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USA 2014Video Coverage

Jamison Selby Is Keeping His Secrets | Casual Connect Video

August 27, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

Jamison Selby shared his knowledge and views on real-money gaming during his session at Casual Connect USA 2014. “By 2018, less than .01 percent of commercial mobile apps will be considered a financial success by their developers,” he said.

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Jamison Selby, VP Games, b Spot

The best thing about being a part of the games industry, according to Jamison Selby, is, quite simply, that he gets to make games. He says, “I spend days creating new recipes for fun and testing them out.” He heads the Games team at b Spot, but refuses to divulge the secrets of how he joined up and exactly what he does there. State secrets, he claims. Or could they be industry secrets? But he admits that for years he walked the line between the video games space and the real money gambling world, an experience which he has found the perfect ground for his current endeavors.

He also reveals that he has had some great moments along the way in this industry, but he hopes the best moments are yet to come. He says, “Someday, I’ll get to show my kids what I’ve done. Ask me then.”

This busy father clearly makes his family a priority. With two young children, he spends his time chasing, splashing, running, dodging, reading aloud, and cleaning. And occasionally sleeping.

But he does find time for some game play. However, these days GTA5 on the Xbox often gives way to Wonder Pets and Octonauts. Currently, he is playing Wasteland 2 Beta and Broken Age. And his preferred platform is whatever happens to be available.

There seem to be quite a lot of choices available, since he says he has all the usual consoles, including his Nintendo DS which “shall never sunset.” For mobile gaming, he uses both Android and iOS depending on which game he is playing and claims the most interesting place he has played mobile games was in the crew bar of a cruise ship late at night in the middle of the Baltic.

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Selby is a busy father, but he does find time for some game play.

It Started With The TV

Selby became involved in the games industry while working on TV game shows. The trivia content was the jumping off point for him to dive into the games industry. He became the head writer for ODVD games, working on a series of trivia titles published by Hasbro. He states, “It was a big creative challenge and offered a very different path from the feast or famine world of TV production.” He believes if he had not joined the industry, he would be producing questionable reality TV shows or possibly teaching drama at a small Northwestern college. Or even serving drinks at a bar on an island without a zip code.

Here Come The Wearables

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“Every new innovation opens up creative possibilities, and we’re constantly dreaming up new ways to play.”

The next big trend Selby sees affecting the games industry is the explosion of wearables and VR technology. He believes this will bring huge opportunities for new content creation in the years ahead. He insists, “Every new innovation opens up creative possibilities, and we’re constantly dreaming up new ways to play.”

Selby has years of experience leading cross-disciplinary design and production teams to create multiplayer social games and interactive entertainment. He founded and leads the International Game Developer Association’s Real Money Gaming SIG. Previously, he launched the Monkey King Games consultancy and was the senior producer at TimePlay Entertainment, creating a new generation of multiplayer gaming in casinos, cinemas, cruise ships, bars, clubs and stadiums.

 

USA 2014Video Coverage

Jung Suh: Performing at Your Peak | Casual Connect Video

August 7, 2014 — by Gamesauce Staff

“Localization is more than just languages,” Jung Suh told his audience during his session at Casual Connect USA 2014. “Think of it as culturalization.”

Jung Suh has been in the gaming industry awhile. His career began in the mailroom at Creative Artists Agency before he moved on to marketing at Activision. He also co-founded game rental company GameFly.

He notes that a lot of people thought he and his fellow co-founders were crazy for going up against established companies that offered games such as Blockbuster and Netflix, but they persevered and proved their naysayers wrong. He considers GameFly one of the highlights of his career so far. “It taught me the entrepreneurial spirit and not being afraid of jumping off the cliff, so to speak,” he says.

He eventually left GameFly to start Red Rocket Games, a mobile game studio in China. During that time, he worked with Yodo1 on a Red Rocket game they ended up publishing. The experience taught him a considerable amount about the free-to-play business model, and he ended up leaving Red Rocket Games to join Yodo1’s ranks.

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Jung Suh, VP Global Publishing, Yodo1

The Culture of Yodo1

Yodo1 is known for taking games from one cultural market and making them succeed in another cultural market. Suh explains that the company does this with a “robust game review process” with local game designers at Yodo1 HQ in Beijing. On average, the company gets about 200 game submissions each month to sift through. Games are scored on a variety of factors, such as art, monetization, tutorial, and gameplay. If a game is considered a cultural fit, an eight-person game committee votes on whether or not to publish their game.

