23-24 October 2018 Bell Harbor Conference Center, Seattle What Is Gamesforum? About Gamesforum Seattle
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23-24 OCTOBER 2018 BELL HARBOR CONFERENCE CENTER, SEATTLE WHAT IS GAMESFORUM? ABOUT GAMESFORUM SEATTLE Gamesforum Seattle is a two day conference that brings together senior exec- utives, influential managers and ambitious independent developers with the aim of supporting cross platform game developers. It is taking place on the 23rd and 24th October in the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle, playing host to a hundred speakers from leading developers, publishers, brands and service providers discussing topics across six fascinating content tracks. The event will also play host to a number of additional micro events, including a game pitching competition, a meet the publisher session and workshops Furthermore, there will be plenty of opportunities to meet new people in our exhibition area, at our meeting zones and at the legendary Gamesforum party. WHY IS YOUR EVENT CROSS PLATFORM? We believe that barriers between platforms are dissolving. While mobile, console and PC still retain their own distinct characteristics – which need to be respected – the extent to which they divide the industry and by which games are enclosed by them has never been more in question. Game developers are pushing at the edges of the boundaries between console and PC, with games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Minecraft spread- ing across platforms. Additionally, hardware creators such as Nintendo and Razer are redefining the divisions between device categories with the line between mobile, console and PC hardware becoming ever harder to define. Finally, business models and practices are permeating between each sector. At the same time as we see console and PC developers embrace games as a service, we increasingly see mobile developers focusing on strengthening their brands and enriching their game mechanics to maintain their competitive edge. Therefore, we believe that a cross platform focus will help us to best serve the industry and – as a result of that – the players who make it what it is. WHO ATTENDS GAMESFORUM? Gamesforum brings together the games industry’s decision makers. Whether they’re ambitious independent developers choosing a publishing part- ners, technical leads scoping out new development tools, CxO leaders discuss- ing strategies or something else entirely, all our attendees have real power to support your business. 83% of our attendees at Gamesforum London 2018 were CxO, director, senior manager or founder level, with 80% working for developers or publishers. These are the people who attend our events and who you’ll have a chance to meet. GAMESFORUM SPEAKERS HEAR FROM OUR GREAT SPEAKER LINE-UP THIS OCTOBER. WITH A MIXTURE OF PRESENTATIONS, PANEL DISCUSSIONS AND FIRESIDE CHATS, OUR SPEAKERS WILL ADDRESS THE KEY CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN THE GAMING MARKET TODAY AND ALSO WHAT’S IN STORE FOR THE FUTURE Alim Jaffer Ariella Lehrer Dave Pottinger Elise Kates VP of Product President Founder Founder Heroic Labs Hitpoint Studios Bonus XP Elise Kates Audio Production Ellie Moon Erik Desiderio Erik Smith Christina Barleben CK Wang UX Director Composer Marketing Director Creative Director CEO Kabam Erik Desiderio Music Treasure Data Thoughtfish Kooapps Mike McCain Nathan Sellyn Witek Radomski Max Szlagor Game Director Chief Creative Officer Co- Founder Design Director Harebrained Schemes Flowmotion Enjin 343 Industries Entertainment AGENDA - DAY 1 23rd October 2018 08:30 Registration Welcome to Gamesforum 09:25 Opening remarks Gamesforum’s Event Director will make some brief opening remarks about the conference, including an outline of what to expect from both days and some much needed housekeeping. John Speakman, Event Director, Gamesforum 09:30 State of the industy: The age of consolidation (and what it means for your video game business) Our opening panel of the day discusses how to thrive in the age of video games industry consolidation. As well as explaining why consolidation is happening, this session will explore what it means for larger and smaller industry players alike - helping to guide the strategy of your games business. Luke Stapley, China Video Game Analyst | Michael Chang, SVP Corporate Development, NCSoft West | Henry Lowenfels, SVP Business Development, Scopely | John Peterson, Director Corporate Development, Jam City 10:15 AM networking break A 30 minute netoworking break to meet fellow attendees over a coffee GAMES MARKETING FORUM GAMES BUSINESS FORUM DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT FORUM WORKSHOP ROOM 10:45 The next mobile wave 10:45 New high score? defining success in 10:45 Cross-Platform Publishing: 10:30 Workshop space opens In this presentation Eric Seufert will discuss the growth of new business models the games business Rewards and Hazards on mobile (hypercasual, subscription) , its implications for games marketing and It can be hard to work out what success actually looks like in the games industry. Big