Slides from Toby Dawson's talk at November 2013's London Games Conference.
Toby Dawson, Media, Mobile & Platforms, Head of New Business Development, delivers a single snapshot of all the ways the Google ecosystem touches the games market and the opportunities it presents for the games industry
8. The Gaming Generation Shift
1980
1990
2000
2010
Google confidential and proprietary
8
9. In 1980 the gaming audience was <10% of the population
100+95-99
90-94
Female
Male
85-89
80-84
75-79
70-74
65-69
60-64
55-59
50-54
45-49
40-44
35-39
30-34
25-29
20-24
15-19
10-14
5-9
0-4
Google confidential and proprietary
9
10. But Everyone Is All Grown Up Now
100+95-99
90-94
85-89
80-84
75-79
70-74
65-69
60-64
55-59
50-54
45-49
40-44
35-39
30-34
25-29
20-24
15-19
10-14
5-9
0-4
Google confidential and proprietary
10
17. More Than a Game
Infrastructure
Metrics
Backend
Engagement
LTV
K-factor
MAU
Your
Game
Distribution
Monetisation
Platforms
Stores
Digital
Marketing
Sales
IAP
DLC
Ads
Google confidential and proprietary
17
18. Google Services Help You Focus
Your
Game
Infrastructure
Metrics
Distribution
Monetisation
Google confidential and proprietary
18
35. Innovation through Control: Ad Exchange
100%
of AdSense demand
Transparency
of pricing and control
Millions
of advertisers across
all buyer segments
Inclusive
Desktop, Mobile,
Video
…and access to Google’s unique demand
Google confidential and proprietary
35
36. Innovation through Control: Ad Exchange
“Publishers must utilise video players set up for click-to-play
and / or launch in video-specific watch pages”
Video
Games
Q3 2013
Google confidential and proprietary
36
37. Games on Ad Exchange
Transparency
Control
TrueView
Google confidential and proprietary
37
Notas del editor
Good morning, and thanks for joining us here at Google’s Developer Day here in Cologne. We’re very excited to be able to bring you a full programme of presentations and Q&A from experts across Google today, and hope that there will be something on the agenda for everyone. My name’s Ross, and I’m here to introduce the day and the agenda, and I have a couple of key topics I’d like to cover.Firstly, I wanted to share with you all a little bit of the reasoning behind why we at Google are so excited about gaming. We see a lot of digital trends come and go at Google, but the shift in the games market over the last few years has been genuinely amazing, and spells opportunity for you all as developers. Hopefully I can illustrate what this opportunity looks like, and why it’s only just beginning.Secondly, I’ll discuss what we can do to help. At Google we are a technology company at heart, committed to helping developers build and distribute the best games they can, and to enabling developers to entertain and monetise their users. I’ll talk a little about what we can do to help there, and also about some new developments we have for you.
So. Here’s one reason to be excited. The gaming market is undergoing some very sizeable growth, and these projections taken from our friends at Newzoo underline the scale of the opportunity. From $66B to $86B is +30% in 4 years, which is a great growth rate in any business. However, when you look at where the growth is coming from, you can see huge opportunity in the mobile space, with tablet and smartphone gaming being the real catalysts over the coming years – and I’ll talk more about that platform shift later.First, though, there is one more statistic I really think sets the stage nicely for why we should all be excited.
http://www.mpaa.org/resources/3037b7a4-58a2-4109-8012-58fca3abdf1b.pdfAccording the MPAA, the global cinema industry is worth $35B. Compare this to where we as an industry are, and we look in great shape. Compare this to where we will be, and it becomes clear that you all in this room are helping build what is one of the largest mass market consumer media in the world. The one thing I want everyone to leave here aware of is precisely the value of what you have all built.So how has this come about? Well, we see this opportunity as the result of three key shifts in the landscape in recent years.
There have been real movements in each of platform, audience, and business model. Let’s start with Platform.
If you look back the sales of gaming devices over time, it’s been an encouragingly positive trend. However, the real shift has been since we redefined what a gaming device was with smartphones. Following the emergence of mobile devices as gaming devices, the rapid adoption of those smartphones as prices have fallen and technology has improved has been incredible. When extended past 2009, this is a clearly seismic shift in the number of gaming devices available in the market, driving a massive upside and democratisation of games overall. All of a sudden, there were many, many more ways to play, and many more times in the day where you could.
