Gamefest 2017
November 22-24, 2017
ironSource HQ Tel Aviv
Bringing together executives from the leading game companies in the world today, Gamefest was two and a half days of engaging sessions covering all aspects of game monetization and marketing, looking at the changes and challenges in the industry and where we see it going in 2018.
There was also plenty of time for our delegates to get to know one another, exchange ideas with other leaders in the space, and have a lot of fun while they’re at it. Attendees saw the best Israel has to offer – from a trip to the Dead Sea, walking around Jerusalem’s historic old city and bustling markets, and visiting the Western Wall, plus visits to Tel Aviv’s hottest places to eat, drink, and party.
Who was there?
Hot topics and trends
Mobile Game Market Trends and Predictions
Our roadmap for 2018 puts the needs of game developers in the centre – with advanced programmatic capabilities at both the network and SSP level, user segmentation, multiple instances, and more.
Tal Shoham, CRO Mobile, ironSource
Product Overview: Roadmap and Vision
We see SDK-based monetization continuing to dominate the industry, since it supports complex ad units and keeps UX front and centre. We also see significant growth in brand demand for game inventory, and we’re working to anticipate industry trends ahead of time.
Nimrod Zuta, VP Product Platform, ironSource
Publishing Games in China
In 2017, a quarter of all global gaming revenues will come from China – .5B compared to the US’ .1B. But succeeding in China as a foreign developer is almost impossible without help from a publishing partner who can provide support on localization, relationships with 200+ Android app stores, combating piracy, and content culturalization.
Jeff Lyndon, President and Co-Founder, iDreamsky
The What, How, and Why of Investing in Games
The key to investing in games is to bet on people instead of on games. You need to understand player mentality and behaviour, and you need enough skill to build a great product, and enough energy to create as many iterations as needed until you see success.
Gigi Levy, Veteran Investor
Inside the Black Box: The Tech Behind the Ad Tech Industry
Beyond the predictive machine learning powering our network algorithm, ironSource also uses collaborative filtering (the same technology used by Netflix and Amazon to power recommendations) to predict which apps users are most likely to install.
Omer Har, Data Science Team Leader, ironSource
What have past attendees said?
“It’s been a real pleasure to listen and learn through the selected topics. A sincere ‘toda’ to the ironSource team for being the best hosts ever and spoiling us with so many presents. Looking forward to meeting you again very soon.”
Audrey Renaux, Ads Monetization Partners Manager, Gameloft
What have past attendees said?
“It was a top quality event and an absolutely unforgettable visit! Special thanks to the ironSource team for putting everything together. Did I forget something? I’m sure I did because there was so much going on. I hope to stay in touch with everyone.”
Bozo Jankovic, Business Development Manager, Nordeus
What have past attendees said?
“A huge thanks from team Playrix to ironSource and everyone who participated! This was a great event and we hope that everyone got as much value out of it as we did.”
Artur Grigorjan, Head of Marketing Growth, Playrix
What have past attendees said?
“It’s so nice and inspiring to meet so many great and talented people! ironSource team, you guys blew my mind. You’re absolutely amazing! THANK YOU for everything. You showed everyone how it’s done. You guys rock.”
Dmitry Degtyarev, COO, Playgendary
What have past attendees said?
“I’ve had a really amazing experience meeting all of you. Great networking and fun. ironSource team, congratulations on this amazing event. Honestly one of the most profitable in my entire life. You rock!”
Guido Farji, Chief Commercial Officer, Etermax
Monetization deep dive
Monetization Best Practices
Developers need greater transparency and more data from their monetization partners around industry benchmarks in order to optimize efficiently. Critical (yet often ignored) metrics include: ER, UR and IPM.
Nadav Ashkenazy, VP Global Partnerships, ironSource
How to Enhance UX and Revenue Using Ads
Ad monetization is a key part of our revenue stream. We initialize the SDK for the ‘ad audience’ only i.e. our non-paying users. The ironSource SSP dashboard allows us to focus closely on this non-paying segment, and work to improve their engagement rate.
Philip Bykovski, Ad Monetization Manager, Nexters
User acquisition
Getting in the Brand Game
Brand budgets dwarf UA budgets – representing a hugely lucrative revenue source for game developers, especially as brands look to top-ranking games and apps as the new premium traffic sources. Developers need to satisfy brand safety and viewability concerns in order to tap that demand, and it’s critical to work with a partner who is plugged into all the measurement tools that brands expect.
Amit Halperin, VP Brand Solutions, ironSource
How to Tap Brand Demand for Game Inventory
A large proportion of Gameloft’s revenue comes from brand advertising. In order to attract brand spend, you must deliver a premium, high-quality experience. This means high viewability, brand safety and transparency, highly-engaging ad formats, and advanced targeting.
Alexander Tan, VP Advertising, Gameloft
User Acquisition and Creative Innovation
ironSource’s in-house Studio – Playworks – develops advanced creatives for dozens of premium app developers. We treat the creative and the ad just like you treat the game – measuring KPIs, retention, CTR etc. This process finds the best creatives with the highest install rates and best quality of users. We are always innovating with new ad formats – from interactive end cards, playable ads, 4D ads and now AR ads.
Dan Greenberg, Chief Design Officer, ironSource
Case Study: Creative Soft Launch
We were the first company to participate in ironSource’s Creative Soft Launch Programme. We tested all the creatives prior to Homescapes’ release, which meant that when we fully launched the game, we had only our best-performing creatives running. Our IPM grew by 100% thanks to this optimization and the effect on our eCPM allowed us to unlock some premium UA sources that we weren’t able to before.
Artur Grigorjan, Head of Marketing Growth, Playrix
Ad Fraud and its Effect on Ad Monetization and UA
Fraud is a significant part of our industry and it affects both ad monetization and UA. By monitoring it correctly – fraudulent activity always leaves a ‘footprint’ – you can and should fight to curb it. From the UA perspective, this approach has enormous value, improving both your organic installs and the ability to successfully buy users from legitimate partners. On the monetization front, we will only be able to mitigate the effects of fraud if we fight it together as an industry, and then actually see the eCPMs we deserve.
Yevgeny Peres, VP Growth, ironSource
