trek: Infinite Space" (all Gameforge).
Ralf now works at Travian Games, one the leading European provider for browser games, where he fills the position as Head of Game Development.
[Email Ralf]
Malte is an entrepreneur in digital media. After 15 years in Consulting and Corporate Finance with global accounts in Europe, Asia and the US, he is actively driving his own businesses. Malte´s online gaming expertise stems from the industry’s early days in China and South Korea. In his capacity as Financial Advisor, he helped Asian online and social-gaming companies in cross-border transactions. In transferring his early online-gaming expertise from Asia to Europe and the US, Malte helped both media clients and financial investors take advantage of their opportunities in his role as Financial and Strategic Advisor – and also as acting Executive in the online gaming domain. As Online Gaming Financial Advisor, he published research on the online and mobile gaming market segments. On the rights-in side, Malte advised major clients in sport as well as TV entertainment world. He holds a degree in Business Management and Industrial Engineering from Nordakademie, Germany.
[Email Malte]
Jan Wagner has been involved in the industry for almost 20 years with his experience spanning producing, PR and product management along with QA, localization and game design. He was Head of Product Management at Vivendi Universal Games and worked on over 100 titles during this time including Half Life, Warcraft, Empire Earth and Diablo. Trying to get back to the creative side of the industry, he co-founded a consulting agency whose customers included Blizzard Europe, Vivendi Universal, Massive Development, Tilted Mill and JoWooD and worked on titles like SpellForce, Gothic and Ground Control. He went on to found Cliffhanger Productions, a production studio, with his partner Michael Paeck in 2006 trying to support the creation of more original games. Cliffhanger now focuses on premium browser and trans-platform games like it’s upcoming Jagged Alliance Online and new project Shadowrun Online.
[Email Jan]
Christian Godorr is Head of Game Design & Item Selling at Bigpoint. Christian started in 2006 as Producer and oversaw the creation and development of Dark Orbit. A game which soon became one of the most successful browser games in history. He now is responsible for managing the game design department as well as overseeing game balancing and virtual economies for all Bigpoint games.
Christian established the foundation for Bigpoint’s successful virtual item-based business model. He has built a strong game design team, responsible for concepting and balancing new products and product updates. His main focus is on balancing the games by analyzing the player’s needs and monetizing the audience without ignoring the “fun-factor”.
Christian has been working in the online games industry for 13 years, gaining an excellent knowledge of game design, game balancing and virtual economies. He studied Media Informatics, Philosophy and Social Science at the University of Hildesheim and Hannover.
[Email Christian]
Heiko Klinge has been working as a games journalist since November 2000, starting as an editor for GameStar, Germany’s largest-selling PC gaming magazine. In summer 2005 he, together with Game Star and GamePro editors-in-chief Gunnar Lott and André Horn, conceived /GameStar/dev, which was renamed to Making Games Magazine at the beginning of 2008 and which has become Germany’s leading specialist publication for game development with more than 10,000 readers. Since June 2009 Heiko Klinge has been supervising all B2B activities of IDG Entertainment Media GmbH, including not only the Making Games Magazine but also the recruiting event Making Games Talents, the Key Players trade directory as well as “gamescom Jobs & Career”.
[Email Heiko]
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Using Analytics to Take Your Mobile Games to the Next Level
Richard FIRMINGER, MD Europe, Flurry
As Managing Director of Europe, Richard leads the company’s UK office as well as advertiser sales and publisher relationships across Europe. Prior to Flurry, Richard led the digital media sales team for Amazon in Europe. Prior to Amazon, Richard was Commercial Director for Northern Europe for Yahoo!, UK MD for Enpocket (sold to Nokia to become Nokia Media Business in 2006), UK Deputy MD & BD Director for AdLink (a direct response media sales organization, sold to HiMedia in 2009) and the first UK Commercial Director for DoubleClick, subsequently sold to AdLink in 2001. Prior to DoubleClick Richard spent nearly 10 years in B2B publishing in tech press on titles such as Computing and Personal Computer World and during this time he launched Information Week and Computer Reseller News in the UK for CMP Media.
