Youtube video of panel (unpublished link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BAMvV-WoZc

Last week at the GDC 2015, I had the pleasure of holding a panel with three gaming executives to discuss what happens beyond the design and development of a game. We know the big players in gaming are not guessing their way to app rank, so I decided to sit down and ask them how can one succeed in the competitive gaming market. My company and I were especially interested on behalf of indies and small teams who have a limited budget for growth.

The panelists, chosen for a level of diversity in their approach to app store success, included: Andrew Sheppard, the Chief Operating Officer of GREE, a company which has massive scale of 1.5x the size of Zynga, 3x the revenue of Kabam, and 4.5x the revenue of Glu. We also spoke with Bryan Davis of Big Blue Bubble, the largest independent games developer in Canada, with a suite of children’s games in excess of 100 million users to date. Lastly, we had the pleasure of chatting with Stuart Westphal of Hitcents, the company that brought us the HanxWriter App, in collaboration with Tom Hanks, which held the #1 spot in the app store when launched and is a winner of multiple Webby Awards for various games.

Certainly, these three would have something to add on the topic of driving gaming growth. Here were the top 5 takeaways from our conversation last week:

1. Paid Beta Tests for Indie Devs

Rather than spending money on user acquisition, which all three panelists discouraged for the up and coming developer, focus on paid beta tests instead. This way, the developer will get to know what is working in the game by receiving direct feedback rather than worrying about acquiring users who may not be happy (or addicted) to the game mechanics.

2. Consider partnering with a brand

We’re seeing this trend for the larger publishers and it’s creating a desirable cycle of downloads and press. Westphal strongly encouraged partnering with brands and celebrities, both small and large, however, cautioned developers on the aspect of listening. The brand and/or celebrity is bringing serious value to your game and the developer should be prepared to cater to their needs both pre and post-launch.

3. High Value Users

If you know your high value user, you will never be short on revenue. It’s one of the simplest equations in customer service, and one Big Blue Bubble has perfected, with a steady increase of 1 million new active users per month on a game series launched in 2012. We’ve seen the same equation across other industries, where the top 10% make 90% of the money. This is also true of your users, and getting to know the top 10% which make your company profitable, is more advantageous than knowing the entire 100% of your user base.

4. Multiple Touch Points

The industry is a little user acquisition crazy right now, with everyone seeking the first point of contact, and not focusing enough on multiple touch points throughout game play. The key to going viral, according to Westphal of Hitcents, creator of multiple viral games, is to design a game with touchpoints in order to keep your users engaged and addicted.

5. Reach Global Scale

To reach scale, Sheppard of GREE explained his company has teams situated globally, and these teams update the game for each individual market. Sheppard emphasized the importance of localization as a key component to reach scale. Both Davis and Westphal agreed, also emphasizing the importance of culturalization, stating this would help the game resonate with a local audience.

Smaller teams, it was pointed out, can achieve global scale by focusing on one or two global markets. By first analyzing user data for the top two or three non-native markets where the app is gaining traction, the indie developer can then individualize for this market by localizing in the language and also culturalizing per the customs of the geographic region.

SAN FRANCISCO – March 4, 2015 – The celestial exploration game Outer Wilds, from developer Team Outer Wilds, received top honors this evening at the 17th Annual Independent Games Festival (IGF), hosted by the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Taking home the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game and its associated $30,000 cash prize, Outer Wilds, an innovative intergalactic adventure in which players probe the depths of space and unravel the mysteries of the cosmos, was also honored with the Excellence in Design award.

Achievements in other categories include Excellence in Visual Art winner Metamorphabet from Patrick Smith of Vectorpark, which presents a fresh take on the alphabet, presenting each letter in dazzling and interesting transformations. Ephemerid: A Musical Adventure paints a rock fairy tale about a paper mayfly’s journey and was awardedExcellence in Audio. The original soundtrack from SuperChop Games blends rock guitar with a classical flair to render an intuitive gameplay experience driven by music. The recipient for Excellence in Narrative was awarded to 80 Days, an extraordinary, strategic exploration game from inkle that challenges players to traverse the globe in a race against the clock and other opponents. With new content to discover, and hundreds of possibilities and choices, the gameplay evolves into a deep interactive story that is truly unparalleled.

This year’s Nuovo Award, which celebrates abstract and unconventional games, went to Nathalie Lawhead’s Tetrageddon Games, an open source parody of digital life. The game encourages players to engage in bizarre creations and build on its own distinctive narrative using downloadable source files, assets and modifications.

The Best Student Game was awarded to Close Your from developer Goodbye World Games at the University of Southern California. Close Your is a powerful, interactive narrative that depicts the brevity of life and utilizes the player’s blinking to experience the perspective of someone who has suffered brain trauma. Finally, the Audience Award was given toThis War of Mine from 11 bit studios for its fresh take on the survival game genre. The game provides an immersive war experience framed from the perspective of a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city; struggling with lack of food, medicine, and constant danger from snipers and hostile scavengers.

All finalists and winners for this year’s competition are playable at the Game Developers Conference at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC Expo Floor in San Francisco’s Moscone Center through Friday, March 6.

The IGF awarded the following games as winners of its 17th Annual Awards:

Excellence in Visual Art ($3,000)
Metamorphabet (Patrick Smith of Vectorpark)

Nuovo Award ($5,000)
Tetrageddon Games (Nathalie Lawhead)

Excellence in Audio ($3,000)
Ephemerid: A Musical Adventure (SuperChop Games)

Excellence in Narrative ($3,000)
80 Days (inkle)

Best Student Game ($3,000)
Close Your (Goodbye World Games – University of Southern California)

Audience Award ($3,000)
This War of Mine (11 bit studios)

Excellence in Design ($3,000)
Outer Wilds (Team Outer Wilds)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($30,000)
Outer Wilds (Team Outer Wilds)

The Independent Games Festival – which also consists of a two-day Independent Games Summit on Monday, March 2nd and Tuesday, March 3rd as part of GDC – was established in 1998 by the UBM Tech Game Network to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers, similar to how the Sundance Film Festival has honored the independent film community.

Organizers would like to thank this year’s kind supporters of the IGF, including ID@Xbox (Platinum Sponsor), Valve (Platform Sponsor), and DigiPen Institute of Technology (Student Showcase Platinum Sponsor).

The IGF offers finalists both global exposure and more than $50,000 in cash prizes to each year’s winners.

For more information about the IGF, and its finalists and winners, please visit http://www.igf.com.

From Gamasutra: UBM Tech’s Simon Carless explains why fame isn’t everything at the San Francisco show

The Game Developers Conference is just a week away and yet again plays host to some of the biggest, and the smallest, names in the industry. Unlike many shows, GDC isn’t just about getting the big players to talk about what they have done, but getting the rising stars to talk about what they’re trying to do.

We spoke to UBM Tech’s Simon Carless about how the show achieves that balance, what it’s doing to make the show more accessible to a wider audience and ask if the industry’s troubled year has changed the show in any way.

“Some shows definitely strive to have the biggest people in the industry on stage, but if you look at the people we have on stage – even this year – there’s not always that many big names,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz

“There’s a lot of interesting talks but I think one of the things I’m proudest of is that in general we’re fairly good at saying this has to be a talk that’s going to help, and has to have a take away and we’re not going to put somebody on stage just because they’re famous. I’m not saying we’re perfect, but I think we try.”

Read more at Gamasutra.