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Pocket Gamer's San Francisco Mobile Mixer kicks off summer in style

Thanks to sponsors Sega and FunPlus

Pocket Gamer's San Francisco Mobile Mixer kicks off summer in style
How do you get hundreds of developers into the subterranean Vessel nightclub in San Francisco?

Pocket Gamer's regular series of Mobile Mixers seems to be a good mechanism.

And on Wednesday 26 June, down the stairs they came to explore best practices regarding user acquisition, engagement, and monetisation.

With many thanks to sponsors Sega and FunPlus, the crowd enjoyed cocktails, appetisers, games, prize-packed promos, swag and the Sounds of R3Y GUTI3RR3z, while mixing it up with industry notables, and super-icon Sonic The Hedgehog, who made a special appearance to celebrate his 22nd birthday.



Award-winning chef, TheGrilledCheezGuy, presented Sonic with themed cupcakes and Avery Photography snapped brilliant photos of Sonic's fans mugging the camera.

Check out the photo gallery on the Pocket Gamer Facebook wall for the good time that was had by all.

Substantive discourse

The panel discussion was a highlight of the evening as industry veterans shared their experiences of how they top the charts, maintain their leads, and grow their long-tail franchises of branded and new IP.


Sega's David Zemke

First up, David Zemke, head of mobile business development at Sega, presented a trailer of the company's upcoming summer mobile games, and took us back to the early days of Super Monkey Ball, where in 2008, panelist Ethan Einhorn, Sega's director of online operations, stood beside Steve Jobs onstage at WWDC to welcome in the dawn of the smartphone gaming era.

Sega has since launched over 115 apps, and is now actively seeking publishing opportunities to help quality games thrive and nurturing the indie dev community.


FunPlus' Yitao Guan

Then Yitao Guan, founder and CTO of FunPlus, took the stage to introduce us to his hot social mobile gaming startup.

Launched three years ago, the company has been growing fast, raised $13 million from GSR and Signia Ventures, built a global team across 15 countries, and are now actively recruiting top talent. Its hit game Family Farm has 5 million DAUs on Facebook and 1 million DAUs on mobile, and it recently launched new fantasy and casino games.

Following that Jeff Scott, editor-in-chief of 148Apps lead a panel discussion of hot topics.

The panel reflected on WWDC and E3 and concluded that with 1.2 billion gamers playing a half million games on mobile devices, mobile is clearly disrupting console.

Although buttons still matter, console is increasing becoming a core niche, partly thanks to the required learning curve that the intuitive mobile devices don't have. With the advent of mobile, everyone is now gaming. As mobile devices get more powerful and mobile games get more high-fidelity, an even bigger shift on the part of the developers and publishers into the mobile space is expected.


Kabam's Matt Curtis

Matt Curtis, senior director of product management at Kabam, talked about how the expansion into mobile for the F2P Facebook and browser publisher helped the company develop a $200 million franchise from Kingdoms of Camelot.

He discussed the robust go-to-market plan Kabam employed for Fast and Furious 6: The Game, which has gained 17 million downloads since its mid-May launch, and how good game design was key for success.

Making the game fun, engaging, and matching playstyle to the IP (e.g. racing for FF6 vs. strategy for The Hobbit) is what gets users into the game. Performance marketing and a metrics-driven approach is what keeps them playing post launch.


Sega's Ethan Einhorn

Ethan Einhorn of Sega discussed how branded IP can on its own perpetuate organic traffic and how tough it can be to get attention when you're not at the top of the charts.

For new IP, he advised indies not to underestimate PR as a way to drive traffic. He suggested creating compelling in-game events and cross promotional tie-ins (e.g. Clash of Clans/Puzzle & Dragons) which gives editors hooks for coverage and creates visibility in front of tastemakers, who read the key outlets and share game experiences with 5-50 of their friends. PR may not show up in analytics in terms of boosting user acquisition but is the pathway to creating a hit via influencers.


WeMade's Philip Yun

Philip Yun, CEO of WeMade USA, discussed the tremendous success the Korean publisher has had in Asia where messaging apps dominate as gaming platforms. With Kakao in South Korea, Line in Japan, WeChat in China, the panel voiced excitement over the promise of similar apps like Tango for North America.



Finally, the panel discussed the game they're playing. High marks went to Candy Crush Saga, Real Racing 3, Clash of Clans and Puzzle & Dragons.

They recommended everyone play the top games not only because they're extremely well-designed and fun to play, but because playing them can give you insight into game design that works, particularly as it relates to monetisation.

Several said they play until they're forced to pay. Philip Yun of WeMade impressed the audience when he revealed that he made it to level 240 in Candy Crush Saga, and is currently at level 49 in Clash of Clans without spending any money.

Next up… Casual Connect San Francisco!

Hold onto your hat as we supersize the next Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer for Casual Connect San Francisco.

Sponsoring is hot young mobile developer, Grand Cru, which will be giving us a sneak peek at its soon-to-be-launched game, Supernauts, a F2P iOS superhero sandbox world building game. Create your own world Minecraft-style play single player missions, interact with friends and enjoy social features like live synchronous multiplayer.

Get hands-on time with the devs, then enjoy an all-star panel moderated by Jeff Scott, editor-in-chief of 148Apps and yours truly, featuring speakers:


  • Kristian Segerstrale, board member, Supercell/Initial Capital

  • Ben Liu, CEO, Pocket Gems

  • Thorbjorn Warin, CMO, Grand Cru

  • Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, GM Mobile, Perfect World


DJ R3Y will be spinning tunes, Avery Photography will be taking snaps, and there will be drinks, bites and epic good times. You won't want to miss it!

RSVP here



Kabam's Carol Quito, Pocket Gamer's Martine Paris & DeNA's Lisa Revelli


AppLift's Jan Tillmann


Fabien-Pierre Nicolas & Wilson Collado


DJ R3Y GUTI3RR3Z dropping beats SONIC-style


TEAM SEGA!

Tech reporter Martine Paris covers trends across mobile, games, AR VR, wearables and IoT, the intersection of emerging tech, music, video and culture, and how to get featured, funded and monetized. You can typically find her at shows with a mic in her hand interviewing industry's leading voices. Follow her @contentnow.