With millions of apps vying for installs, how are the top earning publishers growing and acquiring high quality users at scale? Learn from Paul West, Head of Performance for Adcolony, what is working for the top 100 apps as well as what is not. One of the insights that Paul shared from the latest App Install Survey: “There are 2M advertisers on Facebook and so game publishers are looking for new channels like video”. Tune in below to the exclusive video from the Casual Connect Europe conference to learn more about what you can do to grow your business.
Saudi Arabia is a lucrative market for mobile games, particularly due to its high concentration of heavy spenders. There is however a dearth of data to assist both foreign and local publishers to navigate with clarity and confidence. At Casual Connect Europe Amir-Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh of Gameguise shared insights on how to pierce the veil and offer proven strategies to help tackle this den of whales and what this market represents. One thing to keep in mind is that “About half of Saudis are using prepaid cards for their in-app purchases.” It is little bits of knowledge like this that can hep you target this lucrative audience.
'There’s always an opportunity to succeed. Want it badly enough and you’ll get there.' - Anton GauffinClick To Tweet
At a panel during Casual Connect Europe, panelists from Wooga, AppLovin, Futureplay and Huuuge explored the paradox all developers face: wanting to see the joy your game brings to players and needing to pay the bills. There are lots of smart and creative ways to monetize your game without marring the player experience or hindering growth. This panel went through the game mechanics and advertising strategies that will turn your game into a money-maker. Anton Gauffin, of Huuuge, emphasized, “Social casino has a niche. Distribution is incredibly challenging because you don’t typically get the featuring support from Apple or Google Play like with other genres, and distribution can be more expensive than other categories as a result.” To hear more insights and tips, tune in below.
Daniel Bernstein, with twenty years of experience in a variety of roles in high technology, possesses the expertise and insight to assist a company owner in understanding the best way to prepare for selling the company. Most recently Daniel was co-founder and CEO of Sandlot Games Corporation, a leading casual games developer and publisher. After selling the company to Digital Chocolate in 2011, Daniel started a game studio and a consulting practice and now advises high-growth businesses on product development, strategic initiatives, and M&A opportunities. Before founding Sandlot Games, Daniel held director level positions in a number of companies, including Wild Tangent and Monoliths.
At Casual Connect Europe, Daniel emphasized that the preparation phase is critical in positioning your company for sale, saying, “Planning is the key to higher valuations.” And yet most of us have little idea of what this planning should involve; “We do believe that the world is flat when it comes to selling your company.”
Among the items that should be addressed during preparation are setting tasks and timelines, allocating staff resources, conducting internal due diligence and readying financials. And even earlier, Daniel recommends, “Frame company agreements and contracts with M&A in mind – pay particular attention to assignment clauses.” Then, when actually conducting an exit, “Be realistic compared to historical results – sales, profit margin, revenue per employee – and do not miss your targets while negotiating.”
To learn more about the best way to ensure a successful transaction in selling your company, watch this video of Daniel’s complete session.
DOWNLOAD SLIDES
To read more about Daniel Bernstein, read more here.
'We see our games as interactive toys. Children learn a lot from playing with toys.'–Jaana NykanenClick To Tweet
Game Producer for Divine Robot, Jaana Nykanen explains how to make a successful mobile game and raise twins simultaneously. Jaana’s main advice: “Do what you love and love what you do.” Jaana guided the audience at Casual Connect Europe through the journey from being a child with a love of computers and games to being a mother and a game producer who now is making games for children. “Don’t worry, you will fuck up,” and that’s okay.
Mike Hines is a developer analyst at Amazon in Seattle, Washington. Before working for Amazon, Mike had four startups in financial services and software, two of which are still operating, and worked for thirteen years at Microsoft. At Amazon, Mike helped launch the Kindle app development project, has written mobile app test criteria, judged at hackathons and is a blogger for Amazon App Store.
At Casual Connect Europe, Mike discussed a new technology that is here to stay: Voice interfaces. Audio interfaces are already common in vehicles, cell phones and other consumer electronics. It will become essential for game developers to design audio interfaces, and Mike insists, do it sooner rather than later. In this session Mike offered the insights gained while working with the lead developer on Capital One Voice Skill for Amazon Alexa and showed some of the most common (and amusing) traps that ensnare developers who are designing audio interfaces. Leverage the lessons learned from developers like Capital One and learn the industry best practices of designing apps and games for Voice by watching this video of Mike’s session.
Traditionally in retail, there is a strict division between games for children and games for adults, with adults rarely buying kid’s games for themselves. But, according to Bjoern Bergstein, since the advent of free-to-play games and easy access to app stores, that line has blurred, and it is now common for people to try out many interesting apps.
Bjoern Bergstein
Bjoern is Head of Games at Tivola Publishing, a company founded in 1995, and is responsible for all products and partners. Coming from a completely different background, Bjoern entered the game industry through studying game design and game production.
Tivola has been publishing games for twenty years, and for most of that time, thought their target audiences had remained constant. However, since noticing recent changes, they have been adjusting their target groups without really changing the games. For more information on how these changes will affect the game industry, watch this video of Bjoern’s presentation from Casual Connect Europe.
DOWNLOAD SLIDES
For an exclusive article about Bjoern Bergstein, click here.
'If you have no one to share your achievements with, then what’s the point?' - Kim Sloth BengtsenClick To Tweet
Do subscription-based business and casual gaming go together? Discover the what, when, where and how to monetize one of the more alternative ways of working with casual gaming in this lecture from Casual Connect Europe by Kim Sloth Bengsten. As the CEO of Lotto24, Kim revealed that they try to be both in the emerging market and the established market. To do this, Kim advises, “try to outmaneuver your competitors by price and quality but also being innovative and thinking about new products that you can add to your portfolio.” To hear more insights, tune in below.
'I’m amazed by the sheer number of awesome people I interact with on a day-to-day basis.' - SteejoClick To Tweet
Ever since the rise of PewDiePie, streaming and Let’s Play videos have played an increasingly important role in the way games are promoted and experienced, and are now in many ways more important than traditional exposure. Listen and learn from a panel at Casual Connect Europe that was made up of streamers on YouTube. They talked about the role of streamers in the relationship between indie developers, streamers and their respective audiences from the perspective of both developers and streamers. One of the panelists, Steejo (Justin Slater), observed: “Just as Let’s Play replaced traditional media, streamers are replacing Let’s Play.” Steejo has also witnessed, “Sales lift(ing) during live streams.” Tune in below for more insights from Steejo and other YouTubers.
'I would say I didn’t disappoint my 7-year-old self.' - Miloš MiloševićClick To Tweet
Nordeus is now providing their clients with an enhanced user experience using powerful push notifications, resulting in improvement of all key performance indicators, especially early retention. In a session at Casual Connect Europe Miloš Milošević, Data Scientist at Nordeus, described a messaging system that opened up a new channel of communication with Nordeus users. Learn how they have tackled the problem of generating personalized notifications for each user, and then sent them in the right moment, based on their daily in-game behaviour. Miloš introduced best practices, as well as knowledge about message optimization, iteration and testing that can be translated to any game. Miloš explained that “personalization really matters” and advised developers to “really listen to your users”. Since Casual Connect Europe, Nordeus has opened, sourced and released the tool for push notifications called Pushkin.
