Lectures below are from 2012
Lectures at Casual Connect are programmed to focus on cutting edge topics in the casual games space. On October 24 - 26 2012, over 850 industry professionals came to Kyiv for the seventh annual Casual Connect in Ukraine. If you attended lectures at Casual Connect and want to see your favorite sessions again, or if you could not make it to Seattle this time and want to see what you have missed, press the 
icon to watch videos and download slides (all content is FREE!).
Conference content was programmed by a set of industry advisors.
If you would like to submit a session proposal for Casual Connect Kyiv 2013, please submit here.
-
Making Money with Games – What's Real Today | 9:00 - 9:50
Paul THELEN, Founder & CEO, Big Fish
Paul Thelen has an MBA from Stanford and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington. Prior to founding Big Fish, Paul wrote the business plan that launched RealArcade, the casual games industry’s first large-scale distribution service.
[Email Paul]The games industry continues to change at an ever increasing rate. The proliferation of business models, devices, game mechanics and platforms makes for a very complex ecosystem. Paul will highlight and present case studies where Big Fish is seeing new "real" opportunities including cloud gaming, social and real-money gambling, social and single player Free-To-Play mobile; but also highlight existing business models that continue to thrive. Of equal importance, he will give his view into business models were thriving but are now dying and business models that promised huge opportunities for developers, but failed to deliver.
-
Three Elements of the Game Universe: Platforms, Brand and Community | 10:00 - 10:50
Alexander LYSKOVSKY, CEO, Alawar
Alexander Lyskovsky co-founded Alawar Entertainment in 1999. In addition to being involved with the strategic development of Alawar, Alexander plays an active role in important gaming project production, devotes much time to supporting other Russian IT companies, and works tirelessly to create a community of game industry professionals in Eastern Europe.
[Email Alexander]When creating a long-term brand, foresight is essential. How else can you predict the trends that will dominate the industry or the direction in which developers and publishers will move? In this session, Alexander Lyskovsky will discuss the games of the future, including non-gaming factors that help to create entertaining and financially successful titles, and how to communicate with end users.
-
Branding Cool with Audio: Part II
Dmitry KUZMENKO, CEO, Strategic Music
Dmitry founded Strategic Music in 2003, and has since been working on music and sound design for computer games. Strategic Music has more than 350 projects in its portfolio, and delivers a wide variety of services.
[Email Dmitry]
With proper attention to a game's audio atmosphere, a game's success can greatly improve. Dmitry Kuzmenko of Strategic Music will take you through the process of understanding how to use audio to make a brand for your game and studio, helping the playability, interest, marketing and strategic planning of the game. Don’t miss this chance to learn about how to use audio to make your game 'Cool' and stand out from the crowd. Music, voice-overs and sound design will be discussed.
-
Game and Soundrack: Making the Puzzle Fit
Marta TSVETSIKH, Founder, Martamusic
Marta founded the Martamusic project in 2007. Working as an independent contractor s in video game industry she provided audio services for dozens of casual games and established long-term cooperation with several game studios.
[Email Marta]
This session will go over what you need to know about the relationship between contractors and game developers, what kind of problems you might find on your way to developing a soundtrack and how to avoid them. Learn how to choose contractors, meet milestones and get the best results.
-
Launching a #1 Game, After Launching a #1 Game | 11:00 - 11:50
Matt WILSON, Sr. Manager of Publishing, Rovio
Matthew Wilson is the rare Canadian export residing in Finland, and Rovio’s marketing manager from the launch of the Angry Birds phenomenon until the summer of 2011. Matthew achieved amazing results for Angry Birds on zero budget through a mixture of careful market analysis and intimate knowledge of the mobile application space. Matthew is now Rovio’s senior manager of publishing, with the mission of discovering new exciting properties for Rovio.
[Email Matt]
The marketing behind the launch of #1 mobile games. Why building a loyal fan base requires more than user acquisition dollars.
-
The Easy Way to Stop Making Unsuccessful Games
Alexander EGOSHIN, Head of Mobile Production, Alawar
Alexander Egoshin is one of the leading mobile producers at Alawar Entertainment. From the beginning, Alexander has devoted his energies to game development. He can also be credited with the founding of the company’s iOS development department. In 2011, he was appointed head of Alawar's mobile production.
[Email Alexander]Game developers around the world are looking for a formula to create the most amazing setting possible, the cutest character to date, or a brand new form of gameplay. The true keys to the success of a game, however, are hidden in its details, especially in the details pertaining to important aspects of its development, including controls, art, monetization, updates, etc. Alexander Egoshin will offer some important advice and practical tips.
-
How Draw Something Absorbed 50 Million New Users in 50 Days with Zero App Downtime
Sergey AVSEYEV, Developer Advocate, Couchbase, Inc.