Once the decision is made to publish, a product team creates a proposal for the developer regarding suggested changes that need to be made to the game. “We focus on the basic metrics that will ensure success: retention, conversion, and monetization,” Suh says. “All of our design suggestions surround those metrics, whether it is onboarding tutorial changes, art, music, or gameplay tuning for the unique tastes for each geographical region.”

For Suh’s part as Yodo1’s vice-president of global publishing, his days start early with checking email at 6:30 a.m. to make sure there aren’t any urgent things that need to be addressed. By 8:30 a.m. he is in the office and taking conference calls. Depending on the day, he may join Yodo1’s product teams for “quick morning scrums” or be in meetings with department leads discussing important business.

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Suh’s day begins and ends with his work at Yodo1

Suh is a big believer in taking a break from work, so rather than spend an entire lunch hour in the office he opts to use most of his lunch hour to hit the gym or take part in a boxing workout and eat a quick lunch at his desk. Fitness is an important component of living for Suh. He subscribes to Tony Schwartz’ “Energy Project” philosophy and believes that you need to be physically fit, as well as mentally and spiritually fit, to perform at your peak and fuel creativity. “Plus,” he says, “let’s face it, I spend an inordinate amount of time in front of my computer. It’s a nice break to let out some steam or lift heavy things.”

Suh spends his afternoons with Yodo1’s marketing department, keeping in contact with Yodo1’s other studios in Korea and Japan, and attending to various emails and other projects. Evenings include conference calls with global partners and he does a final email check around 11 p.m. To top it off, 30 percent of the time, he is traveling around the world for work.

He admits there can be a strong tension of wanting to do so many things but not having the resources to do everything. “In the end, it really comes down to being able to pick the right things to say ‘yes’ to and ‘no’ to,” he says.

Despite such tension though, he loves the work. “I really enjoy assisting in the creation of really good games from the publishing side,” he says. “Sometimes being on the outside and looking into a game gives us a different perspective and view on the game. Often working on a title full time for 6 to 12 months can be myopic. Working with the people in our organization and our partners around the world is really the most rewarding thing about what I do at Yodo1.”

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Ski Safari is just one of the games in Yodo1’s portfolio

Emerging Trends and Technology

Suh sees two emerging trends that could potentially change the gaming industry. The first is in regard to input systems. He points to his son as an example of how up-and-coming generations may experience technology differently than older generations have. “I watch my 2-year-old son and he wants to touch, tap, or swipe anything that has a screen. He has no idea about a keyboard or mouse.”

He also thinks that wearable technologies will begin to take up more of the gaming stage, with such devices already becoming cheaper and somewhat multipurpose. “I think gaming would benefit from those technologies, as well as things like voice inputs and eye tracking,” he says.

Suh is especially excited for the place where wearable technology and big data will intersect. He notes that it has previously been very tedious to track personal progress or input daily data into a notebook or spreadsheet, but that wearable technologies and apps can now make it much quicker to input data and progress — pointing to the personal health industry and products like Fitbit and Jawbone as good example of how wearables and data are intersecting.

The reason this makes him so excited has a lot to do with his life philosophy, both in work and personal performance. “I think a lot about improving things day to day, whether it’s production or how much stronger or faster I’m getting.”

 

Asia 2014Video Coverage

Richard Song Recognizes Success | Casual Connect Video

June 9, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“375 million of our monthly active users we are delivering to our app designers and game developers,” Richard Song said during Casual Connect Asia 2014. “Our partner developers made over 1 million US dollars last year.”

Richard Song, the head of APAC, platform partnerships, games, at Facebook, says, “We are the sum of our choices. Every experience we have had, good or bad, has led to us being where we are today.”

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Richard Song, Head of APAC, Platform Partnerships, Games, Facebook

And today, Song is serving Facebook’s partners, helping them to establish, grow, and monetize their businesses using the Facebook platform. Prior to coming to Facebook, he worked in the games industry for 16 years as the managing director and vice-president at Perfect World Entertainment, vice-president of global publishing at Webzen HQ, managing director of Shanghai at NHN HQ, and vice-president and head of global business at Hanbitoft HQ. Then one day a recruiter recognized the value of his extensive experience, gave him a call, and enticed him to join Facebook.

Exceptional Teamwork

The most satisfying moment he recalls in his career came in 2005 when the team he led was recognized as the most valuable of the year. He asserts, “This achievement came as a result of exceptional teamwork by every member of my team.”