opportunities exist today to take the same game to multiple screens and monetization and what it might mean for your games business. While our attention is all naturally drawn to billion dollar hits, what does success audiences, but there are plenty of risks and dangers as well. This talk will draw 11:00 Games business workshop Eric Seufert, Platform, N3twork look like for over 9/10 developers where that doesn’t apply? In this talk, CK Wang upon Kongregate’s experience (and scar tissue) as a cross-platform publisher, and Book your appointments to meet our experts in law, accountancy, recruitment and HR to help fast track your business CEO of Kooapps will talk about how even though surviving aas an Indie studio owner of Kongregate.com web and Kartridge PC platforms. seems impossible, Kooapps used concrete survival tactics to grow Pictoword Josh Larson, CRO, Kongregate from 0 to 20 million users and a top word game on both iOS and Google Play. CK Wang, CEO Kooapps 13:00 Lunch 11:05 The video game marketing mix 11:05 Messenger games: The state of play for 11:05 Operations: How to keep your live 14:00 Deconstructing the Kooapps Ad This session will set the agenda by discussing the state of play in video game HTML 5 titles game going Monetization Stack marketing today. Our panel will discuss: 1) What are the current trends in games Messenger games have been hyped up by the industry as a new cross platform For the increasing number of games that are always online, managing live With more than 30 million downloads across 30 ad-supported titles on iOS and marketing? 2) With acquisition cost far outstripping retention costs should we gaming outlet, retention tool and marketing device. But how do they truly operations is increasingly essential. In this session, our panellist will talk about their Android, the monetization team at Kooapps knows a thing or two about mobile change the mix? 3) How should we engage users outside our game? measure up now? We gather experts working on games across browser and experiences in running a live game and share their advice on how to manage the ad monetization. Join Tenjin’s CEO, Christopher Farm, and Kooapps’ CEO, CK Moderator: Randy Waxman, CEO, Blind Ferret messenger applications to get their thoughts on whether this is HTML 5’s process successfully. Wang, as they take a step-by-step walk through the networks, mediation tools, David Jumper, Sr Director of User Acquisition, Disruptor Beam break out moment. Moderator: Mark Val, GM Playfab and measurement partners they use to effectively monetize their thriving global games. Attendees can look forward to first-hand testimonials of which tools work, Warren Woodward, Exec. Director of UA, Nexon Mobile Moderator, Josh Burns Sam Fisher, President, Hyper Hippo Games which ones don’t, and how they too can build the right ad monetization stack for Conrad McGee-Stocks, UA Lead, Uken Games Alim Jaffer, VP Prodcut, Heroic Labs Mike Wallis, Sr. Director of Product, DoubleDown interactive their business. Daniel Todd, CEO,Influence Mobile Cynthia Du, Co-Founder, Synative Daniel McLaren, Senior Game Designer at ArenaNet. Andrey Kuznetsov, CEO, KamaGames Kevin Urie, Managing Director, Screenzilla 11:50 No More Secrets: Restoring Credibility to UA 11:50 How Brands use tokens to attract and retain 11:50 Not just Flipping: Using Licensed Assets A crisis of trust has been created through lapses in data privacy and data breaches. customers - a KamaGames Perspective in your Game The increase in scale and frequency of these events has created a heightened Using Kama Games own learnings, challenges and successes, this talk explores the Christian Allen from Epic will be takling about cross-platform games development state of sensitivity from the level of the individual consumer to the highest levels introduction, application and growth of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies/tokens using the Unreal Engine using case studies. of government. GDPR, new regulations and enhanced privacy concerns make one in both the social gaming industry and the wider games industry as a whole and Christian Allen, Unreal Evangelist, Epic Games thing clear -- It’s no longer business as usual. Your users are core to your long- where the Kama Games sees the future in gaming of Blockchain technology. term success and you don’t want to risk losing them unnecessarily. The definition Andrey Kuznetsov, CEO, Kama Games of insanity is doing the same thing over again, expecting different results. What actions will you take to protect your users and your business? Brett Bauer, CEO, Appfluencer 12:10 ASO and organic marketing 12:10 Blockchange: How blockchain could transform 12:15 Panel: Red vs Blue - how to create, run and The Panel will discuss how Organic Marketing can complement paid UA to help the games industry support online multiplayer games developers grow their users. Through practical examples we will discuss how to This panel will discuss how blockchain can revolutionise how we acquire, engage and Online multiplayer has been a big component of the video games industry for the optimize your games discoverability.