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Asia 2014Video Coverage

Marcus Kim: Responding to the Needs of Game Developers | Casual Connect Video

June 4, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“In order to maximize LTV, you need to understand user behavior first,” advises Marcus Kim during his session at Casual Connect Asia 2014.

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Photo_Marcus Kim
Marcus Kim, Product Director, Valuepotion

Marcus Kim, the product director of Valuepotion, is constantly looking for new services and technologies to improve the platform, a quest which continues to expand his insights into the digital industry. During his time at Daum Communications, he worked on several projects, including their new services, Ad@m, the first mobile ad network, and Daum Display Network, the first ad network in Korea. He admits, “Developing new platforms is not easy, however I have great opportunities to utilize my passion for this type of project, including Valuepotion, at Daum.”

Listening To Developers

When Kim and his team started to develop this platform, their original focus was solely on game marketing. However, he realized that many developers are under pressure to integrate many SDKs into one game. So he expanded the concept of the platform from marketing to include analytics, allowing them to understand their app and marketing metrics and also utilize their marketing strategies based on the analytics. In this way, developers will be able to maximize revenue from their games.

After expanding the platform from marketing to analytics, the team developed a simple but fast integration process for game developers while still offering various marketing tools. They will continue to focus on game developers’ needs so they can utilize the platform to realize success with their games.

Built For Success

Creating the Valuepotion team at Daum Communications has brought Kim the greatest satisfaction in his career. The team includes experienced engineers and a platform strategic planner; while it is a small team, their ease of communication allows them to move quickly to launch their new product. Their goal is to launch the platform around the world by the end of this year.

valuepotion
Creating the Valuepotion team at Daum Communications has brought Kim the greatest satisfaction in his career.

As product director of Valuepotion, Kim is responsible to manage all matters relating to the platform. While developing the platforms Ad@m and DDM, he acquired a broad knowledge of global trends which show the mobile game market is one of the fastest growing markets in the industry. He recognized the need to increase Korean mobile game market growth.

Priority #1 - Monetization

The rapidly changing mobile market environment makes it difficult for Kim to predict what may happen in the industry in the next three to five years. However, he recognizes monetization as the top priority for measuring the success of a mobile game. For the next year or two, he expects to see developers working to increase their revenues in two ways: with in-app purchases and with advertising. The free-to-play business model, with its in-app purchases, continues to increase, but game developers may have trouble making money with free-to-play. Kim expects explosive growth of in-game ads matched to game content, and the interstitial ads will have sustained growth, “because game developers have to attract in-app purchases in an increasingly competition environment and that is not easy to do,” he says. “So it will be an important additional revenue model like advertising.”

The free-to-play business model, with its in-app purchases, continues to increase, but game developers may have trouble making money with free-to-play.

For the future, he plans to provide one of the leading platforms with the essential factors that will allow mobile game developers to achieve success by adopting new products based on market demand.

A Switch to Mobile

Kim’s work leaves him little free time, but he does enjoy playing with his two sons on the weekends. He also enjoys gaming; his favorite platform was PS2 and he loved playing Winning Eleven. But now he prefers mobile gaming since they offer a variety of genres, including arcade puzzle, which is one of his favorites. As well, mobile games are always accessible; whenever he has a moment he can play.

At Casual Connect Asia, Kim announced the launch of the closed beta program of their platform to the Asia market. Since February, they have been working with their Korean partners, who have been satisfied using the platform for analytics and marketing of their games. They will also roll out their new product, InPlay video ads, which feature a video of up to 15 seconds; after watching the video ad, players receive a reward toward an in-app purchase.

 

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