GameMakers

Panelists discuss:  1. How did you break into this industry?  2. Gaming career choice versus traditional options?  3. Different Roles?  4. Sustained interest?   Moderator:   - Vik Agarwal, Lead PM, Zynga    Speakers: -  Poornima Seetharaman, Dir of Design, Zynga  - Karan Gaikwad, Lead PM, Nukebox  - Shilpa Gaur, Lead Marketing & Strategy, Cympl   Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

Paul Leydon LILA Games Chief Creative Officer and former lead game designer on multiple #1 top grossing titles like King of Avalon (FunPlus) and Game of War (MZ), discusses his design and research methodology. He discusses the importance of doing the work and depth in making a hit game.   Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ Watch it on the GameMakers YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/GameMakersStudio

In this conversation, we have some of India’s top game industry leaders.    Speakers:  #1. Manish Agarwal, CEO of Nazara #2. Amit Hardi, CEO of Nukebox #3. Salone Sehgal, Genera. Partner at Lumikai #4. Anuj Tandon, Head of Corp Dev India & MENA at Krafton The focus of the conversation is oriented around India as a game development ecosystem. We talk about What’s keeping India from becoming the next China or Turkey, what are the strengths of the Indian game dev scene, and how do we accelerate the local Indian gaming market.  This was the first of 5 sessions from the India F2P gaming conference. Be sure to check this out as well as some of the other sessions.    Moderator:  - Joseph Kim, CEO of LILA Games  And you can always read about it in the GameMakers newsletter and get alerted to new events in the future: https://gamemakers.substack.com/

We talk about the history and future opportunities for Instant Games. Joining us is Lars Doucet who wrote about this in his blog post (linked below) and Emily Greer, who as the former founder and CEO of Kongregate, has a strong perspective on this.   LINKS:  - Jon Lai, a16z partner, tweet on Instant Games: https://twitter.com/Tocelot/status/1404914355670437889 - Lars Blog Post "The Future of Games is an Instant Flash to the past": https://www.fortressofdoors.com/the-future-of-games-is-an-instant-flash-to-the-past/  - Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/ Speakers: - Lars Doucet, President of Level Up Labs: https://twitter.com/larsiusprime - Emily Greer, CEO of Double Loop Games: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilygreer/ Moderator: - Joseph Kim, CEO of LILA Games: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jokim/

We talk about real-world data and the implications of IDFA deprecation. Now there has been a lot of VERY BAD information being published on this topic. So today we have with us 3 real-world practitioners and some real data about what’s actually happening. More specifically we will discuss: #1. Real world data and impact of IDFA Deprecation #2. Specific changes to how we do UA and Marketing based on the effects of IDFA Deprecation #3. Implications to product and monetization design #4. Who are likely winners & losers from these changes? SPEAKERS: 1. Brian Bowman, CEO of Consumer Acquisition: 2. Matej Lancaric, Independent UA & Marketing Consultant: 3. Warren Woodward, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Upptic Overview:  0:00 Intro  2:15 Games Impact: Real Data  12:02 Winners, Models, Supercell  16:47 Algo Instability, Lookalikes   20:43 Google Performance  23:35 Unity Perf Explained  26:20 ROAS Loss  30:05 Specific Marketing Changes  36:43 SKAdnetwork Conversion Value  43:17 Creative Testing on iOS  44:43 Reactivation Campaigns   46:13 Strategic Maneuvering  48:56 CPG Marketing  53:20 Product Implications  56:42 Winners & Losers

Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter! Conversation with Joe Byrne Director of Business Development and Strategy at SciPlay one of the world’s biggest and most successful social casino game companies. Topics: #1. How do the most sophisticated game companies use market intelligence data to inform their product strategy? #2. How given new changes because of IDFA deprecation for example would create new requirements for the kinds of insights from the data that we look for?  #3. Strategic insights on how the social casino genre is evolving and new trends for that genre.   This conversation was facilitated in partnership with AppAnnie who is currently rolling out an update to their gaming taxonomy. Thanks App Annie!   Speaker:     - Joe Byrne, Director of Business Development and Strategy at SciPlay

Read about it in the GameMakers newsletter: https://gamemakers.substack.com/  How do competitive PVP games manage and scale up their tech infrastructure? What did Riot do for Valorant? We spoke to arguably the best two people in the entire world to address this question Riot's Head of Infra & Live Ops Zach Blitz and Network Next CEO Glenn Fiedler.  SPEAKERS:    - Zach Blitz, Head of Infra and Live Ops, Riot Games    - Glenn Fiedler, Founder & CEO, Network Next

Tobi Lutke and Brian Armstrong re-popularized the notion of companies as described as "families" or "high performance sports teams." This impacts 1. employee performance expectations, 2. how to deal with discussions of social issues at the workplace, and 3. dissociating personal vs. professional lives.    Let's have a nuanced discussion with a strong cross-section of key people from the games industry.   Speakers: - Eden Chen, CEO Pragma.gg:  - Drew Levin, Lead PM Zynga  - Chong Ahn, Head of PM EA  - Ken Landen, Sr. PM Blizzard Relevant Links  - Initial Netflix Culture document (this seems to be the original popularization of the team-focus theme) - Tobi Lutke: We are not a family - Brian Armstrong: Mission focused company

Today we will be talking about the current state of Game Company Growth and the various growth strategies being deployed by different game companies.   SPEAKERS: - Joseph Kim, CEO, LILA Games - Eric Kress, Principal, Gossamer Consulting - Chris Petrovic, Chief Business Officer, FunPlus LINKS: - Four Growth Paradigms on GameMakers Newsletter Part 1 - Four Growth Paradigms on GameMakers Newsletter Part 2

Today we are going to be talking about game publishing, the strategy behind consolidated studio organizations, and the future of the industry.    Our speakers include:   - Alexis Bonte, Group COO, Stillfront   - Nadir Khan, COO, Candywriter   - Tobias Kringe, Founder and Managing Director, Bytro Labs Our hosts include   - Joseph Kim, CEO, LILA Games   - Eric Kress, Principal, Gossamer Consulting   - Chris Petrovic, Chief Business Officer, FunPlus