PricewaterhouseCoopers Looks At The Evolution Of ESports

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PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) media and communications leader for entertainment, Deborah Bothun, spoke about the potential of growth in eSports earlier this month, and it looks like the audit and financial consulting network has moved from interest to analysis. The company recently published a report on competitive gaming in the latest addition to its Consumer Intelligence Series, The Burgeoning Evolution of eSports: From the Fringes To Front and Center.

In the report, PwC explains who the eSports consumer really is, in addition to information related to competition, and the devices used for watching tournaments and other events. To start, the company touched on awareness of eSports, with 57 percent of “self-identified hardcore gamers” marking the highest out of all audiences, with 34 percent of fans between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.

From there, PwC discussed the growth of eSports into a much bigger medium, from back in August 2013, when the League of Legends finals sold out L.A.’s Staples Center with more than 10,000 fans, to earlier this year, when ESPN and Yahoo individually launched eSports initiatives. It also made note of how the U.S. is leading the overall global market with a 38 percent share of overall revenues, and how the overall market will hit $463 million this year–a 43 percent increase from the previous year.

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PwC claims that first-person shooters are the most watched genre, regardless of age, gender or type of gamer, coming in at 63 percent compared to 37 percent for MOBA games, 36 percent for fighting games (like Street Fighter V) and 28 percent for MMORPG’s. However, it should be noted that many of the report’s findings are based on a 757-respondent survey where 56 percent of the participants were male and 44 percent were female.

PwC also pointed out other factors in the report, including:

  • ESport consumers spend the most overall, around $309 on a monthly basis compared to $245 of general respondents and $163 for non-eSports consumers.
  • ESports’ popularity is likely to continue in the years ahead, as most consumers are likely to either increase or maintain their current viewership, by 83 percent and participation, at 72 percent, in the next coming year.
  • Some eSports players aren’t fond of tournament-style play at events, as 70 percent of them feel that it’s best to compete from home, as opposed to taking on opponents in person or during competitions.
  • When it comes to viewing these events, 57 percent of those polled have watched some form of competition either on a laptop or desktop computer. However, more mobile services are becoming available, so mobile device popularity could pick up over the next few years. They currently stand at 26 percent for smartphones and 24 percent for tablets.
  • Viewership continues to be on the rise, with the average consumer watching 19 days of eSports competition a year, and self-identified hardcore gamers tuning in for an average of 32 days a year.

PwC’s eSports report serves as a short introduction to the eSports demographic, but more findings should continue to develop as the industry evolves. As Deborah Bothun stated, “ESports is only getting bigger, and with such growth comes investment opportunities for brands and marketers who hope to capitalize on the success. One does not have to be a gaming company to get in on the action. Viewers can be reached beyond traditional advertising and sponsorships such as merchandising, mobile apps that provide data such as scores and stats, or fantasy betting. Other examples to start with include branded uniforms, branded hydration, and branded transportation.”

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Cracker Jack Replacing Toys With Digital Game Codes

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Remember when you were a kid and dug into your first box of Cracker Jack? Some were excited to root through the whole box just to find the prize inside, whether it was a spinning top, decoder ring or other goodies. Well, it looks like times are changing.

PepsiCo (which owns the Cracker Jack brand through the Frito-Lay division) announced in a press release that the snack food, initially introduced in 1896, will replace the traditional toy prizes with “mobile digital experiences,” using codes that enable users to download baseball-style games through the Blippar app.

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The promotion is part of a tie-in with the current baseball season, in the hopes of getting more fans to join in on the fun. “The Cracker Jack Prize Inside has been as much a part of the nostalgia and love for the brand as the unforgettable combination of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts,” said Haston Lewis, senior director of marketing for Frito-Lay. “The New Prize Inside allows families to enjoy their favorite baseball moments through a new one-of-a-kind mobile experience, leveraging digital technology to bring the iconic Prize Inside to life.”

