Casual Connect has a solid lineup of content this year, and the opening morning proved that amply. Amazon’s Chris Dury opened up the event by talking about some of the keys ways games can improve monetization in the current crowded environment. The storied Michael Eisner (former CEO of ABC, Paramount, and Disney) gave the keynote speech and then answered questions from former EA CEO John Riccitiello, providing great insight (and humor) from his many decades in the media business.

Eisner: ‘Creativity Doesn’t Have to be Expensive’
Veteran entertainment executive John Riccitiello (current Unity CEO and ex EA CEO) introduced Michael Eisner the storied media CEO who took Disney from a $1 billion value in 1984 to $100 billion when he left in 2005. Now Eisner owns and runs Tornante, a diversified media company whose biggest acquisition was baseball card company Topps, which is now becoming a digital card company.

Eisner gave a keynote speech that was, by turns, insightful, inspiring, and funny. “Casual Connect is a celebration of all that has changed in entertainment media,” Eisner said. “But a lot has not changed. I want to discuss what has changed and what has not. The key to success is embracing the new and remaining steadfast to key principles.” Eisner described the storyline of media from, as he put it, Gutenberg to Zuckerberg. The underlying message is to illustrate what is timeless – the importance of content. “If you can get the content right, each new distribution medium will only help,” Eisner pointed out. “Whether it’s a 25 mm screen on a watch, or a 25 inch screen, or a 25 foot screen, it’s all still entertainment and requires story and plot and character.” That was from a talk Eisner gave back in 1985, and it’s still true today.

“Great entertainment requires a large infusion of creativity,” Eisner pointed out, “But creativity doesn’t have to be expensive. A lot of people think that entertainment will improve by merely shoveling more money at it.” By way of illustration, Eisner talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark (made under his watch as CEO of Paramount). Every other studio had rejected that script because they thought it would be too expensive to shoot. But Eisner loved the script, and talked with Spielberg to convince him to bring the movie in on a modest budget. As a way of showing how that worked, Eisner showed the famous scene from the movie where Indy shoots a swordsman rather than engaging in the long battle the script called for – which would have required another day to shoot, and more expense. Harrison Ford was feeling unwell and didn’t want to extend his shooting day, and suggested this to Spielberg – who loved the result, and kept it in, creating movie history and saving money at the same time.

Riccitiello said to Eisner “You have been involved in greenlighting billions of dollars in content. What were you looking for What allowed you to know good from bad ” Eisner’s quick reply: “I have no idea. It doesn’t work that way.” He elaborated that you just have to go with your instinct on what’s a great idea, noting that even if you do a great idea poorly you can probably still get by, and if you do an extraordinary job you can make cultural history. On the other hand, even if you do an exceptional job with a bad idea you’ll probably just get by. “Why waste your time Do a great idea,” said Eisner.

Amazon’s Monetization Advice: Games as a Service is the Best Way to Think About Free-to-Play
Amazon’s director of game services Chris Dury spoke about how to monetize your game with cloud, community, and commerce. “A few years ago it was as simple as creating a good game and putting it in the app store,” Dury noted. “Now even paid acquisition isn’t enough – we have to look for ways to find paid users. But there’s still a lot of opportunity. On any given day a game can rocket to the top of the charts. Agar.io got in the top ten in a few days, and is still in the top 20.” He pointed out that top developers are innovating on new ways to grow revenue, and he proceeded to give some specifics for the audience.

Dury advised developers to remember that games as a service is the best way to think about free-to-play games. In his mind, that means continuously improved games with no set destination, so the game is never done. Keep users engaged on an ongoing basis with fresh and relevant content, Dury suggested. He noted some figures from a recent game’s first two weeks, where 18 percent of the value (from paying players) comes in the first day… but 82 percent happens in the next several days, so retained users are critical to the overall revenue of the game. Update often, Dury advsied, and as an example he noted Team Fortress 2, which was first released in 2007 but still has 50,000 average concurrent users. Why Dury feels it’s because they are working hard to keep the game fresh, noting that this year from Jan 15 to July 15 there were 29 updates and 377 changes, for an average of 2 changes per day. “Keep people engaged with fresh content,” Dury advised.

Community is also important, Dury said. “You might not have the staffing to do regular content updates, but everybody has access to the tools to build community,” he noted. “PewDiePie generated 27 million views for Flappy Bird with one video. Endless content generated by your community is brilliant – look at Minecraft or Trivia Crack.”

Finally, Dury advised developers to think about the physical goods. “Disney, Activision, Rovio all sell branded merchandise,” Dury said. “We’re starting to see casual games do this too, some generating more revenue than from the apps.” You can reach your biggest fans in the game with branded merchandise, and you can reach fans at the moment when they are most deeply engaged to click on an ad and get to the Amazon product listing. This not only creates a deeper connection with the players, it promotes your game offline, Dury said. The combination is an excellent way to increase monetization.