JuiceBox Games Founder Explains Mid-Core Opportunity In Mobile

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A trio of former Zynga veterans have had success out of the gate with mobile game developer start-up JuiceBox Games. Jason McGuirk, Chief Technology Officer, and Zak Pytlak, creative director and CEO Michael Martinez have assembled a team of 20 engineers, artists and game designers to create original mid-core games for the growing mobile games industry.

The company has raised $2.5 million from Initial Capital, General Catalyst, Index Ventures and Maveron, as well as individual investors Scott Dale, a member of the Zynga founding team, and John Riccitiello, former Electronic Arts CEO. The JuiceBox Games board includes Kristian Segerstrale, founder and CEO of Playfish and former Supercell board member.

The studio’s first mobile game, HonorBound, was downloaded over 3 million times across Android, Amazon and Apple platforms. The free-to-play game combines the collectability of Pokemon with the RPG battles of Game of Thrones (Bobby Tahouri, whose music can be heard in the HBO TV series, scored the game’s soundtrack). The developer created more than 500 character art pieces in its in-house studio, focusing on a simple look and feel that appeals to the booming mid-core gaming market that companies like Kixeye have banked on for years.

Martinez, who worked on games like Zynga Poker and Farmville, explains the opportunities that these mid-core gamers have opened up in the mobile space in this exclusive interview.

What are the challenges of creating a game that will emerge through the crowd in today’s environment?

With so many options for players, it’s incredibly challenging to even be noticed, let alone hold players’ attention. We take it very seriously when a player chooses to spend their time with HonorBound and our goal is to reward that time with an immensely entertaining experience.

We create games that we’re passionate about and think that passion comes across for our players. We built HonorBound because it was a game we actually wanted to play that didn’t exist yet.

How have you seen the business model of free-to-play evolve?

The freemium business model is always evolving. Both the game makers and the players are becoming more sophisticated. Game makers deliver higher quality content and players demand that higher quality. Mechanics that were everywhere three years ago seem very 1.0 today. One of JuiceBox Games’ core values is to Respect the Player. It seems obvious, and it is, but we really take it to heart. Our goal is to always provide great entertainment and value to our players. And our job is to really focus on the fun first, rather than focusing on monetization.

What opportunities has mobile opened up for a start-up like yours?

It means everything to our business. We’re able to build a deep and engaging world that is literally an arm’s reach away.

What has the increase in processing power on smartphones and tablets opened up for the games you can create?

Bigger and more immersive worlds.

What did you learn from Zynga (good or bad) that you’re applying to your studio?

It was a tremendous education. Prioritization is extremely important to us. On any given day, there are hundreds of things we could be working on, and we need to make sure we focus on a few goals and that they’re the right projects.

One of the things I love about JuiceBox Games is how everybody works to make the game better and that’s what our conversations are centered around. That common goal unites us.

Can you talk about your first new IP?

The HonorBound universe is really exciting for us. We were inspired by games like Pokemon and Skylanders with a recognizable cast of characters. We’re tremendously proud of the art style of HonorBound and that’s kudos to our great art team who developed everything in-house. The comic-book feel stands out in the App Stores and our players have responded really positively.

How were you able to achieve 3 million downloads while in stealth mode?

We intentionally kept our heads down and focused on the players and their experience. Players don’t know (or care) if you’re in stealth mode or not. They find a game and care about whether it’s fun.

How do you develop games for the new casual and mainstream gaming audience?

As a studio, it’s important to know your target audience. We’re focused on midcore (more competitive with deep investment). We definitely want to make our games accessible and draw in a wide audience, but you have to strike the right balance. If the tone isn’t clear you can end up disappointing both camps.

What role do you feel transmedia plays today in games when you look at Rovio’s success with videos and merchandising?

It’s something we’re interested in and excited about, but we’re focusing on our core competency first. We’ve had offers to make HonorBound toys and at this point it’s a distraction. There’s still so much to build and get right with the game.

Having raised $2.5 million, what are investors looking for in game studios today?

I think they’re looking for teams with passion to build great games and the proven ability to execute. One of the things I was able to say very honestly was, “We’re building this game no matter what. Your support would be helpful and we’d love it, but this game is shipping either way.” I clearly think we’re the team worth betting on.

 

Why Influencer Marketing Isn’t A ‘Shadow’-y Alley Of Negotiations

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The business of creators has recently come under fire. In a recent video picked up by Kotaku, an influencer accuses Warner Bros. and their influencer agency of heavy-handed techniques to sway opinions of their upcoming game Shadow of Mordor. A lot of attention is being paid to influencer marketing as a result, but there’s a right way to go about this: being transparent.

ION‘s business is tied directly to this world. As Executive Director of ION, I am in the business of connecting advertisers to these influencers. It is apparent to me that influencer marketing falls somewhere between paid media, or advertising and public relations. ION focuses on that middle ground between paid media and PR.

We give advertisers a level of control that PR can’t offer. This means we guarantee video views; and those views are sold based on organic viewership of the content, not paid placement. This also means we limit our work to influencers who are genuinely interested in the marketer. We seek out a level of alignment with the brand during our curation process. Influencers hurt their own channels and marketers don’t achieve engagement if the content doesn’t work for the audience.

