Keynote Evolving Game Monetisation Retention - Don Reilley, EVP of Publisher Development, Scuti

foreign [Music] [Applause] everybody I'm Don Riley I'm the Executive Vice President of publisher Partnerships um and um I started with scooty in August of this year and what I'm going to talk to you guys about today is monetization and retention um I this is my first time at this conference in a very long time and I am excited to see so many people here I don't think I've ever seen it um this

big um it's it's incredibly exciting coming out of covet and getting back into people being together and being able to talk face to face and exchange ideas and exchange ways that we can improve the gaming space the reason why I joined scooty I've been in the gaming space for 20 plus years is scooty is the first company that I've come across in a long time that really is looking to create equal benefit amongst three parts Brands advertisers the Publishers and developers themselves and most importantly The Gamers themselves in my years I know that we've created great games for gamers but from a mobile perspective from a HTML5 perspective we haven't created a great monetization uh world for the gamers and at scooty we believe that we are in a position to um to change that

our our company is it's really exciting because everyone in our company has over 20 plus years in the gaming space I mentioned myself our founder Nicholas lingano Ed zobrist Paul Sams Jim beavert all of these people have been involved in the gaming space for a very long time and they have been responsible for creating some of the best games in the industry and bringing some of the best entertainments uh to gamers in the industry Nicholas and Mitch Davis also founded a small company called massive about 18 years ago which pioneered in-game advertising it was revolutionary at time it was a company that was purchased by Microsoft back then and it was really about putting Billboards in games putting branded advertising in games and it was incredibly exciting then and we have come to the place now where it's time to evolve that make that better make it a full funnel opportunity for for Brands

and advertisers out there and reward Gamers for engaging with this we have seen and and actually I've had the opportunity to sit in a lot of panels and presentations today and a lot of what I've been hearing is there are some issues in the industry right now game monetization is flawed as it is today right game monetization in a lot of respects is an afterthought it is it's it's not part of the game development and in a lot of cases um it is really important to put out the best experience entertainment wise for the gamer but if you're not thinking about monetization early on then that part is kind of tacked on at the back and it becomes a problem and it becomes problematic not only for the gamer but for the publisher and the developer who's created an experience where it is not good for the gamer and The Gamers leaving the game we are seeing things like acquisition costs are rising getting new players I've I was I was presenting at the hyper casual games

conference a couple weeks ago and a lot of talk was a lot of developers and publishers are building in 30 40 percent of their Gamers leaving their game and that they've got to go and spend money to bring those Gamers back we don't want that experience anymore we want to create an experience and a partnership with developers and Publishers that does not mean we're kicking players out of games in order to generate revenue from them we want to create an experience where those gamers are earning rewards wanting to spend more time in your games and we're being able to monetize and show these Gamers other games that they can be participating in having a great experience while generating rewards it's all about the rewards wow that's like these slides didn't come out as well as they looked when they were on my computer so forgive me um some of the challenges that we're going into obviously there are ad

constraints that are going on there are we are in a recession and game sales are falling a little bit there are tighter ad spends there are more places for advertising agencies and Brands to look at and decide where to put their money right and because of all of this we are seeing a decrease in the ecpms that game Publishers are are getting from traditional advertising right and there is a ton more competition out there we are not we we want to create a solution that addresses all of this stuff but IT addresses all of this stuff in a way that is of immense value to the gamer so all of these ad revenues are our game revenues are shrinking across the board advertising in-game purchases subscriptions we saw earlier in the opening address that this is the first 2022 was the first time in the games industry where the industry was down a

little bit it's time to bring it back I'm confident that 2023 will be a great year I hope you guys are confident that 2023 will be a great year so what we want to do is what we've done is created a new um a new system a new SDK that doesn't allow for cannibalization right so everything we do is additive to what Publishers and developers are already doing in this space um every we are not asking a single publisher or developer to change what they're doing we're giving them an option to work with us also bring our our technology into the fold and create some additional revenue streams in-game purchases we want to increase advertising ecpms we want want to increase subscriptions we want to increase we are looking to increase the entire ecosystem across the board we do know that only five percent of gamers are making in-game purchases today but we've also been told and we've done some research that says 51 of