Sergey is a Developer Advocate at Couchbase where he has designed and built the Ruby SDK and is the primary maintainer behind the C/libcouchbase SDK. Sergey has also authored Couchbase-Model, an implementation of rails Active Model for Couchbase and an event machine-based client library for Couchbase. Using these, he has built sample social games for Couchbase developers.
[Email Sergey]
If you are planning to build and launch a web application – growth is what you should be concerned with and prepared for. Sergey Avseyev will focus specifically on the data management challenges web application developers face, and provide criteria for selecting a model that will provide the scalability and performance needed to support massive growth. He will also highlight the architecture of OMGPOP's Draw Something – an example of a game that was prepared for growth.
-
Global Opportunities for Social and Mobile Games | 14:00 - 14:50
Rex NG, CEO, 6waves
Rex Ng co-founded 6waves, an international social games publisher, in January of 2008. As CEO & Chairman, Rex focuses on company strategy, marketing, and data analytics. Prior to 6waves, Rex served as the Director of Product Marketing at Watercooler Inc. Rex was an early employee at Yahoo! where he managed the strategic data teams in Europe and Asia for over 10 years. [email Rex]
Social networks and mobile devices have provided many opportunities for game developers to reach a global audience. While Facebook is the most dominant social network reaching millions of users globally, there are also several other key networks that can potentially offer attractive returns. 6waves, the largest publisher of independent social and mobile games, will share key insights on how it helps developers all over the world to publish their games not just on Facebook and to the US App Store, but also on the platforms thriving in China, and Japan.
-
The Designer is the Enemy
Christopher NATSUUME, Co-founder, Boomzap
Christopher Natsuume has been developing games for over 15 years. He has been working in the Southeast Asian region since 2004, including founding Singapore-based Boomzap Entertainment, one of the leading independent developers in the region. Boomzap has shipped 8 casual game titles, including the top ranked Jewels of Cleopatra series, using developers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan.
[Email Christopher]
Making your engine and tools Data Driven is a great idea, but with great power comes great responsibility, and an increased ability to destroy your game. Boomzap's been working on the same game engine for 7 years, shipping titles across PC, Mac, iOS and Wii; here are the lessons we've learned for what works, what doesn't, how to idiot-proof data, and why your designer is both your best friend, and your worst enemy.
-
Mathematical Analysis of Game Mechanics
Nick BERRY, President, DataGenetics
Nick Berry is the President of DataGenetics, a consultancy firm specializing in data mining and privacy. Although educated as a rocket scientist and aircraft designer, Nick has worked in the casual games industry for over a dozen years.
[Email Nick]
This presentation will walk through a selection of mathematical techniques that can be used to model games to understand how often players win, and how long average games take to ensure a balanced ecosystem.
-
Social Mobile Games as a Result of Game Development Evolution
Edgars STRODS, Head of Games, Odnoklassniki.ru
Edgars Strods is the head of the gaming department at Odnoklassniki.ru where he is fully responsible for many aspects of the most successful game platform in Russia. Before joining Odnoklassniki.ru, Edgars worked for Swedbank.
[Email Edgars]
With API integration, Odnoklassniki.ru shows it's developers that they continue to support them with new ways to reach millions of users. Edgars Strods, Director of Games for Odnoklassniki.ru, will talk about the new features and opportunities for developers.
-
The Game That Never Ends: Producing Social Games
Juan GRIL, Studio Director, Joju Games
Juan heads the production at Joju Games. Joju produces online, social and multiplayer games for clients such as Atari, Addicting Games, Mindjolt/SGN, MTV Networks, Comedy Central, and Mochimedia.
[Email Juan]
Creating good social games requires a team committed to continuously improving the game experience to serve the needs of a live audience. Joju Games had to change the way they make games in order to accommodate that.
In this talk, Juan Gril, Studio Manager at Joju Games, will talk about how a successful project is organized, the resources and roles required, how to launch and maintain the game, and port it to multiple platforms. -
Technology Target@Mail.ru for Developers
Mike MALIY, Head of Social Games Promotion, Target@Mail.ru
Mike is spearheading social games promotion department at Target@Mail.ru. Target@Mail.ru is a targeted advertising service in Odnoklassniki.ru and My.Mail.ru social networks. [Email Mike]
Mike will explain how to increase the audience of your social app on Odnoklassniki and My.Mail.ru social networks with targeted advertising tools.
-
Touch Me! The Art of Making Mobile Games "Feel" Good
Matthew MAYER, Founder, ReignGames
Matt Mayer is the British founder of ReignGames, who have been making fun and addictive games since the launch of the App Store. Their most popular game Pig Rush has been downloaded over 3 million times on iOS and Android. Based in Shanghai, Matt is a regular entertaining speaker at events in China, and can't wait to visit Ukraine.