ION produces hundred of content pieces that get viewed by interested parties, whereas paid media uses many different formats to get in front of users who are not seeking out that message.

Nothing about having a YouTube channel requires an unbiased point of view. In fact, the personality and unique points of view are part of what makes YouTube a rich social environment.

ShayCarl alistsummitShayCarl speaking about influencer marketing at [a]list summit in July.

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The creators who are key to this environment are also businesses. They work to aggregate and then sell a valuable commodity that other parties covet. Just like TV networks, radio stations, magazines, websites, mobile apps and any other media, creators sell the hearts, minds and attentions of their viewers to marketers.

The Federal Communications Commission mandates certain disclosures be made when creators work with advertisers and ION has always abided by that, and to our benefit. This comes from a long tradition of oversight that results in censorship of certain words, phrases and visual images on primetime TV, cable stations, radio shows and other media. Just like it is a viable business model for product placement to exist on TV and in movies it is viable for creators to integrate marketing messages into their unique content.

Inevitably our process leads us to people who would have played the game or have used the product. The opportunity for the marketer is to control timing of the message and suggest messaging. Rather than your player showing game play footage seven months from launch, the marketer uses influencer marketing to organize a larger campaign around people playing in the next three weeks. There is no control about what they say, or how they say it. There are suggestions, but ultimately the final product is delivered by the creator in their own authentic voice.

For marketers the opportunity is to reach people in the channels they are familiar with, with endorsers who they recognize. One generation likes Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.  Others like ShayCarl and PewDiePie. To see these people talking about brands, products and services acts as a motivator to buy, or at least consider them.  Like with any marketing the message, the medium and the talent have to be lined up.

Like ShayCarl said at [a]list summit this past July: “Don’t lie.”

 

 

Asia Gaming Booms

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The global market for games is growing, and Asia is already in the lead — and growing faster than other regions. So it should not come as a surprise that games market research firm Newzoo is opening a new office in Shanghai, and presenting some new data about the Asian games market to highlight that effort. This office marks the first step in its international expansion strategy and signals Newzoo’s desire to be closer to its Asian clients and partners. If the current growth in China continues, it will surpass the U.S. as the biggest games market in the world at the end of 2015. China houses numerous games and digital media companies with global ambitions encompassing both the West and Asia itself. Newzoo already serves a number of Chinese companies including Perfect World, R2 Games, Tencent and Baidu.

Wybe Schutte

Newzoo’s upcoming research effort in Southeast Asia (SEA) is an example of how it aims to foresee the needs of global companies in general and those in China specifically. “We are very excited to start our first international office in Shanghai,” said Newzoo’s VP of Business Development, Wybe Schutte. “In recent years, Newzoo has become a well-known brand in Asia. At the same time, we realize that a local presence is required to optimize our service towards our Asian clients and take away every threshold for companies seeking to work with us. Of course, it will also help us to expand our network of media and data partners in the region.” Schutte will be leading Newzoo’s Shanghai offices for the time being, according to Newzoo CEO Peter Warman.

Newzoo also announced its biggest research effort to date, focused completely on Southeast Asia. The project was kick-started earlier this year by several launch clients including Facebook, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Chinese internet giant Baidu.

The effort involves local primary consumer research in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines in combination with financial analysis and transactional partner data. To understand the growth drivers and potential, the report will also give insight into the cultural and digital media landscape of each country. The six countries represent 550 million consumers, an online population of almost 180 million and close to 110 million connected gamers. This year, these consumers will generate $1 billion in game revenues. The average annual growth rate of 22.9 percent (CAGR) towards 2017 for the six countries combined makes it the largest growth region in the world. More information on the SEA project can be found here.

“Over recent years, Southeast Asia has steadily risen in priority for our clients,” said Schutte. “We have waited to research this very diverse region in full depth until growth started to accelerate and that moment is now. Our clients all have a global outlook and want to be able to benchmark markets in Southeast Asia with growth opportunities in other continents. Adding six Southeast Asian countries to our existing primary research portfolio of nineteen countries allows them to do exactly that.”

To celebrate the opening of the office, and to meet with friends and partners in China, Newzoo VP Business Development, Wybe Schutte, will attend GDC China in Shanghai from October 19 to 21. He will be available for meetings both at the show and the Newzoo office. For the fourth year in a row, Newzoo will also be an exhibitor at G-Star in Busan, Korea from November 20 to 23. More information on the opening of the Shanghai office can be found here.

Providing additional insights into the growth of the Asian gaming market, Dr. Serkan Toto, a Japan-based game industry consultant, gave a presentation recently in Malaysia. While his data showed that all segments of the game industry are showing growth except for retail packaged games, the growth of mobile games is the highest. Dr. Toto showed numbers from the International Development Group with estimates of some $8.9 billion in mobile content for Asia this year out of some $20 billion total worldwide, rising to $11.4 billion in 2017.

Dr. Toto noted some other important trends in the Asian gaming market. While smartphones and tablets are growing rapidly, this is still one of the regions of the world where feature phones are a major part of the market. The spread of smart devices will grow as lower price points become prevalent, with sub-$100 smartphones and tablets poised to make big inroads into markets like India.

Similarly to North America and Europe, the easy availability of app stores is contributing to a rise in indie developers all over Asia. Again, similar to their Western counterparts, these Asian developers can have a difficult time finding an audience for their games.

