bitesize Archives - Gamesauce: Global Inspiration for Game Developers

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Yuli Zhao: Live Operation in Asian Markets | Casual Connect Video

September 24, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Are you a game developer thinking about live operation in Asian markets? But you know Asian markets differ from each other. So what is the difference in game operation strategy between the different markets in China, Japan, Korea and South East Asia? These are crucial things to know, but it can be confusing especially if you are a western developer.

You could certainly benefit from the experience of Yuli Zhao, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at YOOZOO INTERACTIVE. Yuli is in charge of game and IP licensing, global merger and acquisition deal sourcing and strategy cooperation, and lead game operation for the China and Japan market. At Casual Connect Europe 2018, Yuli presented the session How Operation Influences Game Performance the Asian Markets and What Western Developers Can Learn From It.

In this session Yuli discussed whether live operation is a strategy or a tactic as well as the differences between the various Asian markets in game operation strategy. She also described how the live operation philosophy is influencing western markets and what western developers need to learn from it. To understand more about live operation, be sure to watch this video of Yuli’s session.

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For Yuli’s session from Casual Connect Europe 2017 and more insights and career information, see this exclusive article.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Launching Video Games in Land Based Casinos with Darion Lowenstein | Casual Connect Video

August 27, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Are you eager to take your video game to the real-money gambling market? What will it take to translate that game into a compelling experience on the casino floor? Darion Lowenstein has the knowledge and experience to answer your questions.

Darion Lowenstein is CMO of Gamblit Gaming, overseeing publishing and marketing for their real-money arcade style games for mobile and for their upcoming hardware launch in casinos. Darion has twenty years of experience producing and directing some of the biggest video games in the industry for companies such as Electronic Arts and Activision.

At Casual Connect Europe, in his session “The Realities of Launching Video Games in Land Based Casinos”, Darion shared his insight into all aspects of bringing video games to the casino floor. These include regulatory hurdles, the size of the market and the lessons learned from creating and introducing original hardware.

Darion insists that there is much more involved than simply taking a video game and putting in the casino. He says, “You really have to make the UI an arcade and casino experience. We take a lot of mobile or known game content and you can’t immediately add gambling and put it on the floor. You’ve got to make it this big, splashy presentation. You’ve got to make it something that really stands out, that competes with a slot machine.

To learn more about how to capitalize on this new revenue stream, be sure to watch the video of Darion’s full session at Casual Connect.

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For more on Darion’s careeer and other professional views, see this exclusive article which includes his presentation at Casual Connect USA 2018.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Teut Weidemann: Conversion and ARPPU in Your F2P Game | Casual Connect Video

August 16, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Teut Weidemann speaking at Casual Connect Europe in London

Are you a game developer who has decided to use the free-to-play business model? Then, no matter how exciting your game, you must find ways to make it profitable if you are to continue in business. How will you convert the users into paying users? Then how will you convince those paying users to continue spending in your game? These are difficult but absolutely essential challenges. There is no better person to advise you than Teut Weidemann.

Teut Weidemann is the F2P Consultant at I Teut You So. As a senior online games specialist, he consults with companies in the F2P space, sharing the knowledge he gained working in games since the 1980s and shipping over 100 titles on multiple platforms. He was part of the team that created the browser game of the year, The Settlers Online.

At Casual Connect Europe 2018, Teut gave the session titled Raising ARPPU and Conversion in Your F2P Game. In it he used examples from dozens of different games in best practices for raising ARPPU and conversion: the most difficult problem. Once past this hurdle, raising ARPPU is a little easier, but still tricky. You must always be aware of the fact that players want value for the money they spend in the game.

To learn more about how you can keep your game profitable while providing the value players want, be sure to watch the video of this session.

To read more about Teut including some more of his wisdom from Casual Connect Europe 2017 which took place in Berlin, see this exclusive article.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Hyper Casual Games: A Monumental Shakeup | Casual Connect Video

August 14, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Hyper Casual, the latest genre of mobile gaming, has caused a monumental shakeup in the app stores in the past year. But what exactly makes a game hyper-casual and why has this genre been seeing such success? How do we expect hyper-casual games to evolve? And, most important, what can strategies can you learn from the developers of hyper-casual games?

