Last week, Casual Connect Kyiv 2012 was held in Kiev. Surely you have already got acquainted with our series of interviews dedicated to this event. Today we offer some notes about the event itself.
The general theme of Casual Connect in recent years has been built on three pillars: casual, social and mobile. For obvious reasons, this time the lion’s share of the reports was devoted to mobile gaming, with special attention paid to games running on the free-to-play model.
Almost everyone seems to be working here. Casual, hardcore, former console developers and publishers are switching to mobile rails in pursuit of a green dollar. Big Fish Games is no exception. Moreover, according to the executive director and one of the founders of the company, Paul Thelen, his team releases mobile games almost daily. In his report “How to make money with games today” Telen said that the most promising genres in terms of earnings are HOPA, full-fledged quests and puzzles in the premium segment, as well as simulators, builders and role-playing games in the free-to-play segment. Telen also noted that gambling games like “casino” feel great on the mobile market.
In turn, the CEO of G5 Games, Vlad Suglobov, actively agitated developers to “not waste time on PC games”, port them as quickly as possible to mobile platforms, and adapt the best projects to free-to-play gameplay.
Alexander Lyskovsky, co-founder and CEO of Alawar Entertainment, spoke about the main trends of the past year. He noted the significant growth of Android in relation to iOS, the increase in the number of tablet users and the fact that the mobile market is already almost captured by f2p applications. Lyskovsky named free-to-play, “new unusual platforms”, cloud services, active work with users and “brand development from multiplatform to mix media” as “new growth points”. By the latter, he meant the expansion of the mobile brand beyond the borders of the digital market (into the fields of cinema, television, printed products, events, etc.).
By the way, Matt Wilson, the manager of the publishing direction of Rovio, also talked about mix media. However, this is not surprising: the creators of Angry Birds are well known for their love of merchandising, creating cartoons and books “based on”, not to mention almost fair performances.
The “Aces” of the Russian f2p sphere, GameInsight company, was represented by Daria Trushkina, Vice President for Business Development. From her report, it was quite possible to conclude that currently the most attractive platform in financial terms is Android. Based on figures and facts, Trushkina showed that Russia, Turkey, India, Brazil and, of course, China should be among the most actively developing markets today.
Yes, very soon videos and files with presentations of all performances will be posted on the official website.