Casual Connect

    Creativity and data may seem like an awkward pair, but when blended together as a recipe for designing a great social game, the two become inseparable ingredients. As the Creative Director for Zynga’s first hidden object game, Hidden Chronicles, Cara Ely will discuss how up-to-the minute player-generated data can be used to create [...]

    You’ve probably heard of Dave Rohrl and Steve Meretzky’s annual presentation on the most important social gaming trends of the past year. In this fresh new format, Rohrl dusts off his crystal ball and predicts the most important trends we’ll see in the year ahead, gives you insight into why these changes are [...]

    Many mobile social games are freemium but lack strong social effects. Only with the help of SNS platforms do mobile social games truly become social and achieve cost-effective acquisition, retention, and monetization rates. Join Ethan to learn about the current state of the platform market. He’ll discuss how platforms interact with social games, [...]

    On the surface, making AAA games in the 90’s and making casual social games today couldn’t be more different: different market maturity, different distribution, different production value, different target audience. But are we being too hasty to brush off our lessons from the last century? In this lecture, a hardened industry vet tells [...]

    Art of Crime developed a total cross-media strategy from scratch AND designed the whole platform for a trans-media expansion BEFORE launch. Their test launch last year showed a unique potential, and the Scandinavian MMO launch this summer has proven it is scalable now with over 80 thousand Crimevillains and hundreds joining every day. [...]

    Facebook’s gaming environment has rapidly matured, creating a highly competitive environment with challenging economics. Understanding how to implement a multi-faced marketing strategy that complements ongoing content development is crucial to giving your game the longevity needed to produce a sizable profit. In a case study you don’t want to miss, 6L, the largest [...]

    Kongregate (A GameStop Company) is a distributor of nearly 100 virtual-goods games developed by developers small and large, Eastern and Western, casual and hardcore. As such, it has a unique perspective on what types of games have the most success monetizing. This talk will look at site-wide trends and dig into specific game [...]

  Can cross-platform gaming boost your business and add value for your customers? Or is it over hyped? What are the success factors and pitfalls when you connect your games to the social graph? Should you introduce a shared virtual currency for all platforms? How can you leverage your IP across social networks and mobile [...]

    Adult Swim has published a string of hit casual games by pursuing an unusual strategy — ignoring the valuable IP created by its TV network, and nurturing off-the-wall concepts from small, independent developers. Find out how they develop innovative game concepts like Robot Unicorn Attack, Amateur Surgeon, Monsters Ate My Condo,and Five Minutes [...]

Some predicted that game distribution through social networking sites would bring about the end of game “Publishing”. The argument was that the tools offered by these networks for a game to “promote itself” and very low cost of Customer Acquisition eliminated two critical roles typically played by game publishers – funding & marketing. As the [...]