Game design is an art, along with being hugely technical – it’s demanding on both its creators and players. The Design & Development track at Casual Connect Tel Aviv will deal with the blood, sweat and tears that goes into creating games. The track will be launch with Jonathan Boltax, VP Business Development at TransGaming in the morning, followed up by Tapcore COO Dmitry Shkolnikov in the afternoon.
Making Free-to-Play Work
Free-to-play is the distribution system of choice for many modern developers, with ad monetization becoming an important part of the way they generate revenue. Eric Seufert, partner at Heracles Media will talk about video advertising and how mobile ads can use them well in the session Ad Monetization Design Patterns in Free-to-Play Games.
Felix Faber, Bytro Labs GmbH managing director knows all about free-to-play games, along with all the upsides and downsides of games designed around replayability. Felix will talk about the limitations in addition to the positives of such titles in a session titled High Replayability in Browser-Based Games: How to Generate It and What you Gain and Lose.
Mobile Multiplayer
Google Play has been one of the primary enablers of free-to-play games, as it’s attached to the number one operating system for mobile in terms of install base, Android. Iky Sandorffy, Head of Google Play BD Middle East & Africa, will talk about how developers can best tap into the Google Play marketplace and achieve success in the session What’s Next for Google Play: Beyond the Click, the Install and the Phone.
Mobile’s penetration has become so universal that gamers are even looking to put clan systems into their games, and in the panel Emerging Trends in Mobile Clan Systems, Huuuge Games CEO Anton Gauffin, ClanPlay co-founder and CEO Leonard Frankel, and Plarium Head of Research Yariv Ben-Zichri will discuss with moderator Aviv Frenkel, co-founder and CEO of intooiTV, about how and why clans should be integrated into various game genres.
Testing for the Right Game
Testing is a vital part of game development, and Jelly Button Games Co-founder and CTO Ron Rejwan thinks that developers should start testing even in the prototyping phase. In the session Mastering Prototyping: How to Quickly Playtest Your Game Ideas, Ron will talk about making sure gameplay ideas work as early as possible via testing. Unity Technologies will also be doing a session on game development.
While making a game, it’s become increasingly common to consider both regional and international audiences when thinking of the titles appeal. In the session Create Global, Appeal Local, Robert Pontow, VP Publishing for Active Gaming Media, will look at markets like Japan when reflecting on the challenges of localizing for certain very active markets. China is another market that’s hard for westerners to penetrate, and developers local to that area are even getting on board with a hot trend of VR. Narvalous CEO Tong Xu will talk about the major movers for the region in VR with the session titled Chinese VR Games and Their Affect on the Global VR Landscape.
D&D at Tel Aviv
Developers of all skill levels are welcome to attend Casual Connect Tel Aviv, taking place on November 1-3. The various offerings in the social and mobile landscape will be complimented by networking opportunities that will be part of the event.
For more information about the Design & Development track, please check out TelAviv.CasualConnect.org.
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