If these are questions that concern you, there was a session at Casual Connect Europe 2018 that offered some answers. This was a panel session, The Ascension of Hyper Casual Games, that brought together experts in the field to discuss all aspects of this new genre. These are the participants on the panel:

PANEL: The Ascension of Hyper Casual Games at Casual Connect Europe in London

Eren Yanik, Chief Revenue Officer at Gram Games. Eren is responsible for both ad and IAP monetization, overseeing Gram’s ad business and the shift of the focus on IAP. Previously, Eren was a management consultant with McKinsey and ran projects in the US, Middle East and Europe.

Hugo Peyron, Head of Creation at Voodoo. Hugo co-founded publishing at Voodoo and has helped it grow to the number one ultra-casual game publisher in the world. As Head of Creation he is involved in the company’s reflexion on continuously creating the best performing games possible.

Nimrod Klinger, Senior User Acquisition Manager at TabTale. Nimrod, as a mobile growth expert, is responsible for managing the growth of more than fifty of TabTale’s games, including its greatest hit, Run, Sausage, Run. Nimrod is in charge of the entire conversion funnel, including briefing creative teams, managing channels and campaigns, until the final conversion, getting in and staying in the app store’s top charts.

The panel was moderated by Carl Livie, Senior Manager, Business Development at AppLovin. AppLovin is a comprehensive platform that helps developers of all sizes finance, market and expand their businesses. Carl leads the European Business Development team and is responsible for helping European publishing partners scale their ad revenue. As an avid gamer with a BA degree in Arabic, Carl has the perfect attributes for a career in performance marketing.

To learn more about hyper-casual games and the strategies you can take from them, be sure to watch the video of The Ascension of Hyper Casual Games.

Contributions

Key Insights Learned from the Social Casino Track at Casual Connect Europe

August 13, 2018 — by Industry Contributions

By Merav Katz Gershuni, Head of Growth, yellowHEAD

yellowHEAD staff had the opportunity to emcee the Social Casino track at Casual Connect Europe in London, where some of the social casino industry’s best and brightest came together to help you get the most out of your gaming apps. yellowHEAD’s Merav Katz Gershuni and Marina
Sapunova compiled information from the event that can help you navigate the waters of this
competitive vertical, from little things that you can do to boost your game growth, to common
mistakes that may inhibit your success.

We heard from seasoned directors, supervisors and CEOs with years of experience at leading
brands in the gaming industry, including Product Madness, The Stars Group, KamaGames and
Whow Games. They shared key insights about different areas of the field - from creative to legal
to data science and more! Among the lessons shared, the experts discussed best practices
from real money casino that can be applied in social casino, maximizing performance with game
economy prediction, common mistakes made at different stages of a game’s lifecycle, effective
creative team management, successful A/B testing of creatives, revenue growth success
stories, localization, gaming vs. gambling, and virality.

It was a great opportunity to learn from real experiences gained through tried and true strategies
or failed attempts. For more on optimizing your games in the social casino space, read the full
synopsis at yellowHEAD.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Baris Ozistek and Turning Your Idea into a Successful Game | Casual Connect Video

July 11, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Are you someone with an idea that you believe could be a successful game? Do you plan to create your own indie game studio? Unfortunately, no matter how great the idea is, it takes more to turn it into a success; you need to know you can get from here to there. You will have to figure out what you have to do to make it happen.

Baris Ozistek has the experience to help you make the crucial decisions that will help you succeed. Baris is the CEO of Netmarble EMEA and a board member of StartersHub. He has also been President of Turkish Digital Games Federation and a board member of Turkish Informatics Foundation.

Baris Ozistek at Casual Connect Europe 2018

StartersHub, one of the largest venture building funds in Turky and the Middle East, focuses on areas such as gaming, IoT, digital content and fintech. At Baris’ session at Casual Connect Europe, he shared some of the things they have learned from investing in forty-one very early stage startups in the past 2½ years. If you would like to find out more from Baris with insights into what you need to do to succeed as an indie game developer, watch the video of this session Learnings from StartersHub: From Ideas to Successful Games at Casual Connect Europe 2018 in London.

For more about Baris’ insights and career, see this exclusive article.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

In-App Header Bidding and Why with Natalie Portier | Casual Connect Video

July 10, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

What is happening with monetizing today? What do you need to know to successfully monetize into the future? These are questions that are crucial for everyone in the game industry. Natalie Portier offers the information and solutions that can make the difference to your business.

Natalie is the Chief Operating Officer at ad mediation company Appodeal and has been with the company from the beginning. Innovations and quality game development are Natalie’s passions as they implement their ten years of experience in business operations and tech development.

