FastSpring's Steve Rock to discuss what games and apps can learn from each other at PGC Barcelona

• FastSpring's Steve Rock will speak at PGC Barcelona, which will assemble 1,000+ attendees over two days.

Pocket Gamer Connects returns to Barcelona for the second year running on June 15th and 16th following a stellar debut event last year. 

We’ll assemble 1,000+ games industry professionals to discuss, exchange and connect on all things mobile, PC, console, AI and HTML5. Companies set to join the show include Zynga, Scopely, Gameloft, Rovio, Tetris, FunPlus, Digital Legends and many more.

One of the speakers set to join the conference is FastSpring sales development leader for EMEA/APAC Steve Rock.

Rock is focused on helping software and game businesses manage global payments, fraud and tax compliance. He brings over a decade of go-to-market experience from FastSpring, Stripe and Facebook, spanning sales leadership, enterprise account management, client solutions and growth.

He will be taking part in the panel titled 'Beyond Play: What Can Games & Apps Learn From Each Other?'

The panel will explore how mechanics like gamification, subscriptions, onboarding and live ops are converging - and how to apply the best ideas without copying the worst habits.

Tranformative monetisation landscape

Speaking to PocketGamer.biz ahead of the show, Rock, whose past experience also includes co-founding an AI startup and being a Dogpatch Labs accelerator resident, said one of the key appeals of the games industry for him was the combination of entertainment and data.

"It is an exercise in applied psychology, matched with an endless stream of user data," he said. "I love that combination of human entertainment, matched with the data insights. The feedback loop is so immediate and actionable."

With FastSpring operating in the payments space, Rock said the direct-to-consumer movement is here to stay and encouraged publishers to get ahead and build a plan now to maximise returns in future.

"Proactively invest in building your direct-to-consumer web store infrastructure now, rather than waiting for future regulatory shifts to force your hand." he says.

"The landscape of app monetisation has become 'transformative' due to sweeping global regulations like Epic v. Apple and Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act.

"When these regulations take effect, publishers without an existing D2C pipeline could be caught flatfooted and lose valuable time trying to build their web stores from scratch.

"Developers who already have a web store and a payment provider in place are positioned to seamlessly and instantly capitalise on new regulatory freedoms to drive traffic and revenue."