So this shift in availability
So. We’ve covered the ‘how’. Let’s move on and think about the ‘who’. Who plays games? Well, let’s start with a bit of history. And I apologies if anyone disagrees with my selections of games here – let’s argue afterwards, these are all personal choices!In the 1980s, we were just getting started. If you were to pick an iconic game, iconic brand – Pacman is literally an icon. 94% of Americans recognise him. And you played Pacman on something tall, boxy, and basic.Come the 1990s, things were more sophisticated. I don’t want to start any arguments, but to me that age means the SNES, and Street Fighter. Both have endured amazingly.And then things stepped up another gear. The 2000s belonged to the PS2 in my eyes, with huge sales and huge leaps in what was possible. The open world approach of Grand Theft Auto was the real eye-opener I remember from then, pushing games into a much more non-linear and engaging world.And recently, we’ve gone through the shift I just mentioned. Tablet and smartphone gaming exploded, led by a new set of iconic brands.So what does this evolution mean?
Luckily for us all, it means growth. This is how it was when gaming first emerged, if we’re honest – a young generation, mostly male, saving all their quarters for the arcade. But they have grown up now, and new generations have taken their place. I apologise for the next slide; try not to think about where you are on it…
This is where we all are now. The Pacman generation are in their 40s. The Street Fighters, 30 plus. The boy racers of Grand Theft Auto are in their 20s. And the new generation is everyone else beneath them.So the changes we have seen have had two key consequences. One is that the gender split has really softened; recent research showed that in the UK, for example, really engaged gamers playing every day actually skewed to a majority female. This accounts for the filling in across both sides of our pyramid. And then the second is that the people who started playing games when they were kids aren’t kids any more. They are parents. They are celebrities. They are CEOs, directors, managers, parents – and firmly economically active. This makes your audience incredibly valuable and is part of the reason behind the rise of free to play – they have the money for In App Purchases, and they are desirable for advertisers.Again. Think of the value you’ve built here.
So how do you extract that value? Well, that’s changed too.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmvgetcloser/4863493702/sizes/o/in/photolist-8pLFeG-8pLFgs-bmWxnp-7C6uoT-9MynHC-eLw9iv-aafEq9-aj1Y1m-aafEqs-9swBtJ-cT3ke9-9Vastn-ffGcyx-dBpbhV-fk52Ea-8JUbh8-djqhcX-fhkd6w-cwaFm1-bboeWB-98TrZM-bLLFh8-aafErY-aafEmy-aacQR6-aafEno-aacQQD/You don’t extract it the same way you did. You used to package a shiny cartridge, disc, or even tape in a shiny box, and someone would buy it. Transaction over.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sungame31/9360706154/sizes/o/in/photolist-fgb4Pq-ffWm4K-eagga6-eagg4t-eamVpb-eagg6i-eamVCC-eagfYk-eagfWp-eamVA3-eagfX8-eamVuW-eamVtE-eamVLS-eagg7D-eagfZD-eamVF5-eagfSz-eagfZv-eagg3P-eamVF7-eamVx5-eagfMp-eamVK5-eamVv5-eamVyA-eagg58-eagfRp-eagg7i-eagfUH-eamVu9-eagg8i-eagg3X-eamVqf-eagfPZ-fgkXQp-ffVmfz-dJhAHn-ejFGqE-eamVGq-eamVDL-eamVxC-eamVEJ-eamVAN-eagfUt-eagfTT-eagg8Z-eagfQt-eagfZM-eamVzU-eagg78/Now you don’t. People find, discover, and purchase games when and where they want, and most of the time on mobile they don’t even purchase them. They’re free. There’s no store shelves. No distribution network. Just an icon – iTunes, Play, Steam, PSN, XBLA… - behind which thousands upon thousands of games are waiting. It’s a world apart.
And with change comes opportunity. These new devices, new platforms, and new audiences have changed a lot.The barriers to making games have come down. You can build, prototype, and release a game in next to no time nowadays, and it doesn’t take a massive team to build something brilliant.With this came a great levelling of the playing field. We’ve seen the established players fighting out with newcomers; we’ve seen new giants emerge, and we will see many more.And the number of people you could reach, as previously discussed, is much higher. So all this is brilliant news, right?