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Players simply need to find a slip inside, which has instructions on how to download the free Blippar app to their mobile device, and redeem the code to play a number of baseball-inspired mini-games. Four games in all will be available through the promotion, including Dot Dash, Dance Cam, Get Carded and Baseball Star.

A redesign of the product’s cover will also be part of the promotion.

“We are a brand that authentically reminds people of simpler times, childhood memories and family experiences,” said Lewis. “With this redesign and new mobile game experience, the Cracker Jack brand embraces a modernized, young-at-heart attitude while keeping that treasured feeling of childhood wistfulness.”

ESL Is Launching A 24/7 ESports Channel Next Month

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Considering how The CW, ESPN and TBS have been working to bring more eSports events to television, it was only a matter of time before a company came up with creating an eSports-devoted channel, which is exactly what ESL is doing.

The company, which has specialized on online programming for years, will launch a 24/7 eSports channel next month. Titled eSports TV, the channel will make its debut on MTG’s Viasat platforms in the Nordic and Baltic countries this May, but it won’t stop there. ESL is working to bring the channel to other distributors and platforms in other regions of the world, according to GamesIndustry International.

The focus of the channel will be on core competitions and tournaments, as eSports TV is set to offer more than 2,000 live hours of content. “ESports TV will add to ESL’s current audience of over 100 million digital viewers,” said the company in a statement. “The launch of eSports TV and its distribution on new channels will tap into the audience of more than two billion gamers and 250 million eSports fans that the industry will have by the end of the year.

This will not affect current partnerships that the company has with others, including Twitch, Azubu, Hitbox and Yahoo, as ESL will continue to support their eSports endeavours.

“We have always dreamt of making eSports the world’s most popular sport, and it’s the opportunities like this one that bring us one step closer to making that dream come true,” said ESL’s managing director, Ralf Reichert. “Bringing new and existing content to more screens worldwide is key to further accelerating the growth and popularity of eSports, and we’re on a mission to reach every gamer in the world.”

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Mobile Market Numbers Show Growth, Surprises

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The mobile market (games and other apps) continues to be strong, but the latest data from research firm Sensor Tower shows some surprises are under way. There are big things ahead in mobile, and marketers need to be on top of these trends.

First, the overall picture is that combined worldwide App Store and Google Play downloads grew 8.2 percent in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the first quarter of 2015. That represents a total of 17.2 billion app downloads, with 6.1 billion in the App Store (a 13 percent growth) versus 11.1 billion in Google Play (a 6.7 percent growth). This gets even more interesting when you drill down and start looking at which apps were dominant.

Facebook is clearly a winner on mobile, as figures indicate. The top apps by download for the first quarter were WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Facebook itself while Instagram (also owned by Facebook) made it into fifth place. Facebook’s strategy of having multiple apps with a different focus is clearly working out well for the company, with four out of the top five apps worldwide.

As you would expect, games continue to be a powerful force among mobile apps. Eight of the top 20 apps worldwide were games, although that number drops to five when just talking about U.S. Supercell’s Clash Royale‘s enormously successful launch, appearing at the #9 position worldwide in terms of downloads. The game is on track to earn somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion this year, putting it near the very top of the charts for mobile game revenues. The game was the fastest game ever to reach #1 in revenues, showing that Supercell has a very deep understanding of what makes a game popular. Top iOS Publishers Worldwide

Speaking of extremely popular brands and developers, King Digital’s Candy Crush Jelly Saga rang in at #7 in worldwide downloads for iOS and Android combined, continuing on the success of Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga.

Looking at the top publishers by downloads worldwide, in iOS Tencent (the world’s largest game publisher) took the number one slot, followed by Google and Facebook—which is impressive when you consider how Google and Facebook have no presence in China. Almost half of the publishers in the top 20 by download were game publishers, notably Ketchapp at #5 and Electronic Arts at #6.

The story on Google Play is different, because there are many Android app stores in China that aren’t covered by this data, and Google Play doesn’t currently operate in China. Game publishers represent nine out of the top 20 publishers on Google Play.Top Google Play Publishers Worldwide

What Lies Ahead For Mobile Games

Some major developments in the mobile space may be harbingers of change, especially for games. The first big thing to be aware of is Apple’s potential for slowing smartphone sales this year, and an overall cooling of the smartphone market.