[Email Richard]
Flurry Analytics gather more insight into mobile application usage than any other company. Flurry Analytics is used by over 50,000 companies inside 125,000 applications across iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and J2ME. Flurry tracks over 20 billion use sessions per month across more than 330 million unique devices. Flurry receives over 15,000 session reports per second, which equates to handling data volume that is three times the size of Twitter. This session will demonstrate how Flurry Analytics helps mobile application developers make better apps, deepen consumer engagement and improve monetization of their applications.
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Using Predictive Analytics to Drive Game Personalization
Chris WRIGHT, CEO & Co-founder, GamesAnalytics
In 2010 Wright co-founded GamesAnalytics, a data mining and monetization company serving the games industry, with Mark Robinson. The company aim is to bring the sophisticated analytics and monetization tools of the financial sector to the games industry. Prior to GamesAnalytics, Wright spearheaded an independent consultancy business called Games Consultancy Ltd. At Games Consultancy Wright provided operational and strategic consultancy to major publishers including Capcom, Microsoft and EA, alongside a number of game development studios and government agencies.
[Email Chris]
How far should analytics go to create individual gaming experiences? Analytics is much more than data collection and dashboards. Predictive modeling enables behavioral segmentation which is actionable not only through marketing but also game design. Analytics opens up a huge opportunity to build personal game experiences that are based on how the player plays the game. Do players want games that adapt and predict how they will play, and is this creating a gaming big brother?
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Going Core on the Browser - How to Make Jagged Alliance Into a Browser Game
Michael PAECK, Co-Founder, Cliffhanger Productions
Michael Paeck has been active within the games industry since 1997, both in the development and publishing. He opened his own development studio at the age of 20, selling over a million units of his games across. He sold the studio to JoWooD Productions AG and became the Development Director and Executive Producer for titles such as SpellForce and Gothic. He co-founded Cliffhanger Productions in 2006 and bootstrapped the development studio from 2 to20 people within a year. He is one of the rare people who own a cat and a dog.
[Email Michael]
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How to Teach Your Robot Unicorn to Attack — Growing Small Games Into Multi-Platform Hits
Jeff OLSEN, VP Digital & Games, Adult Swim
Jeff Olsen is the Vice President of Adult Swim Digital and spearheaded the creation of Adult Swim Games. The last time he checked, Adult Swim Games had published more Top 100 Paid Apps than any major media company.
[Email Jeff]
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The Game Life-Cycle and Game Analytics: What Metrics Matter When?
Mark GAZECKI, Chairman, HoneyTracks
Mark is a serial entrepreneur having founded several venture capital backed companies in the online games and Internet sectors. He co-founded HoneyTracks, a company providing a game analytics solution for all types of online and mobile games. Earlier he founded MegaZebra, one of Europe’s leading social games companies, and GameGenetics, a game content & distribution service provider. Outside the games industry he started companies such as www.wirwinzer.de, an online wine-shop where customers can order wine.
[Email Mark]
„What are the three most important game metrics?“ is a frequently posed question. In this session we will actually bust that bubble and propose that different metrics matter at different stages during the life-cycle of a game.
Whether a game is in its early stages of a launch or whether a game is a couple of years old typically plays a role in terms of what game developers and publishers are primarily working on to make their game successful. Correspondingly, the metrics that should be tracked and analysed vary over time. The session will include practical examples of typical analyses and analysis steps. We will also cover whether and how game-metrics vary for different games over their respective life-cycles.
Finally, we will provide pointers as to how game developers and publishers can set up a system that addresses the needs of tracking and analysing metrics over the life-time of a game and to derive actionable insights – both very specifically in the game and also from an overall company perspective. -
Balancing Virtual Economies in free2play Games
Julian HUEHNERMANN, Head of Partnerships & Revenue Strategies, Neonga AG
The aim of this session is to give an overview of the elements of free2play economies and practical approaches for balancing those economies based on in-depth industry insights. Julian applies hands-on experience for creating game mechanics that drive consumption and monetization of Virtual Goods in free2play economies. He will also discuss how to put Game Design into the bigger picture of free2play consumer behavior, and establishing useful KPIs for actionably measuring economy performance.