Well, yes and no. I would argue that things have got much more…
… complicated. There are a lot of challenges you as game developers now face that you didn’t have before.
The game is still key. Always will be. You have to make great games, and that’s what you’re great at. But on top of that, you have a lot more to consider. How do I build a back end which scales with my players? How do I understand how my players are using my games? Where and how do I sell my games? Do I even sell them, or do I use one of the new business models which have emerged? All of a sudden there’s a lot going on if you really want to make the most of the opportunity you have in front of you.So we at Google looked at this, and we realised we could probably help. Because some of these things we do really well.
In fact, we do all of these things apart from one really well. One of these things is very much yours. And we want to help you focus on that by providing solutions to the other challenges you face. So let me share with you our view on how we can help.
These are the challenges we want to help with. We want to help you empower your game, to scale as much as you need it to. We want to give you a platform to get your game to as many users as possible. We want to help you prioritise acquisition of the best users. We want to help you delight those users, and to track how much you delight them. And we want to help you understand how to receive the value you deserve from those users.
How? Like this.And in case you’re not familiar with all these, let me give you a tour.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day. 2trillion stat from this presoAnalytics – total event - http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/google-analytics-officially-at-10m/Chrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day. 2trillion stat from this presoAnalytics – total event - http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/google-analytics-officially-at-10m/Chrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to date - http://www.androidauthority.com/google-1-5-million-android-devices-activated-day-245790/Play: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to date - http://www.androidauthority.com/google-1-5-million-android-devices-activated-day-245790/Play: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.htmlPlay games number – something from other preso - Doubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.htmlPlay games number – something from other preso - http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-index-market-q1-2013/Doubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
App eninge – stat from Jens, eg. 400 years of computing every day.Analytics – total eventChrome market share# Android devices shipped to datePlay: Total app downloads to dateAdmob – largest mobile ad network- RossAdsense – ask marketingYT – minutes of gaming content consumed, as part of total . Gaming is the largest content category on YT. Play games number – something from other presoDoubleclick – one stack solution. Check with Sarah.Google Wallet stat.
All in all, we have a really compelling suite. And, we are adding new tools all the time – and I’m very pleased to be able to announce some new ones today, from my side of the business, monetisation.Susan Wojicki, our VP of product spoke earlier this year at the IAB about her view of ‘Generation C’ – the connected generation we all live in. And she focused on five key concepts:
Many of you will have seen the skippable video ad format we use on YouTube. Known as TrueView, it provides users the choice of whether to see all the ad or not. And it’s great for the whole advertising process.Customers get the ability to choose if they want to see an ad. We only charge when someone views an ad – so that person has chosen to engage, and therefore is exactly the person they want to reach. And bad ads don’t work. People don’t see them. So you better make a good, engaging, entertaining ad. It’s the most popular format on YouTube for just that reason.So – advertisers want engaged consumers. And think back to the market slide. Where are high value users most engaged? Games.
Given that I’m pleased to announce that we have finished what Susan announced earlier this year, and TrueView ads are being made available in games, and applications. This is a natural fit for us – high quality, engaging ads being shown to a high value, engaged audience, and hopefully underlines to you the high value of the medium and audience you have created. Greg Zerbib will be talking in much more detail about this in this afternoon’s talk on the Value of Engaged Audiences.So. Next I’d like to talk a little about control – but control for you.
For those of you who use our advertising products, you’ll understand the value of yield management, allowing you to really optimise the value of your inventory and manage who can buy, at which prices, and when. The Doubleclick ad exchange is our top tier yield management product, bringing access to all key ad buyers globally, including unique demand from Google such as TrueView. And it works for video ads too – it’s a great solution. However, we had a problem with the video part of that.
This is an excerpt from the AdX Video policies. You’ll note that despite video games being built on a lot of the same technologies as pure video – Flash, and HTML5 – we don’t allow them. Video product for video only.Well, to go with the high quality video inventory we are releasing through TrueView, I’m pleased to say we are changing things on the Yield Management side too. AdX Games is being made available to allow our top tier games publishers to use our top tier yield management, to manage the best inventory we have.
So there you have it – for desktop games, AdX Games brings transparency, control, and TrueView demand.Greg will go into this in more detail again in his talk later this afternoon, so please drop by if you think either of these launches is something you would like to know more about.