According to research firm Gartner Group, global smartphone shipments will reach 1.5 billion units this year, about 7 percent above last year’s units. For mobile phones in general, Gartner expects sales to average about 1.8 percent growth through 2018. “The double-digit growth era for global smartphone markets has come to an end,” said Gartner Group’s research director Ranjit Atwal. Moreover, the situation looks worse in key markets like China and North America, where Gartner predicts even slower growth, with China up only 0.7 percent and North America up 0.4 percent. In other words, both of those two huge markets will be buying about the same number of smartphones as they did last year.

What’s going on? Several factors are coming together. For one thing, as smartphones reach an ever great percentage of the total population, you’d expect growth to slow down. The remaining percentage of the population will be harder to reach with a smartphone, often because they are unlikely buyers to begin with (too young, too old, too poor). For another, the huge innovations in smartphones are slowing down, and we’re seeing more incremental changes such as faster processors, slightly better cameras and the like. Generally speaking, smartphones are fast enough for most uses and cameras are really quite good for most purposes. Furthermore, screens have reached about the maximum reasonable size for a phone. So with the pace of upgrades slowing, it’s harder for phone makers to create the desire for a new phone.

The consequence of a slowing market is that app makers will have an even harder time generating huge audiences. Getting people to download and use a new app is hard enough, and if there are fewer new phones entering the market, it will get even harder. More pressure will be put on marketing to make that happen.

Another trend that bears watching is the increasing presence of big brands moving into mobile gaming. Nintendo has finally shipped its first mobile product, Miitomo, and it’s doing pretty good so far, generating over $40,000 per day. It’s too soon to tell how this will hold up over time, but the app is off to a good start. When Nintendo gets around to putting out mobile games using brands like Mario and Link, we should expect to see even bigger numbers. However, moves like these will make it even harder for mobile game developers that don’t have a powerful brand name or enormous marketing budget to find an audience.

Overall, the mobile game market will continue to grow this year, and we’re starting to see major brands extending their power with mobile apps. However, the business isn’t getting any easier for marketers, as slowing smartphone growth removes one of the great positive factors behind the growth of mobile games over the past few years. The easy paths to growth are becoming harder, yet the right games with the right marketing can still generate amazing amounts of money. The top slots are not all locked up by the big publishers, so new titles still have a chance to break through. There’s plenty of room to improve overall metrics of games with better game design, as the average revenue per paying user achieved in Japan are still about five times the best we usually see in North America and Europe.

Wearable Tech Is The Next Big Thing For Baseball

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Next time you head out to the ballpark and bust out the binoculars to get a better view of the ballplayers, you’ll be seeing more than intricate pine tar art, packs of sunflower seeds, and cans of Skoal affixed to players’ bats and bodies.

Major League Baseball approved two wearable technology devices prior to the start of the season that can be used during games—the Motus Baseball Sleeve, which measures stress on elbows, and the Zephyr Bioharness, which monitors heart and breathing rates.

And there could be more tech coming off the bench in the form of a smart bat in the near future.

Zepp Labs, a sports tech company reinventing the way athletes and coaches capture and analyze performance data to measure and track different facets of their swings, has introduced a smart bat that examines impact speed, angle, swing duration, and more. It’s a big win for sports science in search of providing a blueprint for a successful swing.

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Commissioner Rob Manfred previously told [a]listdaily that adopting technology is paramount to growing the game. MLB and Apple also partnered to provide every team with iPad Pros this season. Using available data in a proliferated sabermetrics world is a natural extension.

The global market for wearable fitness technology is estimated to reach $12 billion by 2022. In a market dominated by Fitbit, Nike FuelBand and Apple Watch, the likes of Under Armour and Gatorade are using the trending connected fitness platform to target athletes.