One key thing about the Asian mobile game market (and, for that matter, the PC game market): It’s almost entirely free-to-play. While the app stores on iOS and Google are important, messaging platforms like WeChat, Line, and Kakao are extremely important as places to distribute games in Asia.

Courtesy of Games In Asia, they’ve lined up some data from Newzoo in convenient charts to show the leading countries for overall games revenue. China, as you would expect, leads Asia not only in population but in game revenue with $17.8 billion, with Japan trailing behind at $12.2 billion.and South Korea in a distant third place with $3.3 billion.

The data gets even more interesting, though, when you consider the Internet penetration in each country. China’s population on the Internet is still only half of the total population, and India is a mere 17 percent of the total population. There’s plenty of growth left ahead as devices and Internet access spread to the general population.

The Death Of Reviews

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Game reviews used to be an important (one might even say, ahem, critical) factor in the marketing of a game. If you were able to get some advance reviews, you’d even slap a great quote or two on your packaging, and certainly in your advertising. Adroitly timing reviews to appear in magazines when the product was in the stores would help boost sales — and since more than 90 percent of a product’s sales could be had in the product’s first month, maximizing launch impact was the most important part of a marketing strategy.

Fast forward to the modern game market, and everything has changed.

The initial sales of console games no longer account for almost all of the revenue of the game; that portion is steadily decreasing, as games get longer and longer lifetimes (especially now that they can be downloaded). The now-obligatory DLC for major console game releases also provides a significant revenue boost, as well as keeping the game selling long after the initial release. Yes, the reviews have an influence on that… but the changing nature of games has affected the relevance of the reviews.

This is the second major point: For most games, the game is no longer unchanging the way console games used to be. Decades ago, once a console game shipped, that was it — there was no way to patch it. That’s why publishers spent months relentlessly scrubbing every bug they could from the games before they shipped them. Now, games are regularly patched on a weekly basis or even faster. These patches are often more than just bug fixes — they often have major effects on game play.

Over time, between content releases and patches, games evolve. Destiny already looks different than it did when it shipped. For a more extreme example, look at World of Warcraft… that game is incredibly larger and more detailed in every way than the version that first shipped.

For that matter, the initial ship date of most games doesn’t even really matter financially — not when a game is free to play. The challenge is no longer to convince someone to part with $60, but rather to take the time to download the game and give it a try. Reviews may certainly influence that decision, but even if a game didn’t get very good reviews you have a much greater chance of giving it a try when the only cost involved is some of your time.

The widespread adoption of social media has transformed the meaning of reviews in every medium. Movie reviewers were once fairly scarce, and their opinions were respected and featured prominently in movie advertising. Now, reviewers are anyone and everyone who’s on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr. Each individual review is thus worth much less… unless it comes from a trusted friend, that is. Maybe you’ll check Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic to see what the general buzz is among both pros and consumers, but in the end if a friend recommends something you’re far more likely to try it. The same is true with games.

This is also why YouTubers and the whole idea of influencer marketing has become so important. When someone you like and believe in tells you something, you’re far more likely to act on their opinion. That’s why the influencers are very careful in general to only work with products they believe in, because their influence is based on trust. If the audience begins to believe the influencer is merely a shill for whoever gave them the most money, the audience will leave.

The very nature and meaning of game reviews are under examination — what does it mean to review game that’s essentially a service, changing every week? While a review may be completely relevant and accurate when it’s published, that gradually declines as the game changes unless the review is regularly updated. And who does that? Some media outlets have made steps in that direction, updating reviews from time to time, but no site has the resources to update all of their reviews. For that matter, no media outlet can even hope to keep up with the thousands of games being released every month, if you count all platforms, with an even greater number being updated in that time frame.

This is why the ostensible reason behind the #GamerGate controversy — that the movement is about “corruption” in game journalism, defined as paying in some fashion for positive reviews — is not credible. While there have been a few cases in the past (the distant past, mind you) of magazines or web sites shading reviews more positively because of advertiser pressure, the issue is really a nonstarter today. Why would a company go to the trouble and expense of trying to manipulate one review, when one review these days has a minuscule effect on sales

Looked at in the broader sense, we have a perfect counter-example in Destiny. This game had one of the largest marketing budgets ever approved for a game. If any company could ever afford to bribe journalists for positive reviews, it would be Activision Blizzard. The stake are extraordinarily high for the company, with a $500 million investment in Destiny becoming a profitable billion-dollar franchise at risk. Yet, after months of messages to journalists, trips to Seattle to visit Bungie, and all the PR goodness Activision could muster up… Destiny earns a disappointing 77 on Metacritic. Reviews have been, in general, fairly harsh. That certainly doesn’t look like the media has been unduly influenced, does it?

While game media struggles to redefine the nature and meaning of reviews in the modern era, game developers and publishers understand that reviews don’t mean as much as they used to. Or, rather, it’s the review of each individual playing the game that really matters. The best way to influence those reviews is to create the best game you can, listen to the audience when they play it, and work to refine the game over time. Creating the very best game experience you can is the best way to earn positive reviews, and those personal recommendations that increasingly drive game purchases.

