{"id":3798,"date":"2012-06-25T12:24:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T12:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=3798"},"modified":"2012-06-25T12:24:22","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T12:24:22","slug":"wrap-up-of-the-webgame-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2012\/06\/wrap-up-of-the-webgame-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrap-up of the Webgame Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nAs mentioned a couple weeks back<\/a>, the Rude Baguette had the distinct pleasure of being selected as a media partner for the third instalment of the annual Webgame Conference.\u00a0\u00a0 Olivier Issaly, co-founder of the online games group Owlient<\/a> (now a part of Ubisoft), had the wisdom to start the conference a few years back and it has grown substantially since. \u00a0SNJV<\/a>\u00a0has now assumed the organisation and execution of the conference. \u00a0This year they really put on a slick, well-organised, must-attend tech event. \u00a0The conference was held in the fabulous Gait\u00e9 Lyrique and had all the bells and whistles that one would expect from a higher-profile tech conference (even simultaneous translation!). \u00a0In addition, the conference was extremely well attended and increasingly international, with 30% of its 350 attendees coming from outside of France. \u00a0I particularly enjoyed the speakers, who were from diverse parts of the industry. \u00a0For me, some of the highlights were:
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\n– Julien Codorniou, European Head of Gaming Partnerships for Facebook: \u00a0 As tweeted at the conference, when Facebook talks people listen…you could hear a pindrop in the room during his presentation. \u00a0 However, the thing that made his talk so interesting was that it was useful. \u00a0He did a terrific job of explaining why developers should be developing on Facebook’s Open Graph<\/a> and why it’s imperative for them to be developing on mobile. \u00a0I understand from speaking with developers that Facebook has not always been the easiest to work with. \u00a0However, I think their current approach as conveyed by Julien will go a long way in changing that perception. \u00a0A couple quotes from Julien that were particularly memorable: \u00a0(directed at game developers) “At Facebook we will never compete with you by building games or investing in game companies”<\/em> and “If you’re not developing on Open Graph and mobile you’re not a real Facebook game developer”<\/em>
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\n– Damion Schubert, Lead Systems Designer at Bioware<\/a>: \u00a0Damion came all the way from Austin, TX to speak at the conference. \u00a0As his expertise is primarily on the game development side of things, he focused on key advice for the development process. \u00a0The overarching theme of his talk was that we often think of hardcore gamers (with a high proportion of ‘whales’) and casual gamers as distinct groups, when, in fact, there’s a lot of ‘whales’ in casual. \u00a0Damion’s main point was that “Almost everyone is hardcore towards something” <\/em>and that for all types of games there is a spectrum of engagement that gamers process through. \u00a0As a result, developers need to understand this spectrum for their games and their users and determine how to develop in such a way where they can affect this spectrum (e.g. how to extend the period a gamer is ‘devoted’ to a game or re-engage a gamer whose commitment to a game has waned).
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\n– Benedikt Grindel,\u00a0Director of Live Operation at Ubisoft Blue Byte: \u00a0Benedikt presented a solid case example of the challenges faced by console or PC game companies as they transition to online games. \u00a0What he did a really good job of conveying was that game development is not necessarily the toughest challenge. He stressed that the lack of a flexible organisational structure, resources, and skills required to transition from off-line to on-line can also pose considerable challenges. \u00a0Another fantastic thing that Benedikt did was do his presentation in Prezi<\/a>. \u00a0As someone who has WAY more powerpoint experience than I care to admit, I really found that a refreshing change.
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\n– Debates around business models: \u00a0At the moment, the hot business model in online and mobile games is freemium, so free-to-play but charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or virtual goods.\u00a0 It was really interesting to see throughout the day the speakers not only debate this model, but discuss the pluses and minuses of other models as well such as banner ads, video ads, in-game branding\/sponsorship, and subscription. \u00a0Although freemium looks at the moment to be the winning model, it’s important in an industry that’s changing so fast to continue to challenge the status quo and debate alternatives.
\nSo the conference was obviously really solid this year. \u00a0What are a few things they could change?
\n– Firstly, I think that it would be great if there was more visibility of smaller, entrepreneurial game studios. \u00a0There were some key participants at the conference that small developers need to engage with such as VCs, larger game studios, and game platform groups. \u00a0It would be really valuable for all parties if there was some type of forum (beyond networking) that would enable these groups to connect. \u00a0To achieve this, perhaps they could incorporate a start-up competition\/pitch session, trade-show, and\/or smaller break-out sessions focused on topics such as funding, exit strategies, internationalisation, etc.
\n– In addition, the conference was only one day (in addition to the party the night prior). I think it could easily be two. \u00a0There were so many topics that would have been great to have had more debate around – mobile gaming, market differences, future of gaming\/trends, how to get your game published, how to increase a game’s visibility, etc. \u00a0Perhaps smaller breakout sessions around various topics could be a good way to do this. \u00a0This would also give the opportunity to make the conference even more interactive.
\nSo, bravo to SNJV for putting-on a great event that I also should mention is very good value for money (only 100\u20ac if register early… a real deal)! \u00a0It’s clear that the conference is rapidly gaining in visibility and notoriety. \u00a0We’re looking forward to attending next year and seeing how things will continue to evolve!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As mentioned a couple weeks back, the Rude Baguette had the distinct pleasure of being selected as a media partner for the third instalment of the annual Webgame Conference.\u00a0\u00a0 Olivier Issaly, co-founder of the online games group Owlient (now a part of Ubisoft), had the wisdom to start the conference a few years back and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":64786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10564],"tags":[140,3533,3562],"class_list":["post-3798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech-2","tag-facebook","tag-snjv","tag-webgame-conference"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}