Zepp has zeroed in on the best player in the game in Mike Trout, a lifetime .303 hitter who’s still trying to fine-tune his swing to further torment pitchers. The Angels superstar embraced the next generation of sporting equipment during spring training when he used a smart bat to track consistency and perfect his MVP form.

“Introducing a smart bat is a big moment for the game … I’m always looking to improve my swing and have consistency throughout the season,” said Trout, a four-time All Star centerfielder. “When I was growing up I tried to develop my hitting style watching video of Derek Jeter. But I was just swinging. I didn’t know if I was doing something right or wrong. But now, using Zepp, young players are going to be able to accelerate their learning so much faster.”

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By viewing, comparing and analyzing swings, Zepp’s hardware, software, and cloud-based data platform has the makings of being a slump-busting antidote. The San Francisco-based startup is currently working with the Angels, Padres, Diamondbacks and Rays. Their players and coaches use the removable sensor device during batting practice and in the cage. A smartphone app retrieves the data and allows them to decipher the proprietary data.

Jason Fass, chairman of the board at Zepp Labs, and formerly the company’s CEO, told [a]listdaily that a lot of the ballplayers they work with—Giancarlo Stanton, David Ortiz, Josh Donaldson, Jose Altuve and Hunter Pence are among them—use Zepp as a “check-in.”

“Maybe they’re in a slump, or not playing as consistently as they want to and not hitting the ball as cleanly as they want,” said Fass. “When they put the sensor on, they get a better understanding of what’s different. That’s huge for them. What they love most is how easy it is to use and retrieve the data.”

Fass said that although baseball (and youth athletes) are a big chunk of their business, they also use the technology to track swings for golf, tennis, croquet and badminton. “It’s all about data, and people getting better,” he said. “Rather than just throw a bunch of data at you, it’s actionable. You know what to do with it. We tell you how to use it, and we give you the content and the tools. … Because we’ve done so well, equipment makers are now looking to Zepp to put this sensor technology in their equipment.”

This spring, Zepp partnered with Old Hickory, Trout’s preferred bat since high school and now his bat maker, to install the chip on his MT27 model. The metric-measuring device has a 3D Swing Analyzer inside the bat to capture the data Trout needs in order to gain a competitive edge on gameday. It will be commercially available this summer.

Pat Nicholson, vice president of marketing for Zepp, said there are more announcements with original equipment manufacturers to be made. He believes smart bats are the future, and next big thing in baseball. But when will it actually be used in a game?

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“We were the first company in this space, and have been pushing for it a long time. We developed a product that works at the highest level of the game. We have been working with MLB for the last two years, and we’re the only company in this category to have an exclusive with the MLBPA,” Nicholson said. “They’ve approved swing analyzers for batting practice, so we think this is a huge step forward for the league. We can’t predict the future, or control the timeline, but we envision an inevitable future of swing metrics being woven into broadcasts. That’s the path we’re on.”

Nicholson noted that you can begin to see the pieces falling into place as they continue to drive the category forward, as evidenced with their partnership with Perfect Game, a worldwide amateur baseball scouting service. He said implementing Zepp into events like the Home Run Derby are great entry points before they experience a breakthrough and become a part of the fabric of the game and fan experience.

Wearables potentially offer new ways to change the way players train. How teams use the information, and assure privacy, remains to be seen. In the Moneyball age of analytics, it seems like only a matter of time before the game-use approval comes out of the woodwork.

For a sport washing its hands of the steroid era, it should be a much welcomed and embraced innovation.

Follow Manouk Akopyan on Twitter @Manouk_Akopyan.

 

Newzoo: Global Games Market To Reach $99.6 Billion In 2016

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Newzoo recently released an update to its quarterly Global Games Market Report, and it shows that gamers worldwide will generate a total of $99.6 billion in revenues in 2016, an 8.5 percent increase from 2015. Furthermore, mobile games will surpass PC and console revenues for the first time in history with $36.9 billion, a 21.3 percent growth globally.

