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Think Forward 2021: The Social Reset
The digital landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation, moving away from passive content consumption toward a collaborative ecosystem defined by active community building, education, and social advocacy.
- Digital platforms are shifting from passive entertainment hubs to collaborative ecosystems focused on active community building and shared knowledge.
- Consumers are prioritizing authentic, value-driven interactions and tangible real-world impact over traditional social media vanity metrics.
- Brands must transition from traditional gatekeepers to facilitators by providing tools that allow audiences to participate in co-creative processes like remixes and community-driven feedback.
FY2020 Presentation Material
CyberAgent achieved record-high financial performance in fiscal year 2020, reporting consolidated sales of 478.5 billion yen and an operating profit of 33.8 billion yen.
- CyberAgent achieved record FY2020 performance with 478.5 billion yen in sales and 33.8 billion yen in operating profit, marking year-over-year growth of 5.5% and 9.9% respectively.
- The Game business served as the primary growth engine, generating 155.8 billion yen in sales driven by legacy titles and the successful launch of Project SEKAI, which reached two million users in three weeks.
- The Media segment, anchored by ABEMA, grew annual sales by 22.6% to 57 billion yen, supported by a cumulative base of over 59 million downloads.
How to Build A Huge Brand | Tom Kalinske (Former CEO SEGA of America)
Brand growth is fundamentally driven by a synthesis of rigorous consumer research and the courage to challenge established industry norms.
- Brand growth is driven by challenging industry norms and identifying untapped market segments rather than simply following existing trends.
- Strategic media integration can drive massive revenue, as demonstrated by the expansion of the He-Man brand from $75 million to $750 million through a syndicated television model.
- Gaining market share against entrenched leaders requires identifying specific technical differentiators, such as the transition to 16-bit technology in the gaming sector.
My son was born
This reflection explores the intersection of professional ambition and parenthood, specifically addressing the concerns of independent game developers who fear that starting a family will hinder their career growth.
- Parenthood acts as a catalyst for professional success by shifting the developer's focus from self-serving artistic pursuits to the creation of long-term financial security and a lasting legacy.
- The perceived conflict between family life and career growth is often a result of personal discipline and time-management choices rather than the presence of children.
- Successful integration of a demanding indie game development career and parenthood requires intentional scheduling and a supportive partner.
Frictionless Media: Why Community Is the New Marketing
Traditional game marketing is undergoing a fundamental shift as high-cost, low-conversion strategies like television commercials and web banners lose efficacy against modern ad-blocking technology and evolving consumer habits.
- Traditional interruptive advertising like TV commercials and web banners is declining in efficacy due to ad-blocking technology and shifting consumer habits.
- Modern game marketing is transitioning to a 'frictionless' model that prioritizes content users actively seek out rather than material that disrupts their experience.
- Long-term player retention has become a more critical success metric than initial user acquisition for contemporary service-based games.
Panel: What do Publishers do for Their Money?
Publishers serve as essential partners for game developers by providing critical infrastructure, risk mitigation, and specialized expertise in an increasingly saturated mobile market.
- Publishers provide critical value by managing user acquisition (UA) in an increasingly competitive mobile landscape where costs are high, and by leveraging established IP and large, captive audiences to drive game discovery.
- App Store Optimization (ASO) requires a holistic approach where icons, videos, descriptions, and screenshots are tested and optimized as a single unit, alongside keyword optimization to improve organic rankings.
- Developers should prioritize transparency in publishing agreements, specifically regarding how marketing budgets are spent, and be prepared to walk away from one-sided deals that lack clear communication or fair terms.
Reinventing the Discovery Process
The modern game development landscape requires a shift toward a player-centered discovery process that prioritizes rigorous validation before full-scale production begins.
- Studios must shift to a player-centered discovery process that mandates rigorous validation of game concepts, mechanics, and art styles before full-scale production begins.
- Development teams should utilize detailed, data-backed player personas—developed alongside behavioral research firms—to map psychological traits and motivations directly to monetization and design strategies.
- Integrating big data analytics into the discovery phase allows studios to replace generalized assumptions with targeted experiences that align with specific, sustainable market opportunities.
Superstar Session: How We're Preparing our Customers for iOS 14 Attribution Switch
This session, presented at the Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital 2020 conference, addresses the mobile gaming industry’s transition to Apple’s iOS 14 privacy framework, specifically focusing on the shift toward SKAdNetwork attribution.
- The transition to Apple’s iOS 14 privacy framework necessitates a shift from deterministic, user-level attribution to probabilistic modeling and SKAdNetwork-based strategies.
- Developers can reconstruct performance metrics and estimate Day 0 lifetime value (LTV) by mapping specific player actions to binary conversion values ranging from 0 to 63 within the SKAdNetwork framework.
- The loss of granular campaign-level and creative-level data significantly disrupts traditional user acquisition workflows, particularly for hypercasual games that rely on precise LTV metrics.
Unlock More than 1 Billion Potential New Users
The Unity Distribution Portal (UDP) serves as a centralized hub designed to simplify the distribution of Android games across multiple third-party app stores.
- The Unity Distribution Portal (UDP) enables developers to reach over one billion potential new users by streamlining distribution across multiple third-party Android app stores.
- The platform eliminates the need for multiple SDKs and individual builds by automatically repacking a single game build with store-specific requirements, such as in-app purchase (IAP) integrations.
- Developers can manage their entire distribution workflow through a centralized hub that supports metadata importation from the Google Play Store and provides unified performance reporting.
Panel: New Ad Formats - The Next Generation
The modern gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental shift toward non-intrusive, context-aware monetization strategies that prioritize player retention alongside revenue generation.
- The gaming industry is shifting from disruptive interstitial ads to non-intrusive, context-aware formats like rewarded videos, audio ads, and dynamic in-game product placements to prioritize player retention.
- The deprecation of traditional tracking identifiers like IDFA has forced a transition toward privacy-compliant, contextual advertising models that do not rely on deep individual behavioral tracking.
- Developers are utilizing cross-platform SDKs for Unity and Unreal to maintain consistent monetization strategies across mobile, PC, and web environments.
Fireside Chat: #PlayApartTogether, not just a Campaign. It's a Lifestyle
The gaming industry experienced a significant shift in 2020 as the #PlayApartTogether campaign evolved from a temporary public health initiative into a long-term lifestyle.
- The #PlayApartTogether initiative catalyzed a permanent shift in gaming, moving it from competitive entertainment to a primary social platform for broader demographics, including millennials and female players.
- Integrated real-time engagement (RTE) tools, such as voice and video chat, are now considered standard features rather than optional additions, as users prefer them over standalone video conferencing.
- During the 2020 pandemic peak, some gaming platforms experienced a 50-fold increase in monthly active users, establishing a new baseline for engagement that has persisted post-stabilization.
Gaming Trends on Twitter
Twitter has solidified its position as a primary nexus for global gaming culture, experiencing a 45% year-over-year surge in gaming-related discourse as of mid-2020.
- Twitter experienced a 45% year-over-year surge in gaming-related discourse by mid-2020, driven by a 34% increase in monetizable daily active users.
- The gaming audience on Twitter is highly valuable, with 82% of users aged 16–44 and over 55% engaging with the platform on a daily basis.
- Twitter gaming users demonstrate high purchasing power, showing a greater propensity than the average consumer to invest in multiple game titles, downloadable content, and in-app purchases.