Currently, everyone is interested in in-app header bidding, the next big thing in mobile development. Appodeal is now implementing this solution, providing closer access the actual highest price per impression for publishers and making it available to all Appodeal clients. At the Casual Connect session Mobile Advertising is Evolving: What You Need to Know to Monetize in 2018 and Beyond, Natalie explained more about this technology and why you should care about it, as well as shared the first industry results of in-app header bidding. You can learn more about this trend by watching the video of the full session from Casual Connect Europe 2018.

For more about Natalie and her career, please see this exclusive article.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Nicol Cseko: Innovation in Ad Technology | Casual Connect Video

June 30, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

I relish the fast pace of innovation and experimentation in the Ad Tech industry. - Nicol CsekoClick To Tweet

At Casual Connect Europe, Nicol Cseko (VP of Product at Aarki) gave a talk entitled Level Up Your App Marketing with the Power of Creatives. She advised others on how to take the performance of your mobile app campaign up a notch by leveraging data for creative optimization. She also gave insights into successes and failures for mobile app campaigns and answered why they had the outcome that they did. Learn how you too can optimize ad creatives using data and previous lessons to deliver significant improvements in ad performance. Please see the video below for the full talk.

USA 2018 Video Coverage

Fundraising for a Successful Gaming Business | Casual Connect Video

May 2, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Almost every entrepreneur will at some point need funding. This is especially true in the game industry. If you are in this situation, you need to know there are many tools to raise funds. Don’t be in a hurry to assume raising venture capital is your road to success; despite glorification from the tech publications, too often it can be the wrong instrument for the job.

Casual Connect USA 2018 brought together a panel of experts to help you understand what your options really are. The panelists included founders and investors whose perspectives from both sides brought valuable information on why, when and how to think about funding your business for the best results.

The panelists were:

Cesar Mufarej, Co-Founder and CFO at Fanatee, a company focused on casual mobile games. Fanatee has had more than 25 million downloads and is responsible for successful word games CodyCross and Stop. Cesar is responsible for monetization strategies, developing distribution and monetization partnerships and taking care of financial and legal matters.

Kamran Ansari is Venture Partner at Greycroft Partners. Kamran has been a venture investor and operator at Pinterest, Facebook, Venmo, Braintree, MyYearbook/MeetMe, Boxed Wholesale, Vungle and more. He served as Head of Corporate Development at Pinterest from early 2015, where he led nine acquisitions, including Jelly, Instapaper, URX, The Hunt and Highlight.

Mike DeLaet, Co-Founder and CEO of DOD Media Group, a full-service consulting firm focused on publishing, including BD and other digital distribution of mobile apps and games on the Apple App Store, Google Play and Amazon and more. Mike has also served as SVP of Global BD and Licensing at Kabam and SVP of Global Publishing at Glu Mobile.

The moderator of the panel was Mark Loranger, a serial entrepreneur with experience in a variety of technology startups. Mark is now Co-Founder of Braavo Capital. He has raised money from angel investors, banks and venture capital, but have also spent time on the other side of the table. Prior to Braavo, Mark was the founder of GraniteMade Ventures.

To learn more about options for funding your business, watch this video of Casual Connect session The Right Tool for the Job – Fundraising Strategy and Tactics for Building a Successful Gaming Business.

USA 2018 Video Coverage

Natalie Portier: Succeeding With Mobile Games for Kids | Casual Connect Video

March 10, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Succeeding With Mobile Games for KidsMobile gaming for kids is one of the fastest growing sectors of the gaming industry, now worth $2.2 billion. Not surprisingly, many of us may want to participate in this market. But when you start, you quickly discover there are tremendous challenges, including specific regulations for children’s apps, promotion and monetization.

Natalie Portier, Mike Arkin, and Mike Hines at Casual Connect USA 2018, photo by Emily Baker

At Casual Connect USA 2018, Natalie Portier presented a session designed to help you by the name of Overcoming Pitfalls of Launching Kids Apps. Natalie is Chief Operating Officer at the ad mediation company Appodeal. They joined this rapidly growing company at its beginning, and is using their ten years of experience in business operations and tech development in fueling their passion for innovation and quality game development.

In this session, Natalie brought together insights from successful publishers of apps for children, legal experts and marketing agencies to help developers avoid pitfalls and succeed with the mobile games they offer for children. To learn more about the opportunities and pitfalls in mobile gaming for kids, be sure to watch this video of Natalie’s session at Casual Connect.

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For more about Natalie’s insights and career, see this exclusive article from Casual Connect Europe 2017 in Berlin.

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By Merav Katz Gershuni, Head of Growth, yellowHEAD