It should come as no surprise that Asia is expected to continue dominating worldwide revenues, making up 47 percent ($46.6 billion) of the worldwide gaming market. One quarter of those revenues ($24.4 billion) will come from China alone. Newzoo predicts that the global market will eventually grow to $118.6 billion toward 2019, with $52.5 billion from mobile gaming.

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North America takes second place, and is expected to make up 25 percent ($25.4 billion) of global revenues. Of that, the U.S. will bring in $25.4 billion, which is 4.1 percent year-over-year (YoY) growth rate. Newzoo notes how console revenues are still relatively stable as they move toward digital formats and continuous monetization. Meanwhile, Western Europe will see a growth rate of 4.4 percent in 2016, mainly because the region has been slow to adopt mobile games lately. Eastern Europe will see an even higher growth rate of 7.3 percent.

Latin America will comprise only 4 percent ($4.1 billion) of global revenues in 2016, but that means that the region will make a major recovery from its recent economic problems with a massive 20.1 percent YoY growth rate. About $1.4 billion of those revenues will come from mobile games, which is $900 million more than last year. Other reports suggest higher revenues, but Newzoo expresses that, “despite a huge mobile gaming audience of more than 190 million consumers, spending has remained low.”

Revenues By Screen

Newzoo further breaks down the global games market according to screen types, and with this kind of segmentation, computer screens (PC and Mac) will bring in the highest revenues ($31.9 billion), thanks largely to MMO games, while casual web games decline. This number is followed very closely by television screens ($29 billion) and personal mobile devices like smartphones ($27.1 billion). Smartphones have the fastest YoY growth rate of 23.7 percent, which is expected to globally outpace all others by 2018. Meanwhile, tablets and handheld consoles will be the least important gaming screens as the latter continues to become less relevant. Handheld revenues are expected to drop another 24 percent this year.

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The report further notes that VR is not considered its own screen, and expects revenues from it to “remain marginal for the near future and to largely substitute other game spending on console, PC and mobile.” With VR being at such an early stage, software revenues are absorbed into existing PC, console and mobile revenues. Newzoo further states that, “VR and AR will in the long term change how consumers communicate with each other and interact with content. In the short-to-medium-term, Newzoo expects the lion’s share of VR revenues to be generated by hardware sales, spectator content, and live viewing formats.”

ESports Key To Global Growth

Some of the biggest drivers of revenue growth will be the global convergence of games and video, primarily due to the spectacular growth of eSports. Newzoo states, “This trend is transforming games into all-round entertainment franchises, opening up new ways of engagement and complementary revenue streams. This is good news for the games industry, which was already on a healthy growth curve through success on mobile.”

How ‘Halo’ Created A Smarter A.I. In Real Life

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In a world where users can ask their phone to do just about anything, the idea of artificial intelligence (AI) is bursting from the pages of science fiction and into the lives of consumers. Frank O’Connor, creative director of the Halo video game franchise joined us at the [a]list summit to discuss this transition, as well as practical applications for the future.

When Halo: Combat Evolved launched in 2001, the world was introduced to a super soldier named Master Chief and his AI companion, Cortana. Now perhaps the most widely-recognized example of AI in pop culture, it was no surprise Microsoft named its new interactive digital assistant “Cortana,” after the intelligent and helpful blue lady. When it came to how Microsoft’s version of Siri would operate, they turned to the very same studio that introduced its namesake to the world.

“[Microsoft] came and talked to us about AIs, the fictional wrapping of AI personality because personality was the thing that they wanted to make distinctive about Cortana,” O’Connor relates. “They wanted her to be super helpful and logical and rational, but they also wanted her to be relatable, and we kind of had a prototype of that. So I got to work with them on how Cortana behaves; how she tells jokes, how she sings songs, how she engages with you.”

Beyond telling a user what time it is or where to find the nearest coffee shop, O’Connor believes that artificial intelligence could even the playing field when it comes to education. In the Halo universe, child soldiers are taught military tactics by an AI named Dejá. Although it was science fiction when the story was written, this kind of technology may soon be available to everyone.

“An AI could literally be the best college professor that Harvard could ever produce. It could absorb that college professor’s persona, it could absorb his teaching style, but importantly, it’s a one-on-one experience.” O’Connor goes on to explain how artificial intelligence could make education available to anyone. “A teacher could teach a Harvard-level education in French to a kid in a village in Ghana if he has a phone. That’s, I think, going to be the future of education, and it’s also going to help us solve the cost of education, having an individual, one-on-one teaching experience anywhere in the world in any language is going to reduce the cost and the risk of education.”

Vehicle manufacturers are introducing safety features such as muting the stereo until a seat belt is fastened. These measures are meant to keep teenagers safe, but O’Connor poses the question of how a computer might accomplish this in the future. “Imagine if an AI was with your kid all the time,” O’Connor challenged. “And instead of just being a spy for a parent, it’s actually a real, moral compass explaining why things are bad.”

Although O’Connor admits that vehicles that far into the future might be driving themselves, the idea of something to keep you on the straight and narrow, so to speak, is still a very real possibility. “Moral guidance is something that a thinking AI could do as a peer in a way that isn’t bullying or parental.”

Marketing With Artificial Intelligence

AI will pose challenges to marketers, O’Connor warns, because they will be programmed to filter unwanted content. The solution, he says, is to build their own intelligence to overcome the resistance. “I would never, never, ever have used Uber had it not been explained to me by a person. People are the best negotiators and they’re the best at convincing people of things.”

O’Connor predicts the sale of synthetic personalities or even personalities of celebrities to gain popularity, but that our dentist AI or the one caring for elderly patients will require their own bodies. How these bodies look will depend on the function for which they are designed, calling to mind the friendly, marshmallow-like appearance of Baymax in Disney’s Big Hero 6.

Having recently lost both his parents, O’Connor added that AI will someday be able to capture the personality and appearance of loved ones. Although a moral debate on electronically cloning an individual is inevitable, learning about physics from a synthesized Albert Einstein would be quite the experience.

“As Arthur C. Clark said,” O’Connor quoted, “‘Any technology significantly advanced is indistinguishable from magic.’ I believe this will be magical.”

 

YouNow Brings A Different Kind of Streaming Experience

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YouNow is a live social network that enables audiences and performers to connect in real time and is devoted to the unlimited potential of human creativity.

Paula Batson, the company’s vice president of public relations and communication, emphasized that there is an evolution toward real-time video during her presentation at the [a]list summit at the W Hotel in Seattle on Wednesday.

“The audience is demanding participation media,” she said. “This is a new kind of media where viewers are contributing to the media, as well as the broadcaster. It’s not just a push medium. It’s a great way brands can get involved because 70 percent of users can interact. It’s ‘one to many’ that feels like ‘one to one.’”

Backed by Oren Zeev and venture capitalists Venrock, Union Square Ventures and Comcast Ventures, the platform choice-for-youth—13-to-24 demographic—has over 100 million user sessions a month and live-streams 50,000 hours of new video content every day. Batson noted an average viewer spends 50 minutes a day on the social network. They’ve also gained the attention of publishers like The Huffington Post, MTV and Refinery29 in recent months.

“Teens are going crazy for YouNow. The audience is part of the content, and we encourage influencers with companies if they feel like it. They’re at the interaction, and want to be a part of the media that’s being created. Broadcasters do an amazing job getting involved with their audience by engaging with them in real time.

Batson continued: “This is the early days for us. Brands and agencies are beginning to work with us, and we want to experiment together for a drive-to-action. When brands make the investment, they’ll be able to communicate in an authentic way. We’re really looking for creative brand marketers to work with us and talented creators, and see the potential.”

Finding Brand Soulmates Through Predictive Analytics

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Dr. Galen Buckwalter is the data scientist who helped develop services such as eHarmony and Payoff.com, and is the scientific advisor to [a]insights. As it turns out, predictive analytics, similar to the ones that help singles find their perfect match, can help brands find their soulmates. Unfortunately, Dr. Buckwalter was unable to attend the [a]list summit this year, but his co-host was able to [a]insights CTO Kai Mildenberger, was able to step-in and explain how sifting through a mountain of data to find a brand soulmate is a lot like finding love.

