Foreword
While the GDC 2017 talks are already availvable in the GDC Vault website, it`s important not to forget and sometimes to revise what was said in the previous years, particularly, GDC 2015.
The overview contains mainly presentations that somehow are related, but not limited, to monetization - directly or indirectly, but which covers information that may be very helpful to know. Some of the presentations are highly recommended to watch not only to GDs and BPMs, but also to game producers. Most of the presentations are free to access, including both slides and video, but several of them have limited access and only slides to this presentations are available for free. But even in this case, they may contain some important information about the industry or particular games, so it worth to check them.
The text in the Limited Access section is description taken from the GDC vault website, as, unfortunately, I don`t have access to it, but selected several ones that may be interesting including their slides, while the one that is under the “Comment” Free access section is my own mini-review of the presentation to let you some quick understanding what awaits you in particular talk from a third party POV.
List of presentations
Free access
1. The Year in F2P Games, Part One: Social/Mobile
2. The Year in F2P Games, Part Two: Beyond Social/Mobile
3. Your Freemium Mobile App is Leaving Money on the Table. Here's What You Can Do About It. (Presented by Tapjoy)
4. Social Impact in Design and Acquisition
5. Power-ups, Super Suits, and Epic Raids: Deconstructing the Game Experience (Presented by Limelight Networks)
6. Player Centric Live Ops Monetization (Presented by Fuse Powered Inc)
7. Meaningful Pay: Monetizing F2P Without "The Pinch"
8. In It for the Long Hall: How Wooga Boosts Long-Term Retention
9. Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games
10. Games-as-a-Service: Rebooting a 4-Year-Old Game to the Top Charts
11. Epic Fail Microtalks: Four Mobile Games, Four Flops and Tons of Lessons Learned
12. Crossy Road: A Whale of a Time
13. Clash of Clans: Designing Games That People Will Play For Years
14. 3 Monetization Metrics to Track Every Single Day (Presented by Chartboost)
15. 9 Mobile Game Monetization Questions to Gain a Competitive Edge (And the Answers Too!) (Presented by Chartboost)
16. Smart Strategies to Acquire, Monetize and Retain Gamers (Presented by Google)
17. Overcoming Analysis Paralysis: Experimenting with Bears vs. Art
18. More Science Behind Shaping Player Behavior in Online Games
19. Metagame Balance
20. Why Did Players Buy That? The Importance of Anticipated Need Satisfaction
21. Thinking About People: Designing Games for Social Simulation
22. Spellbound: Asking Questions About Habit Forming Game Design
Limited access
1. Awesome Video Game Data (2015)
2. F2P and Cross-Platform: How Top Eleven Became the World's Most Played Sports Game
3. Flutter Postmortem: Cultivating a Niche for F2P Success
4. Five Things You Can Do Today to Be a Bit More Agile
5. Don't Be Afraid of Incentivized Ads!
6. Creating Successful Game Marketing Campaigns from Your Analytics
7. Harnessing the Power of Player-Generated Content on Mobile
8. LiveOps: A Process in the Making
9. World of Tanks Blitz Postmortem: Building a AAA MMO for Mobile Devices
10. Why They Buy: Gamers in the World of Perpetual Sales
11. Perfecting the Recipe for Mobile Success: Restaurant Story 2 Postmortem
FREE ACCESS
The Year in F2P Games, Part One: Social/Mobile
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022330/The-Year-in-F2P-Games
Comment: The talk covers some information about the top grossing apps, how the leaders chart changes YOY, what are further possible directions and what to wait in 2016 in the F2P mobile market. While it's not cover topic of monetization at all, it give some overview of match-3, social casino and card collecting games - design solutions that are being used in several projects, evolution path, what works good and what better not to use in new games. The talk may be interested if you don't have any deep knowledge of mentioned genres.
The Year in F2P Games, Part Two: Beyond Social/Mobile
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022332/The-Year-in-F2P-Games
Comment: Unlike the Part One, Part Two is more focused on monetization aspect of F2P games. The presentation includes mobile, console and PC games overview, mainly such whales like League of Legends, HearthStone, Crossy Road and some others. It does not dive deeply in monetization design techniques, but still provides some interesting data about “microgames” like Flappy Bird and Crossy Road. But like the first presentation it may be interesting mainly to ones who do not have deep knowledge in the field.