Gamers would love to buy physical goods from their games these are people who are already in the market who are buying physical Goods outside of the gaming experience we want to provide them that experience in the gaming experience and allow Publishers and developers to take part in the revenue that they're generating this video has already played so I'm going to skip through it so what we're offering is a better way to do this right we're offering a way to optimize game retention and the lifetime value of the players we want to provide a much better player experience so nothing that we do is interruptive to what the gamers are there to do the gamers are there to play the game enjoy the game earn rewards for playing that game we are not interrupting that experience in any way shape or form we are because of our reward system we want to engage players better make it more

fun for them create a gamification of the entire ecosystem and help the Publishers and developers out there to acquire more players we are player approved it's really important that we have a conversation coming from this space like I mentioned earlier we have all spent a lot of time talking to Gamers and getting an understanding of what it is they are looking for in a gaming experience what they are looking for in a rewards experience so we've gone out and we've talked to a number of players and everything we do is player approved is there volume on this I get rewarded every time I play and every time I shop every time I buy a product from the scooty store they give me five percent Back Rewards so I get to find cool stuff I want and get rewards back and then get to use that in the game I even score rewards just for opening scooty in my game Lobby and get this I

can exchange the rewards that I earn to make in-game purchases and buy new products and what's really cool is the scooties I earn can be used in any of my favorite games You're Gonna Love scooty they're gonna be your new best friend because they're doing it right they reward you for your play so the rewards we see them is simple honey to the to the entire equation right these rewards are meant to be Universal rewards these rewards are meant to carry from game to game and what's really important is that these rewards don't need to be used simply in the game they can be used to buy physical products in our scooty Marketplace they can be used as in-game native credits digital items charitable donations and peer-to-peer right there is games out there that are entering into peer-to-peer wagering and so these rewards can be used for that as well the rewards are a very simple equation a thousand security rewards equals one dollar right it is real currency it is

real currency that is being paid for by the brands that we're working with we have a whole second side of our house that is curating brand Partnerships not only from an advertising perspective but from an in-store Marketplace perspective and they understand that this is an audience that they want to get into and giving them an opportunity to buy their products in the gaming environment is only going to help them as well therefore they're more than willing to offer back five percent on the sale of a product in the form of rewards so again it is an ecosystem that works for everybody for the Publishers the Developers for the players themselves and for the um and for the brands we are we're out there we're not a single solution fits all we are in a position because we understand the space so well is that we can create tailored Solutions so one developer and publisher may want to take take on everything we're doing g-commerce rewarded ads uh in-game level rewards other Publishers

may say I just want to participate in your Rewards program I want to use your Rewards program as a way to acquire new gamers in my space everything we do is customizable and tailored to the experience that Publishers and developers want to have for their Gamers again it is all about the gamers it is all about giving them something back for participating for playing our games for participating in this in this form of entertainment and we want to make sure that our experience fits with what your Gamers want some of the things that we're starting to see now is physical products as rewards play five levels and you can get a coupon buy one buy one large fries from McDonald's get one free companies like McDonald's will do this all day long companies like McDonald's know that if you're given a coupon for a free order of fries you're going to come into McDonald's and you're not just going to buy fries you're going to buy that one

fry get one free and buy a couple Burgers right so it is easy for the partners that we're talking to to get behind this and offer up real physical rewards to Gamers for finishing something that we as developers and Publishers want we want people spending more time in our games Community rewards we want all of our Publishers and they don't have to do this but we would love for all of our Publishers to think about pooling rewards that allow our players to stay for longer periods of time and offer up large daily and weekly prizes again it's about increasing the level of game play increasing the retention getting people coming back you know if you come back every day to earn your rewards in scooty you also want to come back every day to earn your rewards in the game that you are currently playing we truly believe that rewarded g-commerce and fortified in-games ads is going to be the solution we are starting

to we as a company scooty are starting to work with some of the larger in-game advertising companies that are strictly branding focused and we want to work with them to create a solution that will allow an Advertiser after they've played a game go into a scooty store and be able to see the top five build products of the Billboards that they saw right so we want to create a full funnel solution for All Brands out there for all agencies out there you know the in-game stuff is simply branding we've got branding all the way down to actually selling of products if we can connect the two we've created a real experience for the gamer we've created an experience where they see a product and are able at a later time to go into a scooty Marketplace and purchase that product and they walk away everyone walks away happy and the gamer has been given some rewards for taking that action we also are intent and committed to

driving user acquisition so every single publisher and developer that has a game within the scooty Network we have created a a space within the scooty marketplace where our Gamers can go and find every other game that is participating in the scooty Marketplace every other game where they can take their rewards they've earned from one game and go take them and use them into other games we think it's incredibly important for gamers to have access to all the games that are connected to the scooty Marketplace and as Publishers and developers I also think it's really it's a great acquisition opportunity for you guys it's not going to cost developers and Publishers anything to be a part of this and it will increase your your acquired users and hopefully increase the retention you have of your existing users so not only is scooty a revenue driver in a number of different ways but it should also cut down down on acquisition costs and retention costs