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Mildenberger begins his presentation by expressing how targeting is hard. “The potential audience size is amazing, and finding an audience and what works for your brand—out there in this vast sea—is hard, especially when you’re looking for an exact match, or hyper-target.”

Gone are the days when you could look up a Nielsen demographic profile to find the suburban mother with a college education, has two kids and owns a home. It’s not so easy in the world of mass globalized markets, especially when you add in millennials and the digital natives that are following them, who are not so easily profiled.

But Mildenberger also notes that there is a big bright side: we live in a world of sharing. “People are sharing at an incredible clip,” he states, and it is being done directly, freely and publically on a large scale with peers, family and friends. “They’re creating original and authentic content at a massive clip, but where is all of that data going? They’re going into social networks.” As a result, social networks are creating a massive ocean of data.

social network aggregators

 

But now the problem is going sorting through that ocean, which would take a team decades. Mildenberger then presented the history of computers of artificial intelligence, which went from predicting where nuclear strikes would fall to driving cars. However, AI hasn’t had an easy road. In 2004, no autonomous car could complete the Darpa Challenge. Then Mildenberger showcased videos from last year of humanoid robots that all had major mobility issues. Processing technology had reached a point of stagnation, and was no longer compliant with Moore’s Law.

But something magical happened that nobody expected. “The best things come from serendipity and left field,” Mildenberger explained. Powerful graphics cards, like Nvidia’s Titan Z, saved Silicon Valley by ushering in a new era. It was these high-end graphics cards that broke through the ceiling by enabling a massive amount of data processing.

Mildenberger exclaimed, “We thank all of you gamers for pushing the hardware. Without gamers, this would not have happened.”

Nvidia Algorithm

 

Algorithms, like the one shown on the right side, of Mildenberger illustration, can now be run against massive amounts of data, which is only possible because of the powerful graphics processor. Progress is now happening so fast, that we don’t even have a name for the era. Cars can now effectively drive themselves on highways and humanoid robots can walk across a variety of uneven surfaces while performing tasks.

That technology makes predictive analytics, at the scale brands want, possible. “Now we can go through that massive data, aggregated through social networks, to find an audience,” said Mildenberger, and the technology can even go one better. “We can find a voice, creator or influencer inside of that audience that is a perfect match for the goals, ideals and feel of your brand.”

The key is in psychometrics, and there are currently two schools of thought on the influencer tech side. “Most of the market is going the Tinder route,” Mildenberger explains, “which is transaction and dual-side market based.” It’s really quick with no curation. The other side (which Dr. Buckwalter is on) spends the extra time, effort and brain power to go the eHarmony route, because they think “your brand is way too valuable for a bad one-night stand.”

Using the data to find out who these people are and how they work is really important. The presentation concluded with a quote from Dr. Buckwalter, which sums up the long-term goal of the eHarmony approach.

“In this age of personalization, people want the equivalent of their neighborhood bar—where they can walk in and not just ask the bartender for the regular, but can ask the bartender to surprise them and find the result delightful.”

Brand Soulmates

In-Game Ads On Mobile Can Be A Huge Plus

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If you’re wondering about the best way to utilize in-game ads in mobile games, you’re not alone. Finding the best and most efficient way to utilize in-game ads is vitally important to many mobile game developers, even to ones who don’t currently use any form of in-game advertising. That’s why this new report from Unity Technologies, In-Game Advertising the Right Way, is so important.

Over two thousand mobile developers and mobile game players were surveyed by Unity “to get a better understanding of their experience using ads.” The developers were eligible to provide data regardless of what development tools they used, and the players used a variety of mobile platforms.

