Friday, August 30, 2013

Casual Connect 2013: Making It Big: Monetization Strategies of Leading Game Developers

moderated by Heather Hromoho, Director of Developer Operations, Millenial Media
·         Summary: Make sure who your customer is and gain their trust.
·         Panelists include Joe Lazarus (CMO, Backflip Studios), Lou Fasulo (CEO, Z2Live), George Donovan (CEO, Gojii Games), and Andy Heinman (Scopely).
·         Be revenue agnostic (in-app purchases vs. ad revenue) as long as it provides a good user experience.
·         If you spend too much on acquisition, you need to monetize the user better and get higher value. CPIs are inevitably rising, so to counteract that, you need to generate higher LTV.
·         Start with the customer and work backwards. Have clear transparency about how to play and how you monetize. Don’t lose the customer’s trust.
·         Make sure who your customer is. Don’t make a game for “everybody” because not everyone plays and purchases the same way. Also, don’t build a game for yourself.
·         Making a paywall breaks the user’s trust because they won’t know how many other taxes they’ll run into later and will quit your game.
·         Merchandising is very important. Changing how your store looks likes changes purchasing behaviors.
·         Localization is important. Hire true localizers (who are also editors, not just translators). Localize to EFIGS and some Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean).
·         Evolution of a game mechanic is just as good, or possibly better, than innovation.
·         Use analytics well to see why people are engaging or disengaging, and how they are consuming the game.

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