David Nixon: • Making games professionally since 1989 • Worked in hardcore, casual, social, mobile • Shipped hundreds of games • Passion for Eastern European devs • Co-Founder “Gemini Hive Inc.”

1. The Next Big Thing
Saturday, May 19, 12

2. My Profile
• Making games professionally since 1989
• Worked in hardcore, casual, social, mobile
• Shipped hundreds of games
• Passion for Eastern European devs
• Co-Founder “Gemini Hive Inc.”
Saturday, May 19, 12

3. Thank You Nekki!
Video, images and logos (c) Nekki, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 12

4. Bullet Points
• Games are no longer the most used apps!
• 1,000,000 New Smartphone installs daily, Android is CRUSHING
• “Gold rush” to mobile
• Free 2 Play might be winning the monetization race
• Platform agnosticism is becoming a religion
• Big companies spending Big $ to solve the “Discovery Problem”
• New ideas, use cases, tech keeps coming
Saturday, May 19, 12

5. Battle for “time spent”
Another category of apps gives us a run for our money
Saturday, May 19, 12

6. Mobile Social Networking!
Saturday, May 19, 12

7. Tough Competition
• 5 Major players - 2,000,000,000 people
• FB/Instagram - $1,000,000,000 is alot of green
• FB IPO - $16,000,000,000 is a TON of green
• GREE, Mixi, DeNA, Tencent blanket Asia with
nearly 600,000,000 users and all these co’s are
tight with the carriers
Saturday, May 19, 12

8. The “Silver Lining”
• Total minutes are up (77 vs 68)
• SN’s are strong enablers for game features
• SN introduce and habituate device features
• Natural partnerships / overlap
• Money to burn
Saturday, May 19, 12

9. The Smartphone
Revolution is upon us
Unless you’ve been asleep for 2 years, this shouldn’t be
a surprise to you
Saturday, May 19, 12

10. “Smart Device”
Growth
• 100,000,000+ US smartphone gamers
• 10 BILLION by 2020
Saturday, May 19, 12

11. It’s global
• Growth in every
major market
• Half of predicted
consumption growth
is in Asia
• Freemium helps
confront piracy
problems
Saturday, May 19, 12

12. IoS vs. Android
• 2x growth in 2012
• Ipad still dominates
tablets market
• Pro - 5x growth in 2012
• Con - Fragmentation
• Is Galaxy Note a phone
or a tablet?
Saturday, May 19, 12

13. Rise of Android
850,000!!
(device activations per day)
Saturday, May 19, 12

14. Android Fragmentation 1
Source: http://mashable.com/2012/05/16/android-fragmentation-graphic/
Saturday, May 19, 12

15. Android Fragmentation 2
Source: http://mashable.com/2012/05/16/android-fragmentation-graphic/
Saturday, May 19, 12

16. ?
Saturday, May 19, 12

17. HTC Titan -- $0.01
Never count MS out.
They do s*** like this.
Saturday, May 19, 12

18. Devs rush to mobile
Like crazed lemmings...
(but maybe
you’re this guy?)
Saturday, May 19, 12

19. Big social companies
moving to Mobile
Zynga, wooga, 6waves, King.com, Crowdstar, Disney...
Saturday, May 19, 12

20. [Browser] Social Maturity
• Maturity = harder to
succeed from standing
start
• Fighting over scraps
• Park research suggests
“exit or sell” in Social
Saturday, May 19, 12

21. We ‘Midcore’
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22. Bottom line...
If you are considering a switch to mobile, you
are not alone, and you game better be...
Saturday, May 19, 12

23. Free-2-Play...yay or nay?
Some wise-ass subtitle
Saturday, May 19, 12

24. Free 2 Play Economics
• % of Mau paying - 3.5%-10% conversion
• ARPDAU = $.04 - $.05
• $8 - $15/mo ARPPU
• In game purchases are ~55% of total game
revenue
• 90% of games spending is F2P today
Saturday, May 19, 12

25. Free 2 Play Lifecycle 1
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26. Free 2 Play Lifecycle 2
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27. F2P Realities
• F2P is expensive, time consuming, and hard
• It requires constant and ongoing attention
• There is a steep learning curve
• Experience with service-based F2P games
(such as online-social) is a major advantage
• When it works, it works really, really well
Saturday, May 19, 12

28. Platform Schmatform
Who cares, just let me play!
Saturday, May 19, 12

29. Platform Agnosticism
• 50%+ consumers play mobile games to
extend/continue their gameplay experience
from other platforms (newzoo)
• Players & Designers thinking less about
platform and more about unified UEX
• Middleware providing roads to both
technical and marketing access to many
platforms
Saturday, May 19, 12

30. Dude, where’s my app?
Distribution & Discover
Saturday, May 19, 12

31. Appstore Evolution
• Google Android Marketplace and
renames it “Google Play”
• Facebook Launches Appstore
• Zynga appstore?
Saturday, May 19, 12

32. Customer Acquisition
(It’s complicated)
Saturday, May 19, 12

33. Download Motivations Reasons to download mobile game
Russians rely on friends, Americans go for price (2011)
• Americans go by price
• Russians rely on friends
and download new
releases
• Know what motivates
Game
Ag
your audience when
picking your strategy & Source: 2011 Newzoo Consumer Research | Newzoo Data Explorer
partners Newzoo Trend Report | Mobile Games | March 2012
Saturday, May 19, 12

34. The Bleeding Edge
New Tech Game-Changers
Saturday, May 19, 12

35. mmm....Ice Cream Sandwich
• Android 4.0 is finally rolling out
• Impacts phones more than tablets
• It’s a much better user experience
• Fixes some annoying technical issues
• Double-edged fragmentation grenade
Saturday, May 19, 12

36. • Feature limited
• Browser performance concerns
• Not useful on Android < 4.0
• But - wow - when it works...it’s really cool
• Possible game-changer for certain types of games
Saturday, May 19, 12

37. Connected Screens
Saturday, May 19, 12

38. Thank You
David Nixon, david@geminihive.com
Don’t forget to play
Vector for Online &
Mobile!
Saturday, May 19, 12

39. Payor Demographic Notes
Mobile game payors could be women or men
(slightly more likely to be men) and 10 - 35 y/o
Asian players are 2x more likely to pay!
Saturday, May 19, 12

40. Design Challenges
Today’s mobile devices are feature-rich
Saturday, May 19, 12

41. Anatomy of a
Smartphone
Saturday, May 19, 12

42. Design
• Multitouch
• Spotty internet connection
• Location services
• To tilt or not to tilt
• Cameras
Saturday, May 19, 12