[Email Matthew]
Touch-screen games need a totally rethought control system. Games that use "virtual buttons" or "virtual joysticks" often frustrate the user: so what's the secret to making control systems which users pick up immediately, and which games get it right and wrong?
-
The Ecosystem Explained: Facebook in Stats
Sebastian SUJKA, Co-founder & Editor in Chief, Social Games Observer
Sebastian is Editor in Chief of the European B2B blog SocialGamesObserver, which he co-founded in early 2010. Sebastian started his career as an entrepreneur with the founding of Whitewall, a Berlin-based start-up company specialized in developing dietary supplements for athletes and students. In 2009, he joined alternative payment provider Sponsorpay through which he got in contact with the gaming industry.
[Email Sebastian]
What are the most successful game genres on Facebook? Which developers dominate which markets? Are there regional patterns in Facebook game popularity and in Facebook user behavior? In this session, Sebastian will discuss current social gaming trends based on up to date Facebook stats on active users and give some insights into user demographics.
-
A Rough Road to HTML5 on Mobile: A Developer's Experience
Alexander NORINCHAK, Co-Founder and CTO, True Token
Alexander Norinchak – co-founder and CTO of True Token. Made his first steps in game industry in 2005 with creating Mystery CCG. Now True Token is also focused on porting games to HTML5 for mobile platforms.
[Email Alexander]
In his lecture Alexander Norinchak will share his 2 year experience in HTML5 game development for mobile: where did they begin, what difficulties did his company had to overcome on their way to building high-productivity HTML5 games for mobile devices, what have they reached by now. You'll get to know about secrets and potential of HTML5. What was faced and what is going to be reached. Using examples, Alexander will show what have his company and other HTML5 pioneers achieved.
-
Social Casino Games: The Fastest Growing and most lucrative casual Games
Brock PIERCE, CEO, Playsino
Brock Pierce (31) is an entrepreneur best known for pioneering the market for virtual goods in online games. He has founded eight companies, acquired more than 30 companies, and closed a dozen corporate finance transactions, securing more than $200 million on behalf of his companies. He is currently CEO of Playsino (formerly Titan Gaming), Managing Director of the Clearstone Global Gaming Fund, and he sits on the boards of IMI Exchange, Xfire, EverTune, RevenueAPEX, and Spicy Horse Games. [Email Brock]
-
Designing Effective Analytics Support For Free-2-Play Games
Igor KLYUKIN, Chief Analyst, Pixonic
Igor Klyukin is Chief Analyst at Pixonic. Igor's successful 5 year history in browser game design with IT-Territory and Mail.ru is rooted in a deep understanding of metrics-informed game methodologies. This brought him to Pixonic in mid-August 2011 where Igor's insightful design and implementation of analytics systems allow his game teams to visualize user behavior and make intelligent feature evolution decisions. Even better, his background in game design allows him to actively help those teams improve their methods and contribute creative ideas for effective game service evolution.[Email Igor]Your game data and tools are worse than useless unless the data is accurate, verifiable, and relevant, and your team is willing to learn how to incorporate metrics analysis into their collective thought-process. Using real games case studies, Igor will walk you through the do’s and don’ts of using in-game analytics for your game’s success.
-
Marketing, Distribution & Discoverability
Emcees: Julia Lebedeva, Head of PR & Advertising, Nevosoft
Oscar Clark, Evangelist, Applifier -
The Future of Casual Games is on Smartphones and Tablets | 10:00 - 10:50
Vlad SUGLOBOV, CEO, G5 Entertainment
Vlad co-founded G5 in 2001 and served for 8 years as CEO. Vlad was active in many essential roles, establishing the company’s strategy, client relations, product development and sales. Today, Vlad is concentrating on expanding G5’s business internationally.
[Email Vlad]
Join Vlad Suglobov for an in-depth analysis of casual games past, present and future on smartphones and tablets.
-
How to Get Game Press (And Should You Even Really Care?)
Joel BRODIE, President and Founder, Gamezebo.com
Joel Brodie is President and Founder of Gamezebo.com, a leading editorial and review site for games playable on the most popular platforms and devices, including iOS, Android, Facebook, PC, and the Mac.
[Email Joel]
How do you get press coverage and reviews for your game when hundreds of game apps are released everyday for mobile devices? What's the best way to pitch the press?(Hint: it's not to offer to pay for your own review that you have written for your own game.) In a post-console world where the print magazine is dead, people get their news from social networks, and every major distributor has their own user ratings system, does the game press even matter anymore?