The death of reviews is not a development to be mourned, but one to be celebrated. Game developers can feel free to focus on making the best game they can, and the players will show up and spend money regardless of what reviews appear — if you’re able to create an audience, that is. That’s another issue entirely, but one thing you should know — don’t depend on reviews to create that audience for you.

This Week in People: October 10

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Here are some of the top personnel moves in marketing last week. Our congratulations to these people taking on new challenges!

  • Bravo Media has promoted Robert Mancini to vice president of content for the company’s digital division. Read more about it here.
  • Nancy Tellem, former president of CBS Network Television Entertainment Group and currently winding down her role as president of Microsoft’s Xbox Studios, has joined the board of directors of e-commerce content startup Dot & Bo, co-founded by former CBS Interactive exec Anthony Soohoo. Find out more here.
  • StyleHaul, the multichannel network focused on young female audiences, has hired former AOL ad exec Rob DeChiaro to run the newly created StyleHaul Studios. Find out more here.
  • Former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO Lisa Gersh has been tapped as the new CEO of goop, a lifestyle and ecommerce company founded by actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 2008. Find out more here.
  • Former chief digital officer for NBC News Vivian Schiller, head of news and journalism partnerships at Twitter, is moving on after less than a year on the job. Find out more here.
  • Storm8 today announced the hiring of two industry veterans, both most recently at Zynga, in new roles at the mobile social company. Tim LeTourneau will serve as Chief Creative Officer while Steve Parkis will lead as President of Games and Network. Find out more here.

If you have a submission for this weekly feature, send info to pr@ayzenberg.com or fill out our Suggest a Story form.

Gaming Insiders Summit 2014 Preview

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The Gaming Insiders Summit is being held on October 15 at the Winery on Treasure Island in San Francisco. The venue is compelling, with a tremendous view of the San Francisco Bay when you step outside and look around. Similarly, the array of speakers and sessions lined up for the Gaming Insiders Summit should provide a tremendous view of the current and future state of the game industry. The [a]listdaily takes a look at some of the highlights of the schedule, and gets Gaming Insiders CEO David Kaye’s insights on the summit.

The Gaming Insiders Summit is only one day long, but it’s packed with a number of interesting sessions, various sponsors available to discuss their products and services, and of course plenty of networking opportunities. What follows are some of the highlights of the program, and you can find the full program along with details on the speakers and the venue at the Gaming Insiders web site.

The speakers begin at 9:30, and Alex Seropian and Tim Harris, co-founders of Industrial Toys begin with a talk entitled Casual, Core and More: The Myth of Rules in Mobile Gaming. Seropian is well known as the founder of Bungie Studios, and the Industrial Toys insight on mobile gaming should be very interesting coming from some console and PC veterans.

Later in the day there’s a “fireside chat” with Chris Heatherly, the SVP/GM of Disney Interactive, where attendees can hear about Disney’s strategy for bringing its massively successful film and television properties to interactive media. Following that will be a similar fireside chat with Chris DeWolfe, the CEO of SGN, who perhaps will shed some light on SGN’s strategy for dealing with similar transmedia properties, as SGN is currently bringing the animated feature The Book of Life: Sugar Smash to mobile games.

There will also be panels on the business aspects of the gaming business, including AppLovin’s co-founder and CEO Adam Foroughi talking about player acqusition, and inMobi, TinyCo, Gree and Crowdstar talking about the increasingly complex strategies for mobile games.

The CEO of Twitch, Emmet Shear, will be talking about Twitch’s next 60 million users, which should be a very interesting talk given the increasing importance of livestreaming to games marketing. Google’s Bob Meese, head of business development for Google Play, will discuss how the company is helping developers reach the global mobile audience.

Later in the day, there’s also a chat with Tencent’s VP of business development Dan Brody, and to wind things up there’s a talk by Valve developer Chet Faliszek.

There are even more presentations scheduled, along with a full panoply of businesses that serve the game industry, and the always-important cocktail party at the end where new business connections can be forged. The [a]listdaily will be there to take in the information and serve up a piping-hot summary afterwards for those of you who are unable to attend.

David Kaye

David Kaye, CEO of Gaming Insiders, took the time from his busy pre-show schedule to answer some questions for the [a]listdaily.

[a]listdaily: How did the Gaming Insiders Summit begin, and how has it developed over time?

David Kaye: Gaming Insiders started as an invite-only online community for game company founders, and our first event was a dinner for ten people in a San Francisco Chinese restaurant. This is our second conference and we’re expecting about 450 attendees from all over the world, so it’s safe to say we’ve grown a bit.

[a]listdaily: What should participants expect to learn at the Gaming Insiders Summit?

David Kaye: We’re trying to answer one question: where are today’s blue ocean opportunities? We see those opportunities in a lot of places — here are a few:

1) Bringing big genres to new platforms: Halo co-creator Alex Seropian and Tim Harris from Industrial Toys will be talking about their approach to building their mobile FPS, Midnight Star.

2) Breaking into new markets: Asia is our focus this year — speakers from Tencent, Kabam and FunPlus will be addressing this from a number of angles.

3) Virtual Reality: We continue to believe VR is going to be huge. Chet Faliszek will be talking about Valve’s unique approach to the platform.

[a]listdaily: What are the most important trends in the game industry today, in your view?

