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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.

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.

USA 2018 Video Coverage

Publishers Helping Brands Reach Players | Casual Connect Video

April 22, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Who is playing your games? As a publisher, you know there is a huge, diverse audience out there, actively engaged with a tremendous variety of games. And now, brands are discovering the value of this highly engaged audience. So brands want to reach them; they want to reach the players of your games. The game inventory is a perfect fit for brands, but how can publishers capitalize on this demand?

Casual Connect set out to find the answers, bringing together a panel to discuss this question at Casual Connect USA 2018. The participants included industry experts from all sides, including brands, mobile developers and monetization platforms, offering their perspectives on the present and future of brand advertising in mobile gaming. These are the participants:

Chandra Hill, Vice President of Monetization at MobilityWare. Chandra brings more than twenty years of experience in digital media and is responsible for monetization strategies at MobilityWare, including an in-app advertising platform that produces revenue streams for the company’s portfolio of mobile games. Before joining MobilityWare, Chandra filled executive positions at textPlus and MySpace.
Sameer Sondhi, Vice President and General Manager Business Development at InMobl. Sameer specializes in mobile monetization, display ads for mobile products, digital media business development, mobile advertising performance-based advertising, search engine and ad engine platforms.
Sally Lu, Senior Director, Ad Monetization at Jam City. Sally has managed ad campaigns from the ground up, growing them to over billions of ads served. She has also managed ad campaigns that reach more than 200 million customers each year and manages the ad operations team.
Andrew Gerhart, Chief Operating Officer of AerServ. After spending time as a marketer for multiple publishers, Andrew understands the complex advertising landscape with multiple ad networks and exchanges. He has been Chief Operating Officer for AerServ for five years, helping to build a world-class mobile app monetization and mediation platform. AerServ was acquired by InMobl in January, 2018.
Dave Edwards, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing – Theatrical Films, Lionsgate. Dave is a news media enthusiast, entertainment industry operative and film lover. He has years of experience in high profile content creation, virtual reality and augmented reality, digital media and marketing, art direction and project management.

The Panel was moderated by Grant Cohen, General Manager of The Collective and Free App Analytics at Kochava. Kochava is the leading mobile measurement company providing analytics and attribution services across many of the world’s top apps. The Collective is a new business unit that utilizes data from Kochava’s Free App Analytics solution to deliver rich mobile audiences at massive scale over 2 billion devices globally through a self-serve UX.

To learn more about brand advertising in mobile gaming and what to expect in the future, be sure to watch the video of Getting in the Game: How Publishers Can Help Brands Reach Their Players.

USA 2018 Video Coverage

Ad Monetizing in Mobile Games: Benefits and Risks | Casual Connect Video

April 12, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

As everyone involved in the mobile game industry knows, ad monetization has become critical to monetizing mobile games. And without effective monetization, no game can succeed. So how can you learn the best ways to monetize your game. At Casual Connect USA 2017, the panel discussion, The Pain and Gain of Ad Monetization – Publisher Stories, offered some important information from the publishers’ perspective of what works and what doesn’t.

Publishers experienced with ad monetization for mobile games participated as panelists. They included:

Jarrko Rajamaki, Vice President Advertising at Rovio. This is Jarrko’s second commission in this position at Rovio, heading ad monetization over the entire Rovio game portfolio. Jarrko began his career in online advertising at AOL’s European business and still proudly uses aol.com as his email address.

Dave Yonamine, Co-Founder and Chairman of Mobilityware. Dave is the primary liaison between Mobilityware and other app developers and has the primary responsibility for the company’s strategic direction. Mobilityware is a leading mobile games developer and has more than 250 million downloads across its award winning portfolio.

John Boog-Scott, Chief Operating Officer at PeopleFun. John has spent the past five years growing PeopleFun, learning the hard way what succeeds and what fails with mobile games UA and monetization. PeopleFun builds five star casual word games. John has also been a lean startup founder in many other software and games companies, including Ensemble Studios, the creators of Age of Empires.

Karim Farghaly, Director of Business Development at Bandai Namco Entertainment America for mobile platforms. Karim manages external partnerships with development studios, licencors, digital distributors and advertising platforms. Prior to BNEA Mobile, Karim held a number of executive positions in the games industry, including at Scarab, Empire and Interplay.

The panel was moderated by Ayala Rudoy, Director of Strategic Customers at SafeDK. Ayala is passionate about helping game developers ensure the ads they serve in their games don’t affect the game’s user experience, retention or revenue.

This session discussed the benefits and best practices when monetizing with ads and described the issues and main risks of displaying ads in mobile games. Watch the video of this session to learn from these experts in monetizing with ads in games.

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USA 2018 Video Coverage

Coming Soon in Esports | Casual Connect Video

March 18, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Esports is one sector of the game industry that is evolving especially quickly. Are you someone who is interested in developing or publishing in this area? Then you are also concerned with keeping up with the latest developments; you need to know what directions the industry may take next.

At Casual Connect USA 2018, Geoff Keighley hosted a Fireside Chat, Esports Evolving – What Can We Expect to See Coming in Esports. The guest expert was Mike Sepso, Senior Vice President of Activision Blizzard Media Media Networks. Mike launched this division with Steve Bornstein; it is dedicated to creating the best esports experiences for fans across games, platforms and geographies.

Geoff is a video game journalist, television presenter and the producer of the annual Game Awards event.

In the Fireside Chat, they provided an up close and personal discussion of Mike’s insights and the trends esports are taking. If you would like to know the next big thing Mike sees coming in esports, don’t miss the chance to watch the video of this Fireside Chat.

USA 2018 Video Coverage

Anatoly Ropotov: Esports and Mobile | Casual Connect Video

March 3, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Are you a developer interested in the esport sector of the game industry? And, especially, do you want to expand the audience for your game? Could esports attract casual gamers while at the same time interesting pro-gamers and esports enthusiasts? These are difficult questions for developers; casual gamers and pro-gamers are at opposite ends of the gaming spectrum.

Anatoly Ropotov, CEO of Game Insight, has some solutions. Game Insight is one of the world’s leading mobile games companies. It was the first company to develop hidden object and tycoon games for social networks and mobile platforms and has since developed unique game experiences in a variety of genres. As CEO, Anatoly leads partner and platform relations and is also closely involved with game development, leading key games for the company.

Game Insight demonstrated the advantage of using a mobile-first mindset with the development and successful release of Guns of Boom, which solved the problem of creating a first-person shooter for touchscreens. Now they have turned their attention to making esports for smartphones.

At Casual Connect USA 2018 Anatoly presented the session Bringing Esports to Mobile. In it he shared his insights into creating a mobile esport game that will satisfy casual gamers as well the intense esport enthusiasts. To learn more be sure to watch the video of this exciting session.

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