-
Android App Discovery: Buried in the Landslide
Eyal RABINOVICH, Co-founder, Mominis
An entrepreneur, software engineer and user-experience evangelist, Eyal Rabinovich particularly specializes in developing and delivering products and ideas. He has experience in developing consumer facing products while understanding and adapting to customer needs.
[Email Rabinovich]
As Android device installs continue to grow at astronomical rates, more app developers realize the business potential of this open platform. But how do you make sure your game gets noticed amongst thousands of apps? A different, more creative view on app promotion is required. Eyal from Mominis is an expert on identifying innovative opportunities for increased visibility for Andriod apps. Come hear his thoughts on the current and future trajectory of this scientific art-form.
-
Don’t Overlook the Potential of Android | 11:00 - 11:50
Benjamin LO, Lead Product Manager, TinyCo
Ben is a product manager on TinyCo's hit game, Tiny Monsters. Previously, Ben was a product manager at Zynga, where he worked on the successful FarmVille franchise. Ben has also worked in a variety of different industries including online travel tech company - kayak.com, as well as a social media agency start-up in London. Ben has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, graduating in 2012 and has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2005. Ben's favorite game of all time is Starcraft.
[Email Benjamin]
In this discussion Benjamin will explain how higher monetization is possible on Android and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. TinyCo will use Tiny Village, one of the highest grossing games on Google Play since its launch, as a test case scenario on how to deploy properly for Android and what the challenges and benefits of the Android Platform are.
-
Getting Funding For Your (Gaming)Startup
Ruben HAAS, Co-founder, HitFox Game Ventures
Ruben Haas is Co-Founder of the Berlin-based incubator HitFox Game Ventures. HitFox is the first incubator that focuses on game marketing and distribution. As Managing Director of the performance marketing network ad2games, Ruben additionally runs a startup himself. [Email Ruben]
Funding is key when starting a business and we will discuss this issue with insights from two perspectives: from the point of view of start-ups looking for the money to make their vision happen and from the point of view of an incubator looking for profitable business ideas to invest in. Personal experiences as a serial entrepreneur and experience as the Co-Founder of a gaming incubator are shared with the audience.
-
Crowdfunding on Kickstarter – Do’s and Don’ts
Michael PAECK, Co-founder, Cliffhanger Productions
Michael Paeck is Managing Director of Cliffhanger Productions, an interactive entertainment company from Vienna, Austria that creates premium online games for a new generation of players. Cliffhanger games combine the accessibility of modern tablet and browser-based multi-platform games with the gameplay depth of traditional games.
[Email Michael]
Cliffhanger Productions raised $558,000 in less than 25 days on Kickstarter with their project “Shadowrun Online”, making the project the most successful continental European video games project on Kickstarter and ranking among the 15 most funded video games projects today. In this talk Michael will describe the process of getting onto Kickstarter, what a project needs to be successful, and what practices should be avoided.
-
Transitioning from a Conventional Games Publisher to Mobile – 3rd Party Development Focus
Antony DOUGLAS, General Manager Mobile, Square Enix Europe
Antony is responsible for Square Enix Europe's mobile development and global publishing business across smartphone and tablet. Antony has P&L responsibility for the creation, production and commercial sales of internal and external IPs, working internationally across the Square Enix studio group and 3rd party development. Antony has spent over ten years in mobile content, prior to Square Enix he was Telefonica O2 UK’s Head of Content and European Director for Korean mobile game pioneers Com2uS.
[Email Antony]
The issues Square Enix has faced, how these are being resolved and what they are looking for from products and development partners.
-
Internal Cross-Promotion: How Leading Mobile Game Developers Are Leveraging Their Own User Base | 14:00 - 14:50
Igor KAREV, Founder, Tatem Games
Philipp DOESCHL, Co-Founder, FDG Entertainment
Thomas LEE, Director of Business Development, Animoca
discussion led by Pepe AGELL, Sr. Director, Publisher Relations, Chartboost
Igor Karev is a founder and director of Tatem Games, works on hardware projects for iPhone, manages a few Internet startups in Ukraine and contributes a lot to development of IT entrepreneurship culture in Eastern Europe.
[Email Igor]
Philipp has co-founded FDG Entertainment back in 2001 at the age of 19. Having graduated in Sound Engineering and studied Japanese, he can look back onto a video gaming background of more than 25 years, starting playing games at only 4 years old, witnessing the evolution and growth of the video gaming industry from the big crash in 1983 to nowadays first hand.
[Email Philipp]
Thomas Lee serves as Regional Business Development Director of Outblaze Ventures and Totally Apps Holdings Limited (Animoca), and is responsible for business development, marketing, strategic partnership development and global publishing operation of the group.
[Email Thomas]
Pepe Agell leads the International Expansion at Chartboost. In his role, he oversees the global expansion of the company’s publisher base, strategic partnerships, and customer relationship management (CRM) to ensure the highest standard of service and support.
