As app stores become inundated with new games every day, developers need to find innovative and creative ways to create a unique gaming experience and make their mobile game standout. Audio creation and editing tools have always been an integral part of the game design process but aside from sound, what other technologies and tools should developers take into consideration?
Casual Connect USA is about matching the creativity of the games industry with new media innovation and investment. There will be many talented speakers at Casual Connect USA 2016, and today we are giving you a glimpse of some of the Kids & Family track speakers.
Children are our future, and they’re also digital natives that are consuming apps and games from a very young age. Join experts as they discuss successful strategies to engage and teach this younger generation. The panels and sessions will take place on Tuesday, July 19 and Wednesday, July 20.
In a talk at Casual Connect Europe, Head of Mobile at Twitter EMEA, Ross Sheil shared Twitter’s vision for games marketers on Twitter and outlined how the best in class games companies are approaching Twitter across mobile marketing, TV and what the rise of native video and real-time marketing means for the industry.
Listen to Ross talk about how marketers can harness the power of Twitter for games distribution and games virality and some tips and tricks for how the most sophisticated games companies are thinking about using Twitter in a unique way.
How do you provide a great user experience? According to Ricardas Jascemskas, it takes a combination of support, social media and community management activities. Ricardas is a communications manager working with Nordcurrent’s social media, PR, community management and support activities, and is responsible for the constant and clear communication with players in a variety of forms.
At Casual Connect Europe, Ricardas shared the Nordcurrent teams’ ideas about direct communication with players and some of their best practices. One of the important points Ricardas makes is “everyone loves free stuff” so when things go wrong, “even if it’s not our fault, we may give some free gifts for the lost time.” In the constant search for ways to encourage connections with players, Ricardas suggests, “A screen shot is easy; ask for them from players.”
To learn more about Ricardas’ perceptions about developing a great user experience, watch this video of the full session.
DOWNLOAD SLIDES
For an more information about Ricardas, click here.
Developers have long understood the addictive quality of games. When we start to play, we become instantly unaware of what’s around us – we’re so lost in the world of the game. Technically, what’s happening in our mind is a dopamine release. This neurotransmitter controls pleasure and happiness, and makes it so that we want to keep playing in order to feel good.
Brands have recently taken notice of the power of games and are looking for ways to harness it in order to reach customers. Take for example Zynga’s partnership with Hidden Valley, Naked Juice and others to bring sponsored levels to games like Farmville. The move gives Zynga a new form of ad revenue, while at the same time providing brands with a way to engage audiences that is much more effective than a banner ad or popup.
Henning Kosmack is an entrepreneur whose latest venture, MegaZebra, pioneered the social gaming/free-to-play space in Europe. The company is now moving its category-leading titles into cross platform. Henning has also co-founded a media agency and an e-commerce site.
At Casual Connect Europe, Henning focused on the crucial question for every studio: how to remain profitable, especially with eCPI on the rise. Henning shared how MegaZebra approaches this challenge through maximizing LTV by focusing on the “Life-time” aspect of the equation. For long term projects, Henning advised, “You have to think about stuff for that team because everybody wants to develop as a person and that is why it is important to take into consideration the personal growth of the people on that team.” To discover how they have created evergreen titles and what they are working on next, watch this video of the full session below.
DOWNLOAD SLIDES
To read more about Henning Kosmack, see this exclusive article from Gamesauce.
Given how expensive user acquisition has gotten, it makes sense to weigh options carefully. Moritz von Arnim of Goodgame studios explained an alternative to CPI or CPA UA campaigns: revenue share. Moritz explained Goodgame’s results with the strategy during his Casual Connect Tel Aviv 2015 presentation. “Revenue share is a 100 percent performance-related business model, which usually, if you do it in the right way, leads to a win-win situation,” Moritz said. “High-quality traffic monetizes great, and even with low-quality traffic, both sides still have the chance to get their benefits.” For a breakdown of some of the company’s different approaches to revenue-share UA including use cases, see the full session below.
In her lecture at the inaugural Casual Connect Tel Aviv in 2015, award-winning monetization designer My N. Tran challenged conventional free-to-play funnel wisdom and showed that the power of converting your players is as impacting as both retaining and monetizing. Drawing on design experience from three top-100 grossing titles, My N. Tran of Storm8 shared tactics and strategies for getting that all-important first dollar. She stressed, “Just because you retain somebody, doesn’t mean you can monetize off of them. On average, less than 10% of your player base will ever pay you. Converting and monetizing are not the same thing. First, you need to have your players to be comfortable with the idea of spending.”
My N. Tran is a San Francisco Bay Area-based game designer who currently works for Storm8. My also conceived and launched the24bit.com, a site which celebrates the game developer lifestyle. In a recent talk at Casual Connect USA, My gave a talk entitled Retention! Retention! Retention! She highlighted ways to get players to come back again and again. She stressed, “Without our users, what’s the point? Retention is everything within our industry.” She also added, “I know empirically when you convert a nonpaying user into a paying user, you increase their lifetime retention by four times.”
Have you ever wondered what gives the top 50 that edge in the app store? At Casual Connect USA, Amazon’s Developer Evangelist Mike Hines revealed the how and the what the top 50 do differently than other developers. Amazon has collected data about how users engage with IAP in games, and we have reviewed how the most profitable apps are using IAP to monetize successfully. Among many insights derived from this data, Mike shared, “We found that users who have been with your app for 30 days are likely to spend 60% more on each in app purchase than they were on day zero. This is a great reason to care about all those users who stay with your apps after day seven.” For more actionable data from his session, tune in below.