David Kaye: I think that the three trends I mentioned before — big genres coming to new platforms, the expansion of the Asian market, and VR’s growing importance — are the biggest forces we’ll see in the coming year, but I’d love to see the indie renaissance we’re seeing on PC have a bigger impact in mobile, where there’s still a little less creative diversity than I would like.

[a]listdaily: What holds the potential to be the biggest surprise for the gaming industry in the next year?

David Kaye: The great thing about this industry is that massively influential things can come from unexpected places. If you had asked me this question last year, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have said “a ludicrously hard endless runner from an unknown Vietnamese developer with no marketing will become an overnight sensation with more than 50 million downloads,” and yet we all saw what happened with Flappy Bird.

Indies are still the ones making all the really bold moves. Keep an eye on smaller studios like Campo Santo and Hello Games.

[a]listdaily: Any other thoughts on the Gaming Insiders Summit?

David Kaye: The atmosphere of our event is really unique — if you haven’t come before, I’d love to see you there.

Vine Shows That Video Created For Mobile Gets Higher Engagement

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It’s evident by looking at data that Vine loops appeal to audiences. With the short, interactive and snackable content on Vine, engagement rates are inherently high. When taking into account that Vine loops are equalized into 1 view based on the 5:1 ratio we determined, we see that engagement rates are substantially higher than on YouTube, the destination for more established video-based influencer campaigns.

Our analysis shows that Vine loop engagement is 5.5 percent for a targeted campaign for kids and parents when counting comments and likes. In comparison, you see 2.6 percent engagement for the same product marketed using YouTube influencers.

According to GlobalWebIndex, 9 percent of the U.S. are on Vine. This equates to about 27 million people. In late 2013, Vine announced that 40 million accounts had been registered. Every month, 100 million people across the web watch Vine videos. Since there are a variety of Vine compilation and curation properties these 6-second features make their way across the web. YouTube compilations and individual Vine feature sites dot the web as well.  Here, here and here are a few examples.

A significant portion of youth, 25 percent of teens, use Vine to watch videos, create videos and interact with others. According to the U.S. Census teenagers, those 10-19, represent 13 percent of the country with about 42 million people. You can see they over-index for usage on Vine; 192.

For some social platforms are places to interact with friends by sharing links, videos, pictures and thoughts. For others social platforms are distribution methods; places for people to launch their transmedia careers. Vine creators work across interests and genres to appeal to users in 6 seconds or less.

For a children’s targeted product, ION is running an influencer campaign with both YouTube and Vine influencers. Below are a few great examples of top Vine creators:

Brands are also getting into the 6-second act on their owned pages:

Of course, marketers are using these Vine influencers to create great content and reach new audience, too:

 

GamerU’s New Way To Acquire Gamers

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When you’re stuck on a level in a game, the first place you look for a solution is on the Internet. Finding the right answer quickly is hard, though, and GamerU’s speedy tutorials promises to make that easy. At the same time, game developers have a huge problem — how do you find players for your game, especially players that will stick with the game and spend money GamerU has managed to create a solution for developers, too, and combined both of these solutions into one site.

James Sullivan

GamerU is a destination web site that provides high-quality, professionally created videos that help gamers with popular games, and these videos are short and to the point. The videos share hints on how to beat difficult levels, as well as skill tips to help players become standouts during battle. All videos are easily searchable, allowing gamers to find everything they need in one simple location.

GamerU also helps gamers find other games they might like to play by serving up suggestions based on viewing habits. Of course, that’s of value to game developers as well, helping games get discovered by the people who are most likely to play and enjoy the games — and therefore, more likely to spend some money on the game in the long run.

For developers and publishers, GamerU provides a way to help players and potentially generate more revenue with no up-front cost. Once a developer has partnered with GamerU, GamerU then creates original videos and promotes them. GamerU even provides a mobile app to make it even easier for gamers to find the videos they need.

The [a]listdaily spoke with GamerU president and founder James Sullivan about GamerU’s approach to helping gamers and game developers find the answers and the audience they need.

[a]listdaily: How can you help game developers with the difficult problem of player acquisition?

James Sullivan: We’re a user acquisition platform for game publishers. We professionally produce tips and tricks videos for a wide variety of games. We produce those videos in multiple languages —English, Spanish, French, and German. We then invest heavily in SEO in those various languages, and serve up suggestions to viewers on the games they may like. We will serve up suggestions based on your viewing habits. From an indie publisher’s point of view, they have a limited marketing budget. We pay for all production of the tips and tricks videos in the various languages, and we will integrate their videos into the platform.

[a]listdaily: That’s a useful service for developers, but how does GamerU make money from this?

James Sullivan: Our business model is a little different than the standard CPI networks. The problem with a lot of those is you’re paying an upfront fee for a customer whether that customer monetizes or not. In a lot of instances, they’re paying people for a customer that could be worth zero. For our revenue model, we take it from a different approach. We say, ‘You don’t have to pay us anything up front, and you don’t have to pay anything if the customer monetizes to zero.’ However, we will take a rev share instead. It’s pay for performance. We invest in SEO, and we believe our users are more engaged, they’re searching for this content, they’re searching for tips, they’re looking to get beter at the game. We believe our users are more engaged and they are more likely to convert as a paying customer. We’re willing to take the risk of pay for performance.

