The Dubai GameExpo Summit kicks off tomorrow! We’re partnering up with Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) to bring an unmissable games conference experience to the glorious city of Dubai, in the fastest growing region of the international games industry.

Packed with star speakers and sessions our June 21 - 22 event brings two days of essential mobile gaming knowhow to the most vibrant and high-flying gaming location on earth.

Find out more and get your tickets here!

The GameExpo Summit powered by PG Connects will take place as part of the Dubai Esports and Games Festival 2023 (DEF 2023) event at the Dubai Exhibition Centre within Expo City Dubai.

The summit itself will feature more than 100 renowned games industry speakers from the gaming industry from all over the globe delivering insightful talks, panels and seminars across a number of themed tracks. You can look forward to the same type of invaluable learning and networking opportunities you’ve come to expect from Pocket Gamer Connects events.

Ahead of the event we spoke with Christina Macedo, co-founder and COO of Ready Games on her quest to inspire likeminded creatives and business leaders to take their own journeys in the worlds of gaming, tech, and web3.

PocketGamer.biz: Give us a summary of what you’re speaking about at Dubai GameExpo Summit

Christina Macedo: My talk is about on-chain player quests, optimizing monetization funnels in your game with web3.

Where do you think the next big opportunities in the mobile games market are?

Utilizing on-chain player data to activate rewarded user acquisition. Developers should see web3 as an opportunity to incentivize the right player demographic to install and play their game, moreso, utilize on-chain data to reward players with airdrops or rewarded NFTs directly.

This creates a more effective and direct relationship between the developer and the player, a complete 180 from current web2 UA.

What is your favourite trend from the last 12 months?

Enabling web3 on-chain technology to tap into on-chain player quests. On-chain player quests optimize monetization funnels, bring more value to digital assets for players, enhance the player journey, allow publishers to enable UA utilizing interoperability and so much more.

By looking at the power of on-chain data and how smart contracts can add a layer and element to the utility of the in-game NFTs it completely elevates gameplay for the player.

What role do NFTs play in the future of games?

NFTs don't only add this very powerful ownership element for players but also come to represent the "reputational capital" of a player. NFTs that players are rewarded with or won in a tournament add a certain "reputational capital" to the on-chain player's identity. Those that players purchase will add another element of capital value. Those NFTs that are crafted or come from breeding will add another element. This becomes incredibly powerful for the player and for the developer to tap into when balancing the game.

When not making and playing games, what do you do to relax?

Spend time with my boys. I have a two-and-a-half year old and a six month old and spend time playing games with them. Utilizing gaming to educate my sons has become one of my favorite parts of the day. Education through play, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful ways to encourage curiosity.

What do you enjoy most about working in the mobile games industry?

The ability to continuously innovate and have that innovation be consumed through games. What you build is just FUN!

What was the fundamental appeal of the mobile games industry that brought you to it?

Most people will access technology through gaming. Mobile gaming is the most accessed and the most widely available. A huge demographic globally have access to a mobile phone but not necessarily a PC or gaming console. Mobile games has always represented to me an opportunity to build for everyone to access technology. This is why it was so important for us at Ready Games, to make sure we were enabling web3 gaming for everyone, for every platform, for every genre. Thus why we took a mobile first-approach. Build mobile first and all the other platforms will follow.

Can people get in touch with you at the event? What sort of people would you like to connect with?

Absolutely, Ready Games will have a booth and any developer that would love to learn about how to utilize web3 to optimize their games for their players, learn more about Ready Games' SDKs, learn about some amazing case studies, play some of our partners' games or just pass by and chat about web3 are definitely welcome!