Your Freemium Mobile App is Leaving Money on the Table. Here's What You Can Do About It. (Presented by Tapjoy)
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022380/Your-Freemium-Mobile-App-is
Comment: Highly marketing-driven talk, but nevertheless it contains presentation of CRM system that seems very suitable and convenient to manage all Live Ops that are related to IAP and item sales strategy. It also provides several numbers (day and number of IAP purchases and their relation to LTV of a user) that sounds intriguing and worth to be at least checked in games.
Social Impact in Design and Acquisition
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022255/Social-Impact-in-Design-and
Comment: Very interesting and recommended presentations about why social elements in games matter and how users may influence other user to pay.
Power-ups, Super Suits, and Epic Raids: Deconstructing the Game Experience (Presented by Limelight Networks)
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022213/Power-ups-Super-Suits-and
Comment: The presentation does not talk about F2P games, more about games in general and what game experience may make a game successful. No deep insights, but nice to watch as some decisions and solutions that speaker talks about may be applicable in mobile games as well.
Player Centric Live Ops Monetization (Presented by Fuse Powered Inc)
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022202/Player-Centric-Live-Ops-Monetization
Comment: Nice presentation that builds solid framework of BPM Live Ops ways to sell content. Highly recommend to watch to beginners in the field, not only to the beginner BPMs but designers as well. The talk covers both IAP and advertising solutions (like incentivized videos) and ways they can be placed in the game. It does not cover any deep and sophisticated solutions, but nevertheless gives some very trustworthy basis on which principles one may build its monetization strategy.
Meaningful Pay: Monetizing F2P Without "The Pinch"
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022151/Meaningful-Pay-Monetizing-F2P-Without
Comment: Psychology-backed presentation which describes ways to built F2P monetization without abusing user experience by “squeezing” from them the very last dollars, but rather enhancing this experience. It's recommended to watch to everyone who deals with monetization, to designers - to try to find ways to create ways to monetize a game in more soft and player-centric ways, and to BPMs to try to design more suitable to users` needs offers.
In It for the Long Hall: How Wooga Boosts Long-Term Retention
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022070/In-It-for-the-Long
Comment: Very nice presentation from Wooga, built around Long Term retention as main revenue-generating success factor. It's divided into two parts - the first one about game design features that are crucial to built long-lasting game involvement from a player side, the second one - is about narrative writing challenges and how they may be resolved. Almost nothing is being said about monetization, except of several numbers regarding different user cohorts spending behavior (influence of social pressure). Recommended to be watched by the beginners in game design and monetization fields.
Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022065/Idle-Games-The-Mechanics-and
Comment: Deconstruction of “idle games” as a genre, from a company that actually is one of the pioneers in it - Kongregate. The presentation covers topics from game design to monetization. Must see to everyone who is interested in idle games, and recommended to watch to ones who would like to use some idle games mechanics in other genres (actually, some solutions indeed may be and should be used).
Games-as-a-Service: Rebooting a 4-Year-Old Game to the Top Charts
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022006/Games-as-a-Service-Rebooting
Comment: Is it possible to revive a 4-year old game? According to this presentation - yes. It almost does not cover design and monetization, just some small remarks, and thus designers and BPMs may not be very interested to watch it. Maybe producers, GMs and other decision-makers may try to use some tips from the presentation in their projects, but nothing deep and sophisticated solutions were presented.
Epic Fail Microtalks: Four Mobile Games, Four Flops and Tons of Lessons Learned
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021960/Epic-Fail-Microtalks-Four-Mobile
Comment: A story how decisions make lead to a game failure. Almost no mentions about design and monetization, may be interesting more to a decision-makers.
Crossy Road: A Whale of a Time
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021897/Crossy-Road-A-Whale-of
Comment: Success story of a Crossy Road. The presentation reveals numbers and way that was passed to create such phenomenon. Though presentation does not reveal nothing extraordinary (except real revenue numbers of the game) it may be a clear example that there is a room for innovative decisions on the market. The presentation may be interested to anyone who involved in video games creation as some motivation video, but it's not a manual to “create-the-next-hit”.
Clash of Clans: Designing Games That People Will Play For Years
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021858/Clash-of-Clans-Designing-Games
Comment:
