Challenge, engage, and analyse your players, says Plarium's Oren Todoros

he everyone so first of all thank you for the invite pocket Gamers and putting together a fantastic event my name is Orin todor I'm the mobile PR specialist at plarium uh plarium is ranked one of the uh largest hardcore game developers on Facebook uh I don't know how many of you guys have heard of our games um but we do have about five games today uh throughout the Social Web uh We've generated about 90 million users worldwide and uh I'm here to tell you today a little bit about some of the trends uh that plarium has U has noticed uh about the mobile gaming industry uh so it's basically we're going to go into five hot trends that are uh part of social gaming these are the trends that we've not noticed or identified as being significant uh at least significant enough to go on this presentation so without wasting too much time we're going to jump into the first one one of the most interesting trends that we've noticed recently is the mashup of different gaming genres so

we're see we're starting to see this now a lot with uh with games that mix um you know RPG style games with card collecting elements uh or hardcore uh elements within the game uh mixed with some casual uh gameplay so this is one of the latest uh trends that plarium has identified uh now just to say a little bit about how we came to this these conclusions we have a pretty significant uh research team uh so we were trying to filter down some of the most interesting trends that you guys can take away at the end of this event so the first thing that I uh that I wanted to mention is the genre the game genre mashups uh one of the games that has done this pretty well is the Collectibles which is a fantastic action oriented game uh with a card collecting uh element within the game so you're progressing through the game shooting up the bad guys and as you do you're collecting uh cards uh that's just an extra little feature that makes the game a little bit more engaging and and entertaining the second thing is special

events so it's uh it's great to have a fun game and to get people engaged in it but if they lose interest or the game isn't challenging enough uh you know you might be losing uh a lot of uh potential with your game and I think that uh Flappy Birds was a great uh example of this where the game was incredibly challenging uh the graphics weren't you know nothing to write home about uh but the game was very challenging and that's what set it apart so the one thing that you guys should keep in mind is uh players do not like to feel unchallenged a few ways that you can do this is by creating uh tournaments so tournaments is a great uh example of how to keep your G your players uh engaged and challenged uh periodic t uh tournaments time pressures daily rewards these are all fantastic uh elements that you can include in your game to keep them coming back keep them challenged and uh you know it works for our games uh they're MMO style games uh free to play uh so we we keep you know enticing players with with new ele with new challenges on on you can say a monthly

basis uh this is one of the ways that we we we are doing this uh currently with one of our titles Total Domination reborn uh it's an iOS title uh and we invite them to come back for very periodic uh challenges their time challenges for about a day or two uh and once they complete these challenges the players are invited to choose one of the uh rewards uh for the challenges push notifications this has always been one of my favorite marketing tactics uh to get players to uh keep coming back um how many of you guys just a show of hands are actually using push notifications within your games today half of the room cool the other half should start using them so push notifications is great not just to bring players into your game if you have a portfolio of games but it's also a great way to keep them coming back so if you have um you know all sorts of the challenges that we talked about earlier uh events uh you know you should definitely be inviting them now this is not a really a it's not really a new trend I mean push notifications have been used for a while uh but the thing

that makes it interesting today is that uh I think developers are definitely getting smarter about how they use push notifications they're not just pushing out the messages but they're using it as they did uh with email a little while ago now they're tracking how many people actually opened the push notifications so there's a lot of analytics involved so how many people opened the push notifications uh how many people actually clicked on the messaging they're doing a lot of AB testing everything that went into the web uh a few years back and email a little bit after that is now happening with push notifications on games and on mobile games specifically again this is uh how we're using push notifications or messaging within our games to entice uh players to keep coming back uh we actually have a messaging system within our games uh where we invite them to look at the special events that we talked about earlier uh or special offers that we're offering them or maybe it's even a cross promotion between our other uh lineup of games so the messaging system is something that we are using a lot and we're definitely seeing that happen

throughout uh the game industry hard currency versus soft currency so uh you know when uh games started rolling out specifically on mobile uh and you know up until now uh developers invited players to invest in into a bag of coins and to use those coins any way they choose uh hard currency is is sort of picking up steam uh and developers are now offering their players uh the option to purchase something specifically like one specific item or uh progress through uh a level that was too difficult for them uh for a one-time purchase so this hard currency is definitely something that we're seeing as a uh major shift uh and it's interesting to see how players are actually responsive to it so players are you know you would expect them to uh to not want to invest you know a one-time purchase just to progress through a level but it seems to be uh a trend that's really working PR reach so this goes uh back into uh what the folks here were talking talking about earlier uh it's definitely

interesting and important to get uh in touch with uh with PR in media um but it's it's you know it's very difficult when you're starting off and your game is unknown and you know you think you have you have a great game no one's ever heard of you before so how do you get that traction how do you get people to to actually hear about you well uh sure we all know that online media and social media and creating uh you know a presence for yourself throughout the Social Web is extremely important and everybody should be doing that uh but it's also interesting to as one of the trends that we've been noticing is that uh it seems like things are going a little bit backwards now or they're going back to the roots of of PR uh where a lot of gorilla tactics are being used uh so whether it's business cards stickers brochures uh Billboards these things are becoming more uh visible um I know that when I was starting off about four or five years ago in the mobile industry um nobody was really interested in in uh traditional PR media I mean they were all looking ahead and how can can we build a presence for ourselves

online uh now uh okay we've done all that we have our presence on Facebook on LinkedIn on Twitter on YouTube we're all there what else can we do the only logical step is to take a step back and to start using some of the more traditional media uh so if you think that you know I'm just making this stuff up here's a few examples uh Clash of Clans uh and Candy Crush uh both have a TV uh spot uh commercials I don't know if you guys have seen them but they're available on YouTube uh Kabam actually purchased uh the name of a field so now there's Kabam field in California which is fantastic because every time there there's a sporting event there is now you know it's it's it's uh it's mentioned as Kabam field which is great exposure for them um I don't think anybody in this room can actually afford to purchase a baseball field but you know when you get there use that to your advantage uh and puzzles and dragons also has a TV spot um so these are all traditional media uh tactics that seem to be coming back just to increase uh the reach of game that are already extremely popular so five

quick takeaways experiment with game genres don't be stuck on one genre you know try and see how you can mix some of the more interesting uh elements from U from different games uh entice players to come back with special events all right don't expect them just to come back because they like your game you might have to uh you know nudge them a little bit get them to come back give them something to to to to look forward to push notifications use them wisely but don't overuse them I've seen companies crash because they've really overused them where players just deleted their app uh without prejudice uh because they wouldn't stop spamming them with uh with special offers or reasons to uh to come back to the game so push notifications they're very very important uh but beware uh hard currency works if you're not currently trying it in your games and you're just offering uh one or two uh purchase options experiment experiment with other purchase options within your games uh you might be you know surprised by the uh results that you're going to be seeing uh PR increases social and

marketing reach um well that one speaks for itself uh even if you're on a very limited budget uh definitely use any uh online reach that you can generate but also events such as this talking to people face to face uh more uh some of the less expensive stuff whether it's uh stickers or or brochures posters anything that you can actually physically put in the hands of somebody uh that they can take away with uh you know that's something that definitely uh should be uh used and that's it for me thank you very much if you guys have any questions I'll be happy to talk to any of you guys later