To help you know which trends you can’t miss, here’s our roundup of three major themes likely to dominate the conversation.
1) The next step in mobile monetization
Acquire, engage and monetize. We’re now all firmly familiar with the core precepts of a sensible monetization strategy, but what comes next and how can games companies look to stay ahead?
Two talks from Amazon at the show will be looking to frame this particular debate on Day 1. Their talks about how monetization is evolving in mobile (9:30am) and an examination of what the top 50 are doing with in-app purchases (1:30pm) will kickstart the debate about what comes next in the monetization landscape.
The likes of Storm 8, Wooga and Fyber will be debating on Day 2 how to best build an effective in-house monetization platform (2:00pm). On Day 3, Wooga will be looking at how games companies move beyond LTV>CPI (1:00pm). This is going to be a particularly interesting talk due to Wooga’s role in helping to establish that phrase as an industry standard.
Finally, no conversation about the future of monetization would be complete without a talk about the increasing importance of user engagement. Our very own Chief Revenue Officer, Joanna Sammartino Bailey, will be talking about that on Day 2 (10:00am) as part of the Market Navigation track, but we also recommend Sharkpunch’s Taming the Trolls talk on Day 3 (2:30pm) which will be an interesting look into community management as a tool for engagement.
2) Redefining Indie
What is “indie”? It’s a slippery term that can refer equally as much to company size as it does to company ethos. But a quick examination of the indie post-mortems shows that the term is definitely evolving to encourage greater commercial savvy.
On the one hand, there’s a lot of typically creative indie developer talks for attendees to see - Furdemption’s post-mortem on Day 2 (11:00am) being one such example.
On the other hand, increasingly ambitious indie games companies will be telling the story of their business (as well as gaming) success. Indian developer 99 Games’ talk on the morning of Day 2 (10:00am) looks into the success of their game Star Chef. Developed independently, this free-to-play casual game helped power the studio to $7m in Series B funding.
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And we can see across the talks a similar expansion in the commercial horizons of indie developers. The panel about aiming for Triple A audio in indie games on Day 2 (4:00pm) featuring Kabam shows how production values are leveling up, while Facebook’s presence on the indie marketing panel on Day 1 (11:00am) shows how they recognize the importance of courting ambitious smaller developers.
Lastly, Zeptolab’s talk on Day 3 (11:00am). Discussing how the Russian company grew out from two-man indie studio to an international company, it’ll further underscore that the terms “indie” and “business” firmly belong together.
3) Beyond smartphone and tablets?
Finally, Casual Connect will be hosting some important conversations about whether developers need to consider going beyond mobile. At the more extreme end, Flowplay will be talking about whether a casual game should even launch on mobile first on Day 1 (3:30pm).
But most of the conversation will focus on the value of new technologies in the mobile space. Throughout Day 2, a series of speakers from the likes of Unity, Google and Epic Games will show how serious people believe the VR opportunity to be in the market.
And on Day 3, Tim Merel from Digi-Capital will discuss just how big the augmented reality opportunity could be to mobile gaming as well (10:00am) - before a panel later in the day where Rovio, Samsung and DeltaDNA will talk about practical development for new technology (2:00pm).
If you’re focused on smartphones and tablets, Tadgh Kelly’s talk on Day 2 about the 7 core questions of game design (11:00am) and the panel about creating an immersive mobile game with Dolby Technologies, Gamehouse and Present Creative (3:30pm) shows that the horse hasn’t bolted from the mobile cart quite yet.
Growmobile is offering Casual Connect-goers free 30-day access to our acquisition and engagement platforms. To sign up and learn more about our marketing solutions, visit our booth (#112) at Casual Connect San Francisco, August 8-11.
As a Senior Marketing Manager at the Growmobile team, Ellad Kushnir Matarasso is focused on establishing and building of the Growmobile brand, including brand strategy, positioning and market analysis. He manages all external marketing activities. In his spare time he never misses an episode of “The Walking Dead,” and when not being chased by zombies, he enjoys traveling.