we are absolutely committed to putting the player first there's no interrupting of game play obviously like I've said on a number of occasions it's a universal reward system the other side of our house is working diligently with top ad agencies and I'll talk a little bit about that in a second to curate the right ad products we are not doing any cookies no tracking whatsoever a user will come in and they will give us give us information we request it and they give it to us freely we are using that information to put the right products in front of them and create a world where they are seeing the products that are of value to them products that they want to buy ads that are relevant for them in an experience that's not interrupting their gameplay more importantly not kicking them out of game play because they've clicked on an ad mentioned earlier we have a strategic partnership with the publicist group the

largest agency holding company in the world they are anxious and and ready to bring all of these brands that you see here but all the brands in their portfolio into the fold as a way to create a full phone marketing campaign for their Partners they understand that the gaming audience is an incredibly hard audience to get in front of but it's an incredibly strong audience and an audience that they need to get in front of and they see us as one of the many solutions that they're going to undertake as a way to get into the get in front of this audience in a really smart fun way and a way that will produce results for their for their brand partners one of the other things is that coming this spring a TV show that will be on Amazon Prime called game master uh we'll be launching we've connected with the producers of that show and we've been awarded the exclusive g-commerce and rewards Partnership of the game master

show the game master show is is is going to be like the voice for gaming 10 gamers will be living in a house they will be playing multiple games across multiple genres and the idea is to find the best gamer out there it's not Esports it's really about finding who the greatest gamer is the show is already Amazon's committed to the show for three seasons 13 episodes per season but from a marketing perspective they're estimating about 93 million viewers over five in five countries and they're utilizing 50 000 micro influencers or influencers to promote the show where we live in that show is we we will be part of The Branding in the show but more importantly we will be giving every single viewer of that show an opportunity to earn scooty rewards for taking an action a barcode asking them to do something after viewership or while during viewership of that show so

we are going to have a ton and ton of scooties out there that now we need to go work and bring more games on board so that those players can go spend those scooties it's really exciting for us it's exciting for the gaming industry and it's exciting for um for everybody including these 50 micro influencers who we hope to kind of elevate to the next level and get them to be um be the rock stars be the ninjas of the influencer world if you will by the end of this year we estimate having about 100 million monthly active users um in our Network and again retention Revenue generation acquisition this is these are a lot of people that we would love to attach to the games of the Publishers and developers in this room so again how we are out there optimizing game returns it's through g-commerce

um everybody on a on a sale of a product we share in the revenue of that sale of that product so if it's a hundred dollar pair of Nikes um we keep 15 we share that evenly with our publishing partner our our there is rewarded scooties at a minimum forty dollar CPM and then there are the rewards that our users are going to take and put back into the games that they're playing it's like airline miles you can't cash those out you've got to use them right and the idea is is that the more rewards we give the more they will participate in games and we believe in being incredibly transparent in everything we do which is why we were comfortable putting this um this up on the screen a game with a hundred thousand daily active users over the course of working with scooty on some very um conservative uh numbers and percentages we know that we can generate

1.2 million dollars in Revenue a year for that one game at a hundred thousand daus right so we're incredibly transparent about what we do we're in trying to incredibly transparent with everybody that we work with and what is really important is not just the revenue that we're generating that along with this Revenue it is the rewards that go back to the gamers to keep them engaged keep them happy and keep them keep this the number one form of entertainment we know that Gamers hate ads that interrupt their Experience One hate ads that kick them out of the game that they're in and more importantly we know that one G Commerce interaction will replace what would take five months to generate in disruptive advertising we know that everything we do is highly engaging our users come back to us 20 of our users come back to us daily and almost seven percent of them are taking an action by buying a product so we know

that the people already within the scooty Network are highly engaged and active within the security network and we've been fortunate enough to get some press um and all the Press is saying is that scooty fixes monetization I see that my time is up so again just to reiterate you know um it only takes 24 hours to integrate um it is all about the players and the games extending the lifetime value of every gamer out there it's about not cannibalizing what Publishers the developers are already doing from a monetization perspective but being additive to that and that's it I'd love an opportunity to meet with all of you guys um I thought I was going to leave some time for questions I apologize it did not but I'd be happy to meet with every single one of you one-on-one and provide more detail on what we're doing at scooting [Applause]

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