[Email Pepe]
As mobile gaming shifts from paid to freemium, the best game developers have learned to leverage the value of their user base for distribution power, direct monetization, and indirect monetization. Cross-promotion has become one of the key tools in their arsenal as developers grow their portfolio of games. Learn from top iOS and Android developers about their inside tips and tricks around internal cross-promotion.
-
Portable Gaming with PlayStation Mobile!
George BAIN, Developer Relations Account Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Neil BROWN, Senior Team Leader, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Before joining SCEE in 1997, George was highly active in the official Net Yaroze development community where he created his first PlayStation games. He held several positions within the Technology Group where he first served as Engineer supporting the PlayStation platform and later as Senior Engineer supporting PS2 launch titles while researching advance programming techniques. As Developer Support Manager in 2004, he continued to establish close relationships with licensed developers and directed the support group during PSP and PS3 platform launches. Having joined Third Party Relations department in 2007, George maintains developer relations with studios throughout the SCEE territories as Developer Relations Account Manager. Within TPR, George managed the PlayStation Minis launch line-up and currently focussing on PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Mobile games.
[Email George ]
Neil Brown is Senior Team Leader for SCEE R&D Developer Services, and has given technical talks at a number of conferences around the world for SCE. As well as providing technical support and performance advice for all PlayStation™ platforms, he also coordinates the training provided in the SCEE regions.
[Email Neil ]
PlayStation®Mobile is a new initiative available from SCE. It allows cross-platform game and application development on PS Vita and PlayStation™ Certified Devices. PlayStation®Mobile is a fully open environment so anyone can download and start developing. This presentation will give a brief business overview, followed by a discussion on the technology underpinning PlayStation®Mobile including languages, libraries and tools.
-
The New Hero in Mobile Gaming: iOS & Android Apps
Guillaume LARRIEU, Publisher Relations, Flurry
[Email Guillaume]
Flurry Analytics is used in over 200,000 apps by over 70,000 developers. This session will draw on the very latest data and insight to show how consumers are using mobile games, what existing behavioral trends mean for mobile game usage in the future and how developers and publishers can use analytics to boost the performance of their apps in order to drive retention and revenues.
-
Details Matter: How To Increase Downloads and Sales of a Mobile Game
Julia LEBEDEVA, Head of PR & Advertising, Nevosoft
Julia joined Nevosoft as a public relations manager in 2009 and took a fresh look on interacting with the casual games audience. Now Julia is a head of PR & advertising department and her responsibilities include planning PR campaigns, interaction with mass media and negotiating with key partners. In addition to her duties, Ms. Lebedeva is a chief editor of the Nevosoft’s news portal App2Top.ru.
[Email Julia]
Julia will use show cases of how they at Nevosoft pay attention to the details to make the most of every mobile game they publish. Sometimes you need to change an icon to increase downloads together with a conversion rate dramatically. With another game, it's important to react fast and choose a different monetization method. All details matter and you have to know how to interpret them.
-
The Changing Face of Mobile Gaming
Darya TRUSHKINA, VP Business Development, Game Insight
Darya leads the team, which handles international publishing of GI’s games on the world’s largest social networks, mobile platforms and develops business relationship with payment solutions providers.
[Email Darya]
The Asian game market is traditionally considered to be entirely different from the Western gaming market, but the rapid growth of “freemium”-model game apps (games that are free to download and play immediately, and allow users to pay fees to gain optional in-app benefits) in the West has brought about a global convergence in the way mobile game apps are developed, as well as in how they are marketed and monetized.
Conventional wisdom suggests that developing premium game apps on closed-platform devices is the most profitable and sensible business plan because up-front profits seem larger, and because development on closed-platform devices is far easier (closed-platform devices have very few variants of operating system and hardware around which to optimize, while open-ended environments have multiple OS and hardware configurations). However, the true future of mobile gaming will be freemium apps on open-development devices. -
Stop Ignoring 98 Percent of Your Audience
Gil RUBIN, Strategic Partnerships Manager, Advertiser Relations, SupersonicAds
As strategic partnership manager Gil is in charge of business development in Asia, Europe, Africa Australia and the Middle East.
Gil has over 12 years of broad experience in building and improving marketing systems in the Internet industry and leading global online companies such as Yahoo and Mtv in Israel.
Gil holds a B.A in Business administration studies from Ruppin Academic Center.[Email Gil]
Everybody knows that the overwhelming majority of users will never pay for anything in a game; yet, some developers still believe the only way to make money is to ignore these users and cultivate those who do open their wallets. In this vibrant and interactive session, learn how micropayments and ad-based monetization strategies can live in harmony. Then, he will guide you through the various ways savvy developers are substantially increasing daily ARPU (not ARPPU!) by paying attention to the audience that matters most, the 98 percent that will never pay with their credit card.
