Image credit: gdconf.com
We rattled through the entire GDC session schedule to pick out the 12 most interesting talks for mobilegamer.biz readers.
There’s a bit of everything here: game design trends, ad creative and UA campaigns, blockchain, NFT and play-to-earn games, pitching to publishers, cracking the China market and more. Enjoy!
Monday
The year in free-to-play mobile games: 2022 edition
Who: Steve Meretzky (Design Consultant), Dave Rohrl (Founder & CEO, Visible Entertainment)
Where: Location: Room 2010, West Hall
When: 9:30-10:30am
An overview to start your week, with insights into merge games, international trends, games in soft launch plus some bold predictions.
Capturing the merge games market at hyper speed
Who: Amy Choi (Director of product, Lion Studios)
Where: Room 2010, West Hall
When: 2:10-2:40pm
Choi will outline how the team at Lion identified the opportunity within merge games and moved into rapid prototyping, iteration and testing to get games onto the market.
The F2P designers notebook
Who: Kenny Dinkin (Senior creative director & head of narrative design and story development, King), Toiya Kristen Finley (Game & narrative designer, Schnoodle Media, LLC), Christopher Foster (Game director, Hidden Door), Michelle Woods (Lead game designer, Haiku Games)
Where: Room 3016, West Hall
When: 5:30-6:30pm
Game design veterans share insights about narrative design, machine learning and storytelling plus design dos and don’ts.
Tuesday
From identity to innovation: the keys to creation on Roblox
Who: Matthew Curtis (Vice president of developer relations, Roblox), Bjorn Book-Larsson (Vice president of product & avatar, Roblox) Janzen Madsen (Creative director, Splitting Point Studios), Matthew Hufton (Technical director, Splitting Point Studios), Mary Rukavina (Creative director, Sonar Studios)
Where: Room 3005, West Hall
Time: 9:30-10:30am
This session intends to help folks build a business in Roblox, with tips from successful developers and contributions from the Roblox team and its community.
Don’t pass on battle pass: best practices for F2P design
Who: David Fox (CEO, Double Coconut)
Where: Room 2010, West Hall
When: 1:20-1:50pm
Fox will look at the most successful battle pass designs on the market and offer tips for designing a compelling featureset for a variety of genres.
Building lifetime value through quality ad placements
Who: Noelia López Molina (Senior advertising monetization manager, Tilting Point Media)
Where: Room 2010, West Hall
Time: 2:10-2:40pm
Boost your ad revenues with these best practices.
Blockchain, NFTS, play-to-earn…is it real or a farce?
Who: Seth Sivak (CEO, Proletariat), Lars Doucet (Co-founder, Level Up Labs), Holly Liu (Partner & co-founder, PKO Investments & Kabam), Dave Ranyard (CEO, Dream Reality Interactive), Katrina Wolfe (Product director, Laguna Games)
Where: Room 2006, West Hall
Time: 5:30-6:30pm
A panel discussion on blockchain and crypto games.
Wednesday
Expanding an IP: Clash of Clans universe case study
Who: John Cipriani (Artist, Supercell)
Where: Room 2006, West Hall
When: 5:00-5:30pm
How the Clash IP has evolved from Clash of Clans through to Clash Royale and into soft launch games Clash Quest and Clash Mini.
Thursday – almost there, you can do this
Challenging Supercell’s sacred cows: the importance of evolving culture as you grow
Who: Lesley Mansford (Co-chief people officer, Supercell)
Where: Room 2010, West Hall
When: 2:00-2:30pm
Mansford will talk through Supercell’s evolving working culture with the addition of new studios in Shanghai and now North America.
Cooking Diary: deep dive into the ugly advertising creatives
Who: Olga Koryakina (Creative producer & head of creative production, MYTONA)
Where: Room 2016, West Hall
When: 3:00-3:30pm
Koryakina explains how to produce successful UA ads in a world of misleading creatives and massive budgets.
Friday – endgame
Don’t make my job easy: effectively pitching to publishers
Who: August Brown (Senior producer, Armor Games Studios)
Where: Room 2001, West Hall
Time: 11:30-12:00pm
Brown explains how publishers evaluate pitches and how devs can adjust theirs to get a publishing offer.
China’s gaming market: opportunities and challenges
Who: Chenyu Cui (Senior analyst, Omdia)
Where: Room 2016, West Hall
When: 3:00-3:30pm
Get a better understanding of Chinese markets and insight into Tencent, NetEase and Bytedance’s approach for PC, console and mobile.
