Interview

PG Connects London 2017 speaker spotlight: Amazon's Mario Viviani on marketing strategies for devs

Mario Viviani offers up his insights

PG Connects London 2017 speaker spotlight: Amazon's Mario Viviani on marketing strategies for devs

Pocket Gamer Connects London is kicking off 2017 in style on January 16th to 17th.

Not sure which sessions to head for? We're shining the spotlight onto our speakers to provide a deeper look at the personalities who will be taking the stage.

Mario Viviani is Technology Evangelist at Amazon Appstore UK, who will be hosting the session 'Audience Marketing Strategies for Your Games – Working Backward from Amazon Customers' at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2017 on January 16th at 2:20pm.

PocketGamer.biz: What opportunities does Amazon offer developers when it comes to marketing?

Mario Viviani: We want to help developers connect with customers, and to make that connection as easy as possible.

Our Appstore allows developers to reach millions of Amazon customers all over the world - and in more ways than ever, through Fire tablets, Fire TV devices, and the Amazon Appstore for Android phones, which is available in in more than 236 countries and territories.

If a developer aims to get featured on the Amazon Appstore, how can they go about getting that?

Firstly, the game needs to provide a great experience for our customers, be well tested and work flawlessly across all supported devices.

And I can’t stress enough the importance of having good graphical assets - this is occasionally overlooked, but your graphics could be featured on the channels we use to promote featured apps, so you want them to provide the best reflection of your game or title as possible.

We also recently launched a new programme called UK Developer Spotlight, which is designed to help developers get exposure for their titles with promotion across a range of Amazon channels.

I’d suggest all UK developers apply for this - you just fill out a quick form alongside submitting your app (found here), and your app could be picked for promotion to Amazon customers.

Are there any customer behaviour stats you can tease to us before your talk at Pocket Gamer Connects?

No spoilers - you’ll have to wait and see. I can tell you I’ll be focusing a lot on customer behaviour, because it’s one of the best sources of insight developers can rely on.

What major trends do you predict for 2017?

It’s very difficult to make predictions in the games world, but it’s an exciting time for the industry with interesting new experiences emerging.

Personally, I would love to see more ubiquitous games that combine the smaller screen experience on tablets with the 10 foot experience on TVs.

What are you looking forward to seeing at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2017?

I’m very excited about the Very Big Indie Pitch. Working with Indies is one of the best parts of my job, and I’m very curious to see what the community has come up with this year.

I’m also looking forward to meeting developers, hearing their ideas, talking about games, and, better still - playing some games too.

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