-
State of the Mobile Game Market in Korea
Jin HO HUR, CEO, Crzyfish
Dr. Jin Ho Hur is the Founder and CEO of Crzyfish, the leading mobile game publisher based in Korea. Crzyfish is publishing mobile social/online games for Korea, Japan, and China’s markets.
Being a serial entrepreneur, Dr. Hur has founded Inet, the Top 3 ISP in Korea, in 1994, and Iworld, the cloud service provider, in 2000. Having served as the CEO of Neowiz, the provider of the #2 social network service in Korea, he founded Crzyfish to address the social game market opportunity.
[Email Jin]
With 30+ million smartphones (out of 50 million people), the mobile game market in Korea has shifted quickly to the social & online games, and is now exploding to become a multi-billion dollar market in next 2-3 years, with the proliferation of free-to-play games. Now, Korean market is considered to be one of top 5 markets for mobile games, now similar to China in its sheer size.
This session will explore the current state of the Korea market, the key characteristics of the market, and the success factor to penetrate. -
Getting Brands To Pay for In-game Purchases
Iryna LIASHCHUK, Head of Marketing, Zigi
Iryna Liashchuk leads business development and marketing at Zigi, a California-based company that has built a tool for game developers to earn revenue and reward their players each time they visit a retail location, and for retailers to drive foot traffic to their stores. Iryna's previous position was Head of Marketing at CloudMade, the creator of a cloud-based location platform currently serving GPS and mobile phone manufactures, the automotive industry and ISVs, and also being leveraged in the Zigi offering. Prior to CloudMade Iryna's professional duties varied from planning advertising for global consumer brands to business administration and marketing for cutting-edge technology startups - areas that now fully converge in her current role at Zigi.[Email Iryna]
Game developers work hard to create desirable freemium content, usually succeed in getting 2-3% of paying users and sometimes pressure people to the point of abandoning the game. In this session we’ll discuss a new business model aimed to monetize non-paying players by taking advantage of the very nature of mobile games - the fact that they are played on the go. This model satisfies all the parties involved: developers maximize their revenue, brands get people driven to their stores and users get free game opportunities in a fun and natural way.
-
Finding Love (Marketing) In The Zombie Apocalypse
Oscar CLARK, Evangelist, Applifier
Oscar Clark, Evangelist for Applifier, the leading mobile games cross-promotion network, has been involved with putting social and games together since 1998. His career has been at the cutting edge of online, mobile and console social games and includes roles at British Telecom (Wireplay), Hutchinson Whampoa (3UK), PapayaMobile and Sony's PlayStation Home.
[Email Oscar]
A humorous guide for developers to understand the marketing techniques needed to successfully promote freemium games that your players will fall in love with.
-
Innovation of Cross-promotion Networks and How They Help Games Grow for Free!
Tal PERRY, VP Business Development, appnext
Tal is the Vice President of Business Development for appnext, a leading multi-platform cross-promotion network. Prior to joining appnext, Tal headed the business development and marketing for BetUknow, a developer of social sports betting games. Tal holds a BA in Economics and is a licensed US attorney with years of experience in entertainment and media law. [Email Tal]
A look at how cross-promotion and exchange networks have progressed over time to the point where they are now an integral part of every game’s marketing plan.
-
Balancing Risks in Mobile Games Development
Oleksii GONCHAROV, Sr. Producer, Aerohills UK
Oleksii is an expert, producer in the field of games projects. He's been in game development business for 10 years already and has 3 years of experience as a manager of games division in the investment venture capital company “Techinvest - Aventures Group”, which specializes in IT and high-tech.
He has managed development studio from scratch for various games products for Funlinker brand for Social Mobile platforms (iOS, Android) and desktop platforms Microsoft PC / Apple Mac. Also managed contract work for projects (several of games has got “Game of the year” and other awards) like “The Witcher”, Gothic 4 / Arcania, Disciples 3, and more than 50 other projects.
[Email Oleksii]
Find out how to identify risks when developing your mobile game, how to monitor and control them, and how to apply risk analysis techniques to your project. All that in a fun and engaging presentation!
-
Mobile Games Promotion: Tools and Case Studies
Evgeny GALKIN, Product Strategist, Google Ukraine
Joined Google Kiev office in 2010 as a Product Strategist. Main responsibility is to help biggest UA advertisers to use Google services efficiently by analyzing ad activities and conducting training sessions. Starting Oct 2012 is leading IT vertical (soft and mobile apps' developers etc). [Email Evgeny]
Very often mobile developers don't know how to promote their app. Biggest app markets(like Google Play and AppStore) contain >700K of apps each. So it's becoming harder and harder to reach potential customers. How to reach huge audience and boost downloads? This can be done using Google advertising services like Google AdWords and the biggest mobile advertising network AdMob.