[a]listdaily: How exactly does the revenue share work?

James Sullivan: It’s based on the lifetime value of the customer within that game. We come from the poker industry, where user acquisition on a rev share model is very standard. We’re applying what we learned on the poker side to the video game space.

[a]listdaily: How long has GamerU been active, and what have the results been so far?

James Sullivan: We’ve been working on the business for well over a year; the site launched officially on April 15. The results have been very positive from both the publishers and the users. We’ve just launched with Atari’s new Minimum game this month. The response that we’ve had from publishers in our initial meetings and pitches has been very positive, and from the user point of view, likewise. There’s very little downside for the publishers because we pay for all production. We only get paid when we convert customers.

[a]listdaily: Do you have a relationship with all of the publishers for the games where you have videos, or do you just create some to drive traffic to the web site?

James Sullivan: Initially here for launch we did not have relationships with all the publishers. We are in the process of discussions with various different publishers. We will produce videos for games that are popular, games that people are searching for, just to drive traffic to the site.

[a]listdaily: What’s the future for GamerU? Where do you want the site to be in a year or two?

James Sullivan: The goal is down the road that we are integrated will of these publishers and we have our own user acquisition network with all of these publishers on a rev share basis. And, we launch a game in conjunction with when a publisher launches a game. The goal, and we just did this with Minimum, is the day that Minimum launched on Steam we launched with the content. We had early access to the game and we produced the tips over a two-month period prior to when the game was officially online.

We’re looking to grow our content library and forge relationships with publishers and drive traffic for their games. I view this as the future of the user acquisition model for videogame publishers.

Newzoo/Overwolf’s Top 20 PC Games For September

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In June 2014, Newzoo and Overwolf launched a new monthly ranking service that gives insight into the popularity of individual PC games in the US and Europe. The ranking is based on number of unique sessions during a calendar month amongst millions of game enthusiasts that use Overwolf’s in-game software. This month we investigate session times in more depth and have a closer look at Turkey.

The September 2014 rankings show that the top 5 games of August 2014 remain unchallenged. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft remains at Number 5, with Valve’s Counter Strike: Global Offensive holding onto fourth position. Blizzard’s fifth World Of Warcraft expansion Warlords of Draenor will be launching on the 13th of November 2014, so it will be interesting to see what effect that has on the November rankings after release. Wargaming’s F2P juggernaut World of Tanks holds steady at rank 3, having done so since May 2014. So far the $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang by Microsoft on the 15th of September has had no visible effect on Minecraft, which remains at the number two position. Riot Game’s League of Legends continues to remain at Rank 1, having done so for the 6 months Newzoo has published these rankings, clearly revealing not only a devoted and enthusiastic gamer fan base but the lasting power of competitive eSports titles.

MMO Eruption, Mod Disruption
There are a few outliers to the rankings as we move past the stable Top 5. As noted in our August 2014 Rankings, Trion World’s ArcheAge entered Beta and quickly moved into Rank 19 for that month. Following the official Western release of the game on Sept 16 (having been playable in Korea since January 2013) the MMO has erupted into the Top Ten Rankings, reaching Number 8. This is an interesting contrast to the other recently released MMO, NCSoft’s Wildstar, which entered our Rankings in June 2014 and subsequently disappeared. It’s worth pointing out that while ArcheAge is F2P, Wildstar is subscription based, strongly impacting the absolute number of gamers and unique sessions played.

As one title rises, another falls: Bohemia Interactive’s DayZ has fallen 8 places to Rank 14. Taking a broader look at the ranks we see an overall decline in titles that are Mods (or were Mods now stand alone titles) of existing games: Valve’s Garry’s Mod has fallen 2 places to Rank 13, with Valve’s Team Fortress 2 falling 1 spot to Rank 17. The overall movement of the Mod titles are relatively calm, indicating a core stability that comes from being player driven, community focused titles. Gaijin Entertainment’s War Thunder Beta has seemingly capitalized on its community driven popularity, continuing its climb that begin in August another 2 places to Rank 16.

WolfTeam Finds Unique Success in Turkey
As noted, League of Legends has dominated the Top 20 rankings for almost half of year, being the top title in most Western European countries. This is not the case in Turkey however, where it comes in at #4. Topping the charts is the MMOFPS Wolfteam, developed by AeriaGames (In fact, Turkey is one of the only country where Wolfteam features in the Top 20 Rankings). Wolfteam is followed by Mgame’s Knight Online and Valve’s Counter Strike: Condition Zero. The difference in unique session rankings between Turkey and the total U.S./ Europe is one of the reasons Newzoo drills down into regional market data, illustrating the importance of localization and regional specific insights.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Gamers Play Three Hours On End
Looking at the average game session time per title unearths some fantastic insights. It becomes immediately apparent that longer play sessions are not always an indicator of success: League of Legends at #1 has an average game session time of just under 32 minutes. Minecraft comes in higher at around 71 minutes while World of Tanks has an average game session time that is almost 4 times that of League of Legend’s: Around 129 minutes.

