Dmitri Williams: We're Here to Help Everyone | Casual Connect Video - Gamesauce: Global Inspiration for Game Developers

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Europe 2014 Video Coverage

Dmitri Williams: We’re Here to Help Everyone | Casual Connect Video

February 24, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“Your big spenders are not necessarily the same thing as big influencers,” Dmitri Williams told his audience at Casual Connect Europe. “The baseline value we’re finding in gaming is that social value accounts for about 25 percent of activity, as in sessions and in dollars/euros spent.”

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Dmitri Williams is CEO and Product Owner of Ninja Metrics, an analytics company he co-founded. As a former professor specializing in video games, he was in an excellent position to succeed with this new company, since he had already developed an understanding of player psychology, data, and the economics of the games industry. Williams asserts that the proudest moment of his career by far was getting this startup company funded, especially since it followed nine months of rejection!

Ninja Metrics differs from most analytics companies because its Katana Social Analytics Engine is able to measure the value of social contributions in games and apps, as well as provide developers with detailed projections for outcomes. It also offers tools to measure how effectively features facilitate engagement and social interaction.

social-value — The Katana Analytics Engine, an ultra-scalable, cloud computing-based social analytics platform behind some the biggest games on the market.

Both Work and Play

Williams tells us he enjoys being around games, game makers, and players. And, as far as working in the industry goes, he feels, “If you enjoy what you are doing, it’s not work at all.”

When Williams is not “working”, he is playing video games, as well as reading, exercising, and watching the occasional TV show. For his gaming, he has always preferred to use PC, and these days, he can generally be found playing League of Legends, claiming, “The game play never gets old, and the variety is nearly infinite.”

He owns neither Xbox One nor PS4 because he finds the lack of backward compatibility annoying. Besides, although there have been some good launch titles, there has been nothing he felt was worth standing in line for several hours to buy. He says, “Not when I have a stack of still-to-plays gems like The Last of Us waiting for me.”

More Quality and Garbage

The Social Value through Katana — The Social Value through the Katana Social Analytics Engine

Williams feels the greatest challenge in the games industry is coming from the explosion of games and apps exerting downward pressure on AAA titles, a situation he finds painful to watch. However, this means there is more quality, as well as more garbage, available today. The situation is very similar to what occurred with TV, so, assuming it will follow a similar pattern, it will emerge into “a golden age of content,” he believes.

Although this challenge can be difficult for many in the games industry, for Ninja Metrics, it is actually an opportunity. As Williams points out, “There are so many developers out there, and we’re here to help everyone – whether that is a single developer working alone in a dorm or a massive company.”

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Catherine Quinton

Catherine Quinton is a staff writer for www.gamesauce.org. Catherine loves her hobby farm, long walks in the country and reading great novels.