-
What Eastern European Devs Should Learn From US Devs, and Vice Versa
David NIXON, CEO, Gemini Hive
David is Co-Founder and CEO of "Gemini Hive, Inc." - a boutique investment, advisory, and consulting firm focused on helping small social and social mobile game companies get started and find growth.
>
[Email David]
-
Building High Performance Cross-platform Games with Adobe Technologies
Enrique DUVOS, Group Manager, Games, Adobe Systems
Enrique Duvos is a Group Manager for World-Wide Gaming Evangelism at Adobe Systems. Prior to specializing in gaming, Enrique ran the Flash Platform Evangelism team in EMEA, the Adobe elite team of technical evangelists focused on driving Adobe® Flash® Platform adoption and building thriving communities.
[Email Enrique]Come to this session to learn how Adobe technologies help game developers and publishers Worldwide create stunning, AAA-like games, that deploy across Desktop and Mobile platforms. We will review the latest product/framework innovations for 2D/3D game development using Adobe Flash, and showcase some of the most successful Game titles available today.
-
Re:inventing Fun with SCRUM
Alexander SHATROV, CEO, Playtika Belarus
Playtika Belarus CEO, has an MBA from Institute of Business Studies (IBS-Moscow) within the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and Master of Science in Computer Science from the Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman. Playtika offers unique multi-platform social games. The games are already enjoyed by millions of users globally in more than 10 platforms. Prior to joining Playtika Belarus, Alex founded Synesis in Minsk and Moscow, company built Viber iOS for Viber Media in 2010 and works in Video Surveillance field.
[Email Alexander]
-
Future of Games with Augmented Reality
Ivan DEMBICKI, CEO, Realaxy
An outstanding Flash developer from Russia, CEO of Realaxy, Ivan is focused on developing specialized 3D editors for the Web.
[Email Ivan]
New augmented reality technology, based on real world objects recognition, is going to change the gaming landscape. Ivan Dembicki, CEO of Realaxy, will discuss new augmented reality platforms and technologies, and will share his insights on the future of games with augmented reality.
-
How to Successfully Distribute and Monetize Your Mobile HTML5 Games Globally!
Alexander KRUG, CEO, SOFTGAMES
Alexander Krug holds a Master of Arts in Media Management having studied in Mittweida – one of Germany´s most respected media universities. Next to SOFTGAMES Alexander has worked at Yahoo! Germany and managed to re-launch their complete gaming portal. In addition Alex has co-founded 2 successful start-ups, a role that's perfect for him given his ten-plus years of experience making big things happen.
[Email Alexander]
HTML5 is freeing game developers from dependencies. Mobile games distribution does not have to take place on isolated platforms like the iOS App Store or the Android Market anymore! But how to succeed in a changing mobile world? What needs to be done to build successful distribution, monetization and growth strategy for a mobile HTML5 title?
We at SOFTGAMES understand the future of mobile games build with HTML5. At Casual Connect we will share our success stories, lessons learned and best practices in distributing and monetizing mobile HTML5 games across multiple mobile platforms worldwide. -
Winning with Free-to-Play Publishing Partnerships
Joel BRETON, VP Social, 505 Games
Joel Breton has been both a developer and publisher over his eighteen years in game development. He spent the first part of his career in AAA console game production at Sega, GT Interactive, Take Two Interactive, Bethesda, and Hudson where he produced multiple platinum selling games including Unreal, Pirates of the Caribbean(first console game produced in Russia and CIS), Bomberman, Major League Baseball, & IHRA Drag Racing. Joel has spent the last five years working on digital, social, and mobile games as Director of Game Development for MTV's AddictingGames, and currently heads the free-to-pay social games division for 505 Games.[Email Joel]
-
New Opportunities for HTML5 Developers with Code Orchestra 2.0
Eugene POTAPENKO, CEO, Code Orchestra
A seasoned Flash developer and graphical designer, Eugene has been working with Flash since 1997. With project management and programming background, Eugene took on his current project three years ago. Right now, he is working on the IDE coding tool, based on metaprogramming, live coding and one-language development principles.
[Email Eugene]
Learn how to develop games with the newly launched ActionScript editor, Code Orchestra 2.0. Find out how you can increase your performance and take advantage of the graphics, input and language capabilities during the live coding demonstration.
-
So You Have a Good Game - Now What? | 14:00 - 14:50
Roman POVOLOTSKI, Producer and Business Developer, 2Reallife
Roman Povolotski, 2Reallife’s Producer and Business Developer, has seven years experience launching browser-based games in Russia with CyberCrew, Technomagic, and IT-Territory before joining 2Reallife and launching the hit, The Heavens. 2Reallife develops high-quality games for both social and browser-based business models. 2Reallife has operated The Heavens as one of the most popular social and browser-based games in the Eastern European market and has enjoyed month-over-month growth in both revenue and audience for the past 2 years.