While the average session time for the Top 20 Ranked Games combined is 71mins, it’s more important to look at how time spend equates with genre and how it affects the overall Rankings. MMO titles have higher AVG session times than MOBA’s or FPS: World of Warcraft (~112 min) and Guild Wars 2 (~126min) versus Counter Strike: Global Offensive (~63min) and Dota 2 (~88 min). The Top 20 game with the highest average session time overall is naturally an MMO — Star Wars: The Old Republic with an average session time of just under 184 mins. These numbers clearly indicate the difference in game styles and time spend between different genres, revealing a deeper understanding of the time requirements (and restraints) of gamers that favour one genre over another. eSports and FPS gamers who play titles like League of Legends, Dota 2 and Counter Strike are attracted to the quick action and fast instance times of the genre, whereas MMO gamers appreciate the longer character development time and exploration that are atypical for the MMO genre.

Overall this data underlines the importance of data segmentation into screens and genres as to furnish valuable, actionable gaming intelligence.

[a]listdaily Analysis by Steve Peterson
The more things change, the more they remain the same, as the top of the list is rock solid — but the bottom 15 titles are in ferment. It’s critical to remember that this list is all about time spent playing the game, which is not the same as sales at retail or sales of virtual content. Certainly most of these games are free-to-play, and most have a strong list of virtual goods for sale — but not all. Minecraft is purely based on retail sales with no virtual goods for sale at all, for instance, and World of Warcraft mostly relies on its subscriptions for revenue with very little virtual goods revenue.

When you look at the fact that Minecraft has such amazing numbers of hours played, you have to think Microsoft will be wondering how to turn that to their advantage. Of course, that would have to be done without killing demand for the game. Perhaps hosting Minecraft servers on Microsoft’s Azure, and bring that Wild West of Minecraft third-party companies under control of Microsoft There are many interesting possibilities, but Microsoft will probably take it’s time deciding how to proceed.

Roughly speaking, though, this index of time spent playing games shows you just how well various games are doing, and how well some aren’t. Despite all the early problems, and the move away from subscriptions, EA’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is doing quite well. It seems reasonable to expect that the interest in the game will only increase as the new Star Wars movies get closer and the overall excitement for the IP rises.

Meanwhile, Hearthstone took a bit of a dip, which is surprising given the positive response to the recent Naxxramas expansion. Of course, some of that may be due to more players using iPads to play the game instead of PCs, simply because the form factor is much more convenient. Only Blizzard knows for sure, but it certainly seems that Hearthstone is quite popular still.

An interesting way to look at this is to see the correlation between the top PC titles in terms of play time, and the top games that are being streamed. Exactly where causation enters into this is unclear (does streaming get more people to play the games, or does more people playing mean more streaming ), but this correlation underscores the importance of streaming in today’s PC game market.

About Overwolf
Overwolf is a customizable in-game overlay platform that has been installed in over 8 million PCs. This community of hardcore PC gamers are consistently making their own apps within the Overwolf platform and sharing them. Why Because it’s super simple and it enhances the gameplay experience of anyone’s favorite title in a personal way. From in-game chat systems to customized controls, streaming or video capture, Overwolf allows users to implement their own visions into these games and do so in a timely manner.

About Newzoo
Newzoo is the leading global market research firm focused purely on the games market. The company provides its clients with a mix of primary consumer research, transactional data and financial analysis across all continents, screens and business models. It is also known for actively sharing a variety of insights by means of free trend reports, infographics, blogposts and monthly rankings. New zoo’s clients include Tencent, SEGA, Logitech, Wizards of the Coast, Nvidia, Microsoft, EA, Coca-Cola and Visa/PlaySpan.

Twitch Exec Discusses Mobile eSports Potential

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Before Red Bull crowned Choi “Bomber” Ji Sung the new Battle Grounds Champion, Ben Goldhaber, director of content marketing at Twitch, took part in an eSports panel at Georgetown University. The fact that eSports is on Georgetown’s radar says a lot about the rise of professional gaming. As does the fact that Red Bull continues to steer clear of organized leagues in favor of hosting its own StarCraft II tournaments in front of live audiences like the sold out National Theater in Washington, D.C., host of the Finals.

“Georgetown makes a lot of sense since the focus of the panel was how to break into eSports,” said Goldhaber. “That’s one of the main topics that the audience was most interested in. Everyone on the panel had a cool origin story. A lot of the audience was fans of eSports, but also Georgetown students on the more technical side with a lot of engineers in the building looking to break in. We’ve seen universities do this in the past, but it is indicative that the industry is growing a lot of interest with young audiences.”

Ben Goldhaber

Goldhaber has been a competitive gamer his entire life, playing every role that can be played in eSports from player to commentator to streaming as a broadcaster to event organizer and even running some pro gaming teams. He became so obsessed with the streaming aspect of eSports that he worked on GameCast TV, which aggregated all the different eSports streams back in 2010. He made the right connections and had the streaming skills necessary to join up with Justin.tv in the early days before Twitch.tv was spun off.

“Livestreaming used to cost an arm and a leg just to create a stream,” said Goldhaber. “In the early days of eSports, 10 years ago, the viewership was a fraction of what it is today. Twitch made it so that anyone can contribute to the general eSports space from small organizers to big guys and everyone could make a lot more profit and assume a lot less risk. The current era of eSports is thanks to livestreaming technology. Some amazing games have come out to support eSports, including StarCraft II, Street Fighter IV, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2 and League of Legends. All of these games came out around the same time as livestreaming has exploded.”