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Today, Song is serving Facebook’s partners, helping them to establish, grow, and monetize their businesses using the Facebook platform.

When Song is away from his work, he likes to spend time with his family, hiking, and gaming. He describes himself as an old-fashioned gamer whose preferred platform is PC. He likes to play the “oldies but goodies”, including League of Legends, Warcraft III and Team Fortress 2.

He appreciates free-to-play for the opportunity it gives players to try a game before they commit to it, comparing it to test driving a car before you buy it.

Song does not yet own either Xbox One or PS4, although he expects to. He says he is waiting for Grand Theft Auto 5 for PS4.

Tailor-Made Success

As he considers what is coming in the games industry, he see a trend toward focused, tailor-made audiences, while standard service for everyone will diminish. He believes Video on Demand will continue to increase with YouTube and IPTV. Other trends he expects to gain strength include Mico SNS and wearable technology such as GoPro, SmartBand, and Google Glass.

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As he considers what is coming in the games industry, he see a trend toward focused, tailor-made audiences, while standard service for everyone will diminish.

At Casual Connect Asia, Song announced that Facebook will be working more closely with Southeast Asian-based developers and building up a new platform partnerships team for the Southeast Asia region.

 

Asia 2014Video Coverage

Anton Soeharyo and Making Money Through Discoverability | Casual Connect Video

June 9, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“The best investors out their invest in you, invest in the people,” said Anton Soeharyo during Casual Connect Asia 2014.

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Anton Soeharyo, Co-founder and CEO, Touchten Games

Anton Soeharyo, co-founder and CEO of Touchten Games, claims the best thing about being a part of the games industry is being paid to play and make games all day—it’s fun! Of course, his work involves considerably more. As CEO, he oversees the strategy and direction the company is taking. He is responsible for their business and creative focus, including marketing, public relations, and product management.

Building From Experience

Soeharyo’s background is in search engine optimization, web hosting, web development, and, as he says, “How to make money online.” In 2009, when he and co-founders Dede Indrapurna and Rokimas Soeharyo started Touchten, he used this knowledge to succeed with their first game through relying on keyword search on the App Store. Within one year, without any marketing budget, they had reached 1.2 million downloads.

The magnitude of this accomplishment becomes apparent when you realize that Soeharyo believes discoverability can be very expensive, and is currently the biggest challenge facing developers, particularly considering the billions of apps in both Google Play and iOS.

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Soeharyo’s background is in search engine optimization, web hosting, web development, and, as he says, “How to make money online.”

The Discovery Challenge

At Touchten, they are responding to the challenge of discoverability in two ways. First, they concentrate on building their brand, so when players see “Touchten”, they know they will find great games they will enjoy playing. Second, they are building a platform that will allow them to tap into their user base and cross-promote to that audience.

The proudest moment of Soeharyo’s career came when Touchten received their series B funding from three foreign investors. They had searched for several years, speaking to a number of VCs before finally getting this funding. The achievement emphasized to them that what they are doing is worth the money.

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The Touchten Team

Smartphone Growth

In the next three to five years, Soeharyo sees smartphone gaming becoming more and more solid in the industry worldwide. He also foresees hockey stick growth in the wearable tech segment of the games industry. At Touchten, they are making plans to adapt swiftly to this new trend and are ready to create great content as needed for the new platform.

When Soeharyo has free time, he enjoys socializing with friends, playing futsal, and watching movies or soccer games with them. He also spends his time watching TV, writing stories, and sleeping.

For his gaming, his favorite platform is the Playstation series. As a self-described soccer freak, he spends the most time playing the Winning Eleven series. But Touchten owns both PS4 and Xbox One, using them to play at the office.

 

Asia 2014Video Coverage

Shawn Bonham: Advantages of Consolidation | Casual Connect Video

June 6, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

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“We are moving into a period of increased consolidation right now in the gaming industry,” Shawn Bonham said at Casual Connect Asia 2014. “As we move into this phase, it’s really important to identify the key components of the business back to scale. Just like that perfect black jacket or black dress that you can wear clubbing or you can wear to a wedding, figure out what your core components of your tech stack are, what the core components of your business are, and then you can really scale them as you build out your business across multiple dev teams, or as you work as a single developer with multiple publishers.”

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Shawn Bonham, Senior Managing Director, APAC, Upsight

Shawn Bonham is the senior managing director, APAC at Upsight, a company that delivers actionable analytics and marketing to mobile games. Upsight resulted from the merger of Kontagent and PlayHaven last December and has now launched its freemium platform. They offer unlimited access to core acquisition, engagement, and revenue metrics, as well as tools for performing in-app marketing and targeted push-notification. They will also offer multiple upgrade paths to allow developers to choose the right features and capacity at the right time. The merger makes it possible for them to offer value through a mobile’s tech-stack, as all of the components for deep analytics, in-game marketing, and push are connected together in a unified system.

Bonham also announces that Upsight continues to improve its product localization and have added Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean tool tips to its dashboard; more localized documentation will be coming soon.

At Upsight, Bonham manages operations and strategy for APAC and consults with mobile companies throughout the region on best practices in actionable data analytics. Previously, he held management positions at Havok and NVIDIA, working with publishers and developers to identify the business case for new technologies and to realize tangible ROI from their implementation. At Havok, he started the APAC team and helped to expand the adoption reusable console middleware in Japan in the PS2 era. At NVIDIA, he worked on many partnerships with mobile developers to create mid-core mobile games that reach the core gamer audience.

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Upsight provides analytics and marketing for many companies

Energized By Innovation

Most of his career has been in the APAC region, including China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Southeast Asia; he is always energized by the speed of innovation and business in this area. He says, “It’s not about figuring out the right answer tomorrow, it’s about figuring it out today!” He emphasizes that each country is vastly different in language, business culture, business models, and game preferences. It is valuable to understand each in order to find the best business fit for various technologies and to consult with partners as they expand to the West and to other APAC regions.

Middleware Explosion

Bonham has seen mobile games become increasingly complex in their mechanics and budgets for development; operations have expanded accordingly. There has also been an explosion of middleware in the mobile space in the last few years to meet the needs of publishers and developers. As a result, developers must implement a vast array of SDKs and, on the operations side, view information on multiple independent dashboards to manage and optimize an F2P game’s performance. In response to these trends, he expects both developers and publishers will consolidate to mitigate development risk. And he expects to see consolidation in the middleware space to leverage multiple technologies through a single SKD. He believes platform will be a major theme in the next few years.

He claims, “The merger of Kontagent and PlayHaven is a great example of the consolidation trend. We’ve been able to really empower developer while simultaneously making their lives easier by putting the tools for deep analytics, in-app marketing, and push together in a single, unified dashboard and SDK.

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The Upsight Team

Wearable Technology

He also believes wearables will be an interesting disruption over the next few years, saying, “I look forward to seeing how game mechanics and business models will be tweaked for these new technologies. All of this is going to require a great deal of trial and error, for which concrete metrics and solid use of analytics to gauge progress will be key.”

When not involved with work, Bonham enjoys playing tennis and basketball with friends and working out, especially Olympic-style weightlifting. He appreciates the terrific live music and DJ scene in Tokyo, so he goes to shows whenever he has time. And he is a big gamer, making an effort to try out all the major releases on PC, console, and mobile.

Bonham used to be a huge console gamer and a fan of Japanese RPGs and action games. But these days, he rarely has time to finish epic games, so he now turns toward short-burst competitive PC and mobile titles, such as Clash of Clans, Hearthstone, DATA and many others. And, as a fan of American football, he occasionally plays the Madden series on consoles.

F2P Challenges

He sees F2P as a two-edged sword depending on the interaction between in-app purchases and game mechanics. A play-to-win mechanic can cause large problems in multiplayer games and in the single player genres. If a player feels manipulated into purchasing an item or power-up just to finish a level in a reasonable time or to collect an achievement, then it will leave a bad impression and negatively affect retention.

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Here is an example of how SEGA used Upsight

However, if the micro-transaction can be successfully decoupled from in-game success, then F2P makes it economically feasible for a developer to focus on perfecting game balance and adding iterative improvements and content to a title while maintaining an F2P revenue stream, without worrying about adding potentially unnecessary mechanics and features to justify another full-priced premium package purchase to the consumer. Bonham believes the key to succeeding with F2P is making users feel they don’t need an in-app purchase, but just really want it.

As a longtime console gamer, Bonham owns both PS4 and Xbox One. He plays more on the PS4 because he prefers the clean interface and finds Playstation Plus a fantastic value. He is curious to see how this generation of consoles will evolve. He believes we are beginning to see hybrid games combining some free-to-play business models and game mechanics inside traditional packaged console games, and is excited to see how this will develop.

 

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