[Email Roman]
-
Making games for Smart TVs with Marmalade
Ivan BELIY, Team Leader, Marmalade
Ivan Beliy is a team leader at Marmalade and is focused on further developing the cross-platform capabilities of the Marmalade SDK. A Mechanics and Maths graduate of DNU, Ivan gained much of his commercial experience during his time as a professional developer at panBmedia AG and Devoler LLC where he created games for a wide variety of platforms such as iOS, Java-enabled mobiles, Cable TV as well as Set Top Boxes.
[Email Ivan]
Smart TVs are one of the most exciting, new platforms around and Marmalade is leading the way in platform support. We’ll be discussing how you can use Marmalade to build games and apps for Smart TV and the advantages of developing for this new market.
-
What is New with Unity?
Joe ROBINS, Community Evangelist, Unity
With a background in 3d graphics, Joe found out about Unity 5 years ago while developing various game and non-game 3d projects using Unity. After developing games for some time, he jumped across the north sea to Denmark where he now works for Unity Technologies.
[Email Joe]
With the recent details announced on Unity 4, what new features can you expect to get hold of soon? Joe Robins will give a tour of some of these new features and be on hand to answer any questions you may have about Unity.
-
How can Agile development be run EFFICIENTLY in the outsourcing environment with widely distributed teams?
Yuri KUDIN, Agile Project Manager, Ciklum
Maget FAHMY, Director Strategic Partnerships, Netbiscuits
Yuri has more than 7 years experience in software development and project management.
He has strong experience in various kind of projects based on T&M and fixed cost contracts. Using Agile and RUP methodologies in various business domains (Insurance, bank, e-commerce, government, mobile applications, sound processing etc) for customers in Europe and the USA.
[Email Yuri]
-
"Magic Particles": How to Use Particle Special Effects in Games
Alexey SEDOV, Programmer, Astralax
Alexey has been coding for more than 20 years, primarily working on his own projects. He has been working on the Magic Particles Effects editor since 2006.
[Email Alexey]
This lecture will cover case studies of games that use Magic Particles effects. Attendees will find out about new features and solutions of Magic Particles technology.
-
Opportunities In The Clouds: How Big Fish Unlimited is Revolutionizing The Casual Games Market
Julia KELSON, Developer Relations Manager, Big Fish Games
Since joining Big Fish Games in July 2007, Julia has worked closely with many of the world’s best casual game developers to bring their games to Big Fish Games’ global audience. Julia is currently focused on Big Fish’s Mobile, Streaming and Free-to Play initiatives.
Julia attained a Master’s Degree in Chinese Studies from Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok, Russia.
Julia loves to travel and has a hobby that involves collecting special items from all over the world. [Email Julia]
-
Using Third Party Tools to Reach Success
Eugene BOYARIN, General Producer, Absolutist
Eugene Boyarin is General Producer at Absolutist. 10 years IT industry veteran with experience in project management and business optimization, Eugene joined game industry two years ago, and has since produced more than 20 games and interactive books.
[Email Eugene]
This talk will cover various tools and their combined usage for creating games and apps for different platforms. Attendees will find out how to reach high performance for their games on various mobile devices with minimal UI alterations.
-
Cultivating a Free-2-Play Mindset
Ivan TKACHENKO, CEO, Signus Labs
Arseny LEBEDEV, Co-founder, Signus Labs
Ivan has over 10 years experience in the gaming industry. In 1999 Mr. Tkachenko joined The Web Production and served as CTO. In 2002 Ivan co-founded and served as CEO of Kenjitsu and VP of Nikitova. Oberon Media acquired Kenjitsu in 2007 where Ivan served as Studio Director at Oberon/I-play. Since May, 2011 Ivan has been CEO of Signus Labs.[Email Ivan]
Arseny co-founded Signus Labs, where he manages marketing and partnership strategies. Prior to Signus, Labs Arseny worked in a marketing role at Large Animal Games. Additionally, Arseny resides on the board of a solar energy manufacturer, where he contributes to strategic decisions.[Email Arseny]
-
Easy Porting for Independent Developers
Artyom SHPYTIAK, CEO, MoonMana
With extensive background in Java development, Artyom opened his own game development studio in 2009, MoonMana, where spearheads the creation of Flash and mobile games for various devices.
[Email Artyom]
This session will help you to understand how to create and port games on Flash, iOS, Android, and other platforms simultaneously with inexpensive tools, and how to effectively cover your social, web and mobile games audience.
