Making a welcome return for 2021, the first PocketGamer.biz MasterClass sessions of the year are coming up in just a couple of weeks.
These deep-dive workshop sessions take an in-depth look at practical games design topics. The finest industry experts bring you professional, half-day activities featuring tutorials, lectures and breakout groups, all accessible from the comfort of your home office.
There are five workshops taking place on March 9-11 where you can expect to explore a range of key games design topics, from game design to monetisation and investment.
Today, we’d like to introduce Max Samorukov, Chief Product Officer at Crazy Panda, and Founder/CEO at AppMagic, who will lead a session titled Understanding the Market Through External Data and Tools on Tuesday March 9th from 10:00-13:00 (UK time).
Formerly a programmer, Max Samorukov has been working in the games industry for 12 years. Currently he is a Chief Products Officer at Crazy Panda, and Founder/CEO at AppMagic. Max specializes in product strategies, analytics and marketing.
What does your role entail?
Over the years, I have been deeply involved in a lot of verticals such as analytics, marketing and product development.
Tell us a bit about your company
I realised that the industry was lacking an affordable and quality tool for mobile app market research and that’s how AppMagic started. AppMagic is an online service with lots of features which allow you to accomplish sophisticated mobile market research tests in seconds.
What topic will you be covering in your MasterClass?
We will discuss and cover topics such as understanding the market segment of interest, planning your marketing strategy, running CPI tests, pitfalls to be avoided, benchmarking with successful competitors, monetisation, running appropriate ROI tests and much more.
In this Masterclass, my aim is to keep the content easy to understand and as informative as possible, focusing on the fundamentals of understanding the market through external data and tools.
Who is this MasterClass for?
This MasterClass is for any level of seniority from the disciplines of Development, Design, Product, Live Ops Business Intelligence, Production etc. This workshop is designed to help grow awareness of the tools and types of data that can enhance the entire game-making and monetisation process, from refining the initial concept to refining your marketing at launch and beyond and ultimately scaling the users and revenues from your game.
Why is it important for your games industry peers to gain a deeper understanding of your chosen topic?
Many developers don’t do any market research before development begins, and as a result they aren’t aware of the size of the market or have an understanding of the competition as well as how to prepare their game for global launch and scalability. So you end up with a graveyard full of quality games, which were doomed from the beginning, in terms of commercial success.
There are lots of tools designed to help mobile developers with market research, so many that it can be hard for a non-specialist to figure out what the differences are between them, what the focus is and why it is important to make use of market research before development begins in the first place. These are just some of the questions we will address during the Masterclass.
Tell us a little bit about the key takeaways people can expect from the session
We will go through all stages of the mobile game development process and discuss how to minimise risk, maximise future yield and stay cost efficient whilst taking a look at how to pick the best tools and methods to help you achieve your goals. Some of the key takeaways will include:
Working on the idea of your future game
- Define what genres you are good at
- Plan the costs and terms of the development, consider reuse of code and art
- Tools for mobile app market research, to understanding the size and dynamics of the target market
Checking hypothesizes
- Using Advertising Intel tools: how it works, what to look for.
- How to use Prototypes and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to understand what works.
- Benchmarking against creatives of your successful competitors
Scaling
- How to gauge Return on Investment (exploring limited geos, burnrate, creatives burnout-pace. etc)
- Funding UA Testing – UA Loans vs working with a publisher
- Understanding Organic growth (ASO optimization, Review & Sentiment Analysis, creatives)
- Monitoring competitors, market factors and Live Ops
Book today!
If you like the sound of Samorukov’s MasterClass, be sure to book your place now – tickets are limited so purchase your ticket today to avoid disappointment!
Individual multi-buy discount: book for three and get fourth free.
Corporate discount: a group of six or more from one company can get 30% off if booked together.
To take advantage of multi-buy or group discounts, please email sally.kevan@steelmedia.co.uk to discuss your bespoke package.
