World giant Google held an exclusive event in İstanbul for Google Partners titled “Exclusive Google Event – Mobile Gaming”. At the event, there were numerous valuable contributors and speakers from different departments and subsidiaries of Google. Founder and Managing Director of Mobidictum, Batuhan Avucan, was the sole speaker outside of Google and shared his insights about the mobile game industry and the gaming ecosystem. Fatma Güngör Okutan, Gizem Toprak, Sinem Yıldız, Barış Renda, and Eren Gökgür also gave speeches at the event.
The event started with Fatma Güngör Okutan’s presentation, “DEI and Global Changes in the Gaming Market”. Reinforced by enlightening data and statistics, her presentation covered the changes in the app industry. According to some survey data she presented, 63% of surveyed consumers are more thoughtful about spending, and 80% were concerned about their privacy. Then she touched on the growth rate and pace of various app categories.
During her speech, she shared insights and advice about solid growth strategies under the world’s changing circumstances. She then discussed the importance of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in gaming. She also shared various statistics about the diversity of gamers and what they like. After discussing the representations of genders, people with disabilities, and people from different ethnicities and ages, she moved on to the reinforcement of gender stereotypes. She then pointed out ways to handle these challenges in game companies.
Her presentation was followed by Batuhan Avucan’s, “Gaming Ecosystem – Mobile Game Market in Türkiye”. Starting with a glance at the game industry, he covered the rise and recession in the industry. He mentioned his evaluations about achieving success for the game companies.
His advice focused on the talents and capabilities of the employees and providing a talent-cultivating environment. After suggesting ways to access new skills, developing talents and corporate culture, and sharing knowledge and information, he talked about ways to promote success.
Gizem Toprak from Google Ads gave a presentation titled “More Users with the Latest Innovations”. Toprak mentioned the challenges of managing a successful app business before suggesting ways to overcome them through Google App Campaigns. Gathering under three categories, reach, relevance and simplicity, her answer to those challenges was summarized under 7 Google products that can reach one billion users.
She then explained the various capabilities of these products that could assist app business owners with target demographics and reach users at the right time. She then gave clues about app campaign setup and app tracking solutions. She also shared some statistics about various successful campaigns before going on to the formula of success with ad groups.
App Analytics & Growth Consultant from Firebase, Barış Renda’s presentation “Personalize the User Experience and Revenue Strategies”. He started by defining 1P Data, the data obtained directly from users, their in-app behavior and statistics, and off-app information. He then explained how Google Analytics became a data hub for 1P data.
Renda then covered how the obtained data could be used to create revenue and how Google enables and assists clients in utilizing the data. The rest of his presentation focused on Google Analytics 4, Firebase, their capabilities, and how they can be used to take action on 1P data.
Mobile Apps Consultant Eren Gökgür from Online Partnerships Group focused on the UX aspect of the app design. His perspective put the user experience at the center of the business strategy, claiming that revenue will follow a good UX design. After sharing various market research and data, he defined the critical points of a successful user experience. His vision stipulated a successful collaboration between Game Designers, product managers, developers, marketing and finance teams, and players.
“2022 was a challenging year for mobile gaming. We witnessed that mobile gaming is not recession-proof in light of macroeconomic factors. Industry reacted to the normalization of the covid bump with unfortunate layoffs, suspending new game launches, shutting existing games, cutting budgets, and so on. Above all, I am optimistically excited to look ahead to the future and utterly comfortable that studios will come up with creative solutions to work efficiently with a key focus on profitability. I want to close off with an optimistic note. I believe gaming will continue to be the most accessible form of entertainment for the planet. So stay focused, maybe a bit tighter on your craft, and you will find success.”
He revealed the essential components of the UX as maximizing fun, leveraging technology, and securing revenue. He then touched on in-app personalization to funnel the players and broke down the steps of the user journey, onboarding, engagement, and retention into smaller, more specific goals. He ended his speech after revealing the common missouts of the UX design process.