Goldhaber has seen a lot of streamers emerge with the launches of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. He said you don’t need an expensive set-up to be a good, entertaining broadcaster. One of the keys is to have a consistent streaming schedule for fans to follow.

“Console eSports is a little behind PC, but it does allow anybody to have a seamless streaming experience with the press of one button,”said Goldhaber. “We’ve seen Call of Duty, FIFA and other popular console games find streamers who may not have been able to stream before. A lot more folks can get exposure, especially for COD and FIFA in eSports, with SDK integration.”

Another growing opportunity for eSports is mobile, which Goldhaber calls “the next frontier for Twitch.” He said mobile streaming is growing along with viewership at an exponential rate as mobile devices get more powerful and the games get more sophisticated.

“ESports for mobile hasn’t really taken off yet, although we’ve seen it with World Cyber Games in the past with Samsung,” said Goldhaber. “We haven’t seen one developer jump in yet, but there are some MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games coming out in the next year that look promising.”

One such game is Vainglory, which was featured on stage during Apple’s iPhone 6 press conference. Goldhaber said Apple could have picked any popular genre to showcase, but there hasn’t been a defined mobile MOBA that really has taken the whole market share. That’s the motivation for them to showcase the MOBA during their press conference.

“We’re seeing growth in every major mobile genre and game on Twitch, not just eSports but Minecraft is exploding, there are huge numbers for speed running, talk shows are growing, every genre is growing,” said Goldhaber. “I would expect to continue to see exponential increases in viewing and streaming in mobile and across all platforms.”

Lately, eSports developers and leagues have been playing a game of one-upmanship to host events in bigger convention centers, NBA arenas and even soccer stadiums across the globe. These events, and the tens of millions of eyeballs they’re attracting, is luring in mainstream brands eager to connect with Millennials.

“It’s not a coincidence that brands like Coke Zero and American Express jumped into LCS with the Galen Center and Staples Center last year,” said Goldhaber. “These big events are things that brand executives need to experience to understand. Every time there’s a major eSports event in a stadium, there are execs in the venue to see how real the fans in the audience are and how much like a real sport it’s becoming. These massive stadium presences are crucial to the legitimacy of eSports. When they see tens of thousands of people screaming in a stadium, the parallels are there.”

Over the last two years eSports has exploded from one or two events in Asia to multiple stadium events in Europe and in the U.S. to over 50,000 people at the LCS Finals this year. Beyond brands, Goldhaber said these events offer a growing exposure to people not endemic to the game industry.

Despite the recent televised X-Games Austin on ESPN and the coverage of The International on ESPN3, Goldhaber doesn’t see television as an important part of eSports’ future.

“We no longer think TV is relevant for eSports,” said Goldhaber. “Getting spots on HBO Real Sports was cool to watch, but TV is old media and the hosts of that show had a problem wrapping their heads around eSports. TV could bring in a new audience, sure, but the sheer quantity of folks is so massive already that Twitch is outpacing a ton of cable networks. We’re peaking higher than huge brands on cable TV. I’d be happy to see more eSports on TV, but it’s not crucial to its growth.”

It’s also worth noting that Twitch is already on TV in the living room through Chromecast and Xbox.

“ESports is in its infancy, especially in context to mainstream sports being on TV,” said Goldhaber. “I honestly think it’s only a matter of time before eSports becomes more mainstream. Being on mainstream TV could help accelerate that process, but it’s not important in the long run. As my generation gets older and have families of our own, the change will naturally happen. This generation that’s growing up with eSports will have kids and they’ll root for TSM in LCS along with their children.”

Although there are plenty of female fans watching eSports, the amount of female pro gamers still pales in comparison to males. But Goldhaber said there are more successful female pro gamers emerging across Counter-Strike, Call of Duty and SF4.

“The main debate is should there be separate leagues for males and females,” said Goldhaber. “I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another. A female-only league could build out the infrastructure for more girls to get into pro gaming at a younger age. As gaming becomes more mainstream, we’re seeing more female gamers as a whole, and more female pro gamers. The ratio of male to female is much better than it was a few years ago.”

It seems like every developer and publisher is working on either new eSports content for their established games or creating brand new games for eSports. With the growing Twitch livestreams, there’s room for more games.

“It all depends on how you define eSports,” said Goldhaber. “In my personal history as a competitive gamer, I never used eSports for the first 10 years. I wasn’t part of the larger eSports scene. I was playing a niche game with a small community, but there were a few dozen teams that played every single week. It wasn’t huge prize money, but it was competitive. As long as a game is balanced, fun and competitive, it will have a competitive scene around it. We’ve seen Super Smash Bros. have a meteoric rise over the last year with that awesome documentary that came out and the last-second entry at EVO. I never saw that coming. I played it growing up, but streams are getting 30,000 to 40,000 unique viewers for regular tournaments and EVO got over 140,000 concurrent viewers. There’s room for tons more games to grow. CSGO has exploded the last six months and no one could have predicted that. I don’t think we’ll get to the point where we’ll see massive Tetris leagues with huge corporate sponsors, but competitive gaming will continue to grow.”

This month will see Riot Games celebrate the end of another LCS with its Championship in South Korea, and early next month Blizzard host the StarCraft II Finals at BlizzCon.