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Online-transplatform: Success Factors and Pitfalls of Cross-Platform Gaming
Michael KALKOWSKI, Co-founder & Creative Director, GameDuell
Michael is co-founder and Creative Director of GameDuell and is responsible for the company's games, websites, and player communities. He has produced more than 60 casual and social games and has a passion for creating great teams and products that people love. Michael started his ventures as a serial entrepreneur 12 years ago as a founder of dooyoo.com. In his previous life he worked as an international product and marketing consultant. He holds several business degrees from Germany and an MBA from Eastern Illinois University (USA).
[Email Michael]
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Developing Cross-platform Experiences
Alex NICHIPORCHIK, Business Development, Spil Games
As a member of Spil Games team, Alex promotes gaming portals and new projects. His marketing and SEO strategy insured the leading position of Spil Games (www.ourgames.ru, www.ggg.ru, www.flashgames.ru) sites on the Russian games market. In his free time Alex takes to hardcore games design.
[Email Alex]
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Game Design & Business Models: Exploring the Future of Online Games
Neil HARRIS, President and COO, HeroEngine
Neil has more than 30 years of gaming, software and technology management experience in personal computer hardware, online and gaming. He is the president of HeroEngine, and held executive and management positions with Simutronics, GE, Atari and Commodore. Neil holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business & Management from the University of Maryland and Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
[Email Neil]
Business models continue to evolve and game designers are expected to keep up. There is huge potential in online games. We haven't even begun to explore the full potential yet. There will be new business strategies and more ways where game design and business model have to play together.
Lately, there has been much talk from game designers about the challenges of game design in a world of microtransactions. Under the micro-transaction model audience maximization is even more important. Game play becomes even simpler and designers try to build engagement – easier in a hard-core player base but more challenging with a mass audience. Measurement systems and ability to adapt become crucial to success.
Using the history of game design and online business models as a starting point and to provide some perspective, we will explore what the future may hold for online games. -
Speed = Strategy
Ole SCHAPER, CEO, Splitscreen Studios GmbH
Ole is Co-Founder and CEO of Splitscreen Games. Splitscreen has designed a unique development technology which enables game developers to efficiently develop high quality games for multiple platforms. Splitscreen has successfully released the high quality 3D Browser MMOs Pirate Galaxy and Steel Legions. Dino Storm, the newest game with stunning 3D graphics and thrilling storyline will come out in January 2012. Ole has studied engineering at FH Wedel. Before founding Splitscreen, he has worked for Elkware and Bigpoint and obtained a deep game development knowledge in the mobile and online games area.
[Email Ole]
How to win the competition by focusing on speed as a business strategy and how it is applied to game development.
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Lessons From the 90's: What We Believed Then and Why it Matters Now
Don McCLURE, Senior Producer, Playdom
A designer, director, and producer of AAA titles throughout the 90’s, and re-entering the industry in 2011, Don McClure provides a unique perspective of game development lessons learned in the 90’s that can be useful in the casual market of today.
Prior to returning to the game industry as a Sr. Producer at Playdom, Don founded and ran for ten years a global outsource engineering company and adobe plugin publisher, Digital Element. Digital Element clients included AutoDesk, NVIDIA, the Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and Red Giant Software.
Don McClure has design and production credit in games in a variety of genres from 1989 to 1999, including Panzer General, Missionforce: Cyvberstorm, Uprising, the new Tetris, Shadowrun SNES, AD&D Goldbox Series from SSI, Darksun I, Darksun II, and A-64 Silent Thunder.
[Email Don]
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Playing With the Monster: How to Build a Successful Trans-media Project
Ida BRINCK-LUND, CEO and Co-founder, Art of Crime
Ida is currently co-owner of Art of Crime ApS, 38 years old, married and has a ten-year old daughter. Prior to this company she’s been an entrepreneur in 2002, coming from the established media world of Children’s TV, Youth Radio and Magazines in Denmark (DR TV, TV2, Chili Media etc.). The urge to rethink business models and content for the future drove her and her partner then to create mobile games, TV animations with a twist etc. from 2002 to 2008 including consultancy, PR, marketing and creation work for Disney Channel, Oxygen Magasiner etc. The idea of a fully-branded universe has grown through many stages in her life – and latest as a mom to a tween herself. This led to the birth of the current trans-media company Art of Crime which has developed the full trans-media concept Crimeville for tweens with a team from LEGO, Nickelodeon, A-film and many others. Ida is renowned for breaking doors open with her entrepreneurship, her passion for joining forces with great talents and her hurricane-sized laugh. For more information go visit www.artofcrime.com or go to www.crimeville.com.
