Asia market has generally more hardcore mobile games, enabling gamers to enjoy a more immersive social experience is crucial to achieving healthy engagement and retention.

Takeaway:

• Cultural differences and needs of social mobile games
• How AAA experiences can be enjoyed on mobile
• Tencent’s innovation in this space

The current play-to-earn gaming market is dominated by crypto experts, meaning many of the experiences focus on earning with little to no depth in gameplay. In this session, we will discuss how to use the knowledge from the web2 and Free to Play era and apply it to create the next generation of Play to Earn games.

Takeaway:

• A summary of the current P2E gaming market
• An understanding of the key learnings from F2P that we believe need to be applied to bring the P2E to the next level
• An outlook on the future

Landmark's mission is to change how user acquisition is achieved on Mobile. We believe the answer lies within the design of the games themselves. Using viral mechanics deeply ingrained into the core of our gameplay loops allows our games to grow organically instead of through prohibitively expensive paid user acquisition. This talk will discuss the history of social/viral game design, which features have succeeded and failed in the past, current successful examples, and how this will evolve in the future. It will then move into how Landmark designs, implements, tests, iterates, and measure the success of our organic growth features.

Takeaway:

• A history of organic growth in games
• What viral mechanics are currently working on the market
• Viral and social features we'll start to see in the future
• How organic features can be designed and tested

Understanding mobile game feature design is essential for getting customers to stick around in your game and keep spending money. In this talk, James Haslam takes a look into the crystal ball and uses real-world insight and data to examine the latest emerging trends that are set to shape the winning mobile games of tomorrow.

GameRefinerys analysts track over 200 mobile game features in 2,500+ top-performing games within their growing database of 100,000 games, mapping everything from a game's re-engagement mechanics to monetization, revenue and the amount of content. Some of the insights in this talk will include RPG elements, player progression, social interaction, player motivations and other key features.

This talk examines and explains key trends and features within mobile games that will be vital for companies and developers to implement. We will use real-world data to showcase how mobile games have changed throughout the years and how certain markets have influenced the genres evolution. Our analysts have compiled this data from over 7,000 participants from Western countries. This data will be integral for mobile games companies, and we have gathered our findings in a report that illustrates the figures simply and concisely. 

Takeaway:

• Key features and trends in mobile games
• Understanding player motivations
• Hybrid elements

We will discuss how we built several prototypes and tools to support rapid iteration of design and art while avoiding the production of heaps of tech debt. We’ll outline our modular code approach that’s saved us loads of time and allowed us to pivot many times before attaining success.

Takeaway:

• How to prepare for prototyping
• How to support your art and design teams
• What you’ll need to build to release a large F2P mobile game (edited)

Innovation in game development is often seen as launching a new type of game. However, there are many ways to innovate without starting afresh. Creating a sequel that builds on your success – using existing characters, proven mechanics, or exciting storylines that your players love – could be a better way to go. We explore how these studios increased their success by innovating within genre to launch sequels and how they mitigated the risks involved. In particular, we look at:
- How to determine whether a sequel is the right approach
- Avoiding the risks of cannibalizing previous titles
- The impact of a sequel on the team structure and motivation

Takeaway:

• Leverage cross promotion
• Finding the right combination of veteran and new staff for the development teams
• Ensuring the sequel fulfills player desires and offers something new, you mitigate the risk of cannibalization