Unity’s approach to the issue of in-game advertising is different than most because of the company’s business, which is primarily creating development tools such as Unity Engine, and assisting developers in using those tools. So Unity’s interest is in developer success, and figuring out which types of advertising are the most lucrative for developers is clearly to Unity’s advantage. At the same time, Unity also wants to identify any types of advertising that might affect developers in a negative way.

One of the first interesting things to know is that almost two-thirds of the developers surveyed have already used ads in their mobile games. “The reasons why so many choose to work with ads is a simple one to understand,” the report states. “A small share of players will actually pay using in-app purchases, placing a significant status on a tiny user-base to fund a game. In-game mobile ads, meanwhile, draw revenue even when players choose to spend nothing, never directly asking for cash, and without preventing those who choose to engage with IAP from spending in-game. The potential of ads to serve mobile games, then, is strikingly apparent, is important, and offers vast potential, not just to individual games, but to the longevity of the studios that make them.”

Unity ad report 1On the player side, 71 percent of players watch in-game video ads, and 54 percent chose “rewarded” video specifically, as their preferred way to ‘pay’ for a mobile game. Compare that to 17 percent that liked interstitial video ads, 18 percent who preferred to pay upfront, and only 11 percent who preferred in-app purchases (IAP). That’s rather startling, since the assumption of many game designers (and marketers) is that in-app purchases are the more refined way of paying for a game, and one that should be preferred over advertising.

This may perhaps be spillover from the success of some free-to-play PC games like League of Legends, where IAP is the only way the game monetizes, and the fans seem to love that method. That also seems to be true with other PC games such as World of Tanks, Hearthstone, and others, where you never see ads and don’t have to pay if you don’t want to, but many people do. Most mobile games have yet to reach this sort of engagement and user satisfaction with IAP, let alone the kind of revenue that these successful PC games achieve.

The games industry has learned a lot about getting mobile game ads right, and rewarded video ads are emerging as a powerful option for every kind of games maker. Overall, the message from this survey is clear: Video ads are the best form for mobile games, and more precisely rewarded video ads (where players get some sort of in-game benefit) are preferred by players.

“Rewarded video ads are the consumers’ first choice, and thus one that monetizes well, especially since many consumers view static interstitials as intrusive,” the report noted. “After all, happy players are staying players, and with rewarded video ads in mobile games higher retention means more viewed ads. That, in turn, boosts LTV and ARPU.”

Here’s some of the other key information from the report:

  • 52 percent of mobile game developers surveyed identified video ads as providing the highest revenue per user compared to any other type of in-game advertising
  • Almost 80 percent of players confirmed they are open to engaging with video ads for in-game rewards
  • Less than 1-in-10 developers saw retention drop after introducing rewarded video ads
  • 86 percent of developers who integrated rewarded video ads saw increased or unaffected in-app purchasing
  • 58 percent of games makers are most likely to recommend rewarded video ads over any other in-game ad form to their game development peers

“Rewarded video ads are a key monetization and engagement method quickly growing in popularity with today’s mobile game developer community,” said Jarkko Rajamaki, director of ads for Unity Technologies. “When properly integrated into gameplay, video ads, especially rewarded video ads, have a positive impact on the player’s experience and can help developers monetize their games and increase player engagement.”

Another important finding is that ads do not reduce the desire to make in-app purchases. In fact, the data shows that ads increase IAP. While 14 percent of users spend less on IAP when there are ads in the game, 70 percent said it had no impact, and 16 percent said they spent more.

The use of in-game ads in mobile games should be seen as a very important source of revenue, and one that doesn’t necessarily cause problems with players if executed properly. Of course, there are plenty of other considerations to make in deciding when and how to use in-game ads, and a huge number of choices if you’re looking at various ad networks. The genre of game can also make a big difference to the perception and use of ads. Integrating ads into the game design along with rewards is an important issue for marketers and game designers to consider. Clumsy positioning of inappropriate ads can make a bad impression on players, and that’s not something any marketer wants.

Moreover, the demographics of the audience may be an important factor. Carefully examining similar games and their use of in-game advertising can provide some ideas of what to do and what to avoid.