[Email Ida]
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Dos and Don’ts for Making Money On Multiple Platforms
Ivo WUBBELS, CEO, Engine Software
Ivo Wubbels is the Chief Executive Officer of Engine Software and is responsible for long term operations, financial control and company policy. Ivo was actively involved in game development for over sixty commercially released games as programmer, producer and executive producer. Being one of the founding members of Engine Software in 1995, Ivo has over thirteen years of professional experience in the games industry in both games, and business development.
[Email Ivo]
Over the last year, many indie studios have become very successful thanks to their new and creative games. Working as an indie studio has many advantages over working with publishers, mostly creative freedom. As soon as you develop a successful game, it is very appealing to go multiplatform and increase revenues. Publishers and other developers will get in touch, as they want to do multiplatform business with you. How do you handle this? What is important to know about technical and business sides of going multiplatform? In addition, when do you need to prepare for this step? Join Ivo Wubbles as he talks about the dos and don'ts for increasing revenues by bringing your game to other platforms.
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Eastern European Development Market
Tatiana CHERNOVA, VP of Strategy Development, Alawar Entertainment
Tatiana joined Alawar Entertainment, the leading international publisher and distributor of casual games, in 2004. In July 2010, she became VP of strategy development, responsible for the development of Alawar's strategy, analytics, market research and the flow of information between the company divisions. Prior to the appointment, she was acting as the director of marketing communications and PR, in charge of public relations, events and market analysis to promote Alawar Entertainment on the international stage. Tatiana is an advisor to the Casual Games Association (CGA). In this role, she helps to organize Casual Connect Kyiv and supports other events the association hosts. Before joining Alawar, Tatiana worked as a journalist and a TV show host. She graduated from Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University with a degree in linguistics and Novosibirsk State University with a degree in economics.
[Email Tatiana]
Each day, the video game industry evolves. New platforms, monetization and product promotion models constantly appear. Besides monitoring consumer preferences, i.e., what players look for when choosing a game, what is currently popular, etc., installing base devices and marketing business models, it is also necessary for developers, publishers and distributors to analyze the behavior of other market participants in order to create trends, and not just to merely follow them. Tatiana Chernova, Alawar Entertainment’s VP for Strategy, will report on the Eastern European development market, taking into account the required changes in development, such as market shifts from games as products to games as a service support approach. Tatiana will compare past statistics with up-to-date data in order to provide an accurate account of what Eastern European game development studios are currently working on, while spotlighting their various geographical locations and niches upon which they focus. In addition, she will discuss Alawar's own experiences in cooperating with dozens of game studios. Tatiana will also speak about the inner workings of Eastern European game development and about how most casual game studios arrange development.
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Applications in the Realtime Web
Stefan LEMPER, Managing Director, cooee
Stefan Lemper, is managing director at cooee GmbH. Previously he worked for 10 years as a partner for a leading early stage Venture Capital company where he was in charge of internet, media and gaming investments. Before that he founded a start up in central Europe and worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a business consultant.
[Email Stefan]
The traditional usage of the web, social media and many social games is asynchronous. New features like Facebook feeds or Google+ hangouts or applications like Djparty.fm bring new real-time elements to the online experience. The presentation highlights some of the main challenges in terms of service design and customers management as a result of new real-time features.
Day 1 | February 7th 2012
13:30
14:30
16:30
17:30
Day 2 | February 8th 2012
11:30
13:30
13:30
14:30
14:30
15:30
15:30
16:30
16:30
Day 3 | February 9th 2012
10:30
13:30
14:30
14:30
15:30
15:30
16:30
16:30