PROGRAM
Europe/Istanbul (UTC+3)
- 08:30 - 10:00
-
Welcome Coffee sponsored by MOLOCO
- 10:10 - 10:15
-
Welcome to WN Istanbul!
Julia Lebedeva (Kraskovskaia)
COO & Partner, WN Media Group
- 10:15 - 10:30
-
How Can an Event in Istanbul Open Up Endless Amount of Possibilities? / Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Gaming Industry
Tansu Kendirli
Chairman, Oyunder
Simay Dinç
Founder, Women in Games Türkiye
- 10:30 - 11:00
-
Talent Flow to The Turkish Game Industry
Barış Ozistek
Chairman / Managing Partner, Joygame / Bogazici Ventures
Turkish game industry is booming fueled by the strong flow of top talents. Challenge is how to manage the growth and invest into the most promising startups. The talk will focus on the market, opportunities and future rising of the top talents of the country.
- 11:00 - 12:00
-
Panel Discussion: Mobile Gaming Trends
Moderator Carlos Estigarribia
Director of Business Development, wappier
Vlad Funtikov
CEO, CM Games
Chris O'Kelly
Vice President Live Games, Goodgame Studios
Ricardo Flores
Executive Producer - Studio Head, Lockwood Publishing
The mobile market represents around half of all global games revenues and opportunities abound for savvy developers, but how can today's game makers succeed in this increasingly competitive landscape? Our panel will answer this important question while addressing changes in the Apple ecosystem and discuss the future of F2P gaming, as well as consider new opportunities including web gaming, AR/VR blockchain gaming and blockchain gaming.
- 12:00 - 12:30
-
Raising Capital on "Ground Zero"
İsmet Gökşen
Managing Partner, Ludus Ventures
Investing in at a pre-seed stage is both challenging for investors and entrepreneurs. This session will be about how to create an attraction in the pre-seed stage, what makes a start-up "venture backable" even with an idea, and how to find a sweet spot between an investor and a founder.
- 12:30 - 13:30
-
Lunch Break sponsored by MOLOCO
- 13:30 - 14:00
-
Is There Life on the iOS Planet after the Big Boom? Game-changing Insights Post-iOS 14
Furkan Taşdöğen
Account Executive, AppsFlyer
It’s been around one year since the bombshell of iOS 14 landed and completely changed the industry as we knew it. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework has turned the mobile app space upside down. As the dust settles and game developers start to get used to the newly introduced privacy changes and regulations, it’s still clear that some challenges in the sector remain. Join us as we take a deep dive into some game-changing insights post-iOS 14. Specifically, we’ll be discussing the current state of gaming app marketing, how ATT is affecting the market and how to navigate around the resulting issues.
- 14:00 - 14:30
-
Leveraging Hollywood Licenses in Game Development
Tim Willits
Chief Creative Officer, Saber Interactive
How to decide, secure, and develop a modern video game based on a Hollywood license. Tim will talk about his experience working with Saber Interactive on World War Z, Evil Dead, and A Quiet Place. He will discuss the many aspects of working with license holders, maintaining the spirit of a Hollywood franchise, and how to bring these games to market.
- 14:30 - 15:00
-
Fireside Chat: Current M&A Trends in the Games Industry & Outlook for 2022 and Beyond
Caglar Eger
CEO, exmox
Shum Singh
Managing Director & Founder, Agnitio Capital
Last year saw continued heated activity in M&A, and 2022 is likely to continue down that path. How will the M&A space evolve as many of the big targets have already been snapped up? Will publishers become increasingly aggressive? Or increasingly selective?
- 15:00 - 15:30
-
"Doin' It Right": How to Create Best Possible Mobile Marketing Content
Gökçe Nur Oguz
CEO & Co-Founder, Playable Factory
Playable ads have been increasingly relied on by mobile advertisers recently, however video is still one of the most powerful marketing tools. Mobile gaming companies are now looking for a more holistic approach combining various marketing methods for the best possible outcome.
- 15:30 - 16:00
-
Happy Hour sponsored by 4CreatorS media
- 16:00 - 17:00
-
Panel Discussion: Women in Gaming
Moderator Aysu Yildiz
Head of New Business EMEA & US, GameRefinery
Ayşe Betül Eser
User Acquisition Manager, Product Madness
Dominika Pawlasiuk
Senior Mobile User Acquisition Specialist, Huuuge Games
Simay Dinç
Game Producer & Co-Founder, Recontact Games
In this panel, we’ll be speaking to inspiring women as they share what it takes to succeed in gaming, advice on navigating the workplace, tips for women just entering the industry, and a whole lot more.
- 17:00 - 17:30
-
Fireside chat: How to Make Money from Hyper-Casual Games in 2022
Julia Lebedeva (Kraskovskaia)
COO & Partner, WN Media Group
Erkmen Aydogdu
Growth Team Lead, Alictus
- 17:30 - 18:00
-
Marketing Research: Raising Chances to Make a $100M Game
Anastasia Grishina
Brand Manager, MGVC
- 21:00 - 01:00
-
Networking Party sponsored by Pangle!
*for Premium Pass holders only
- 08:30 - 10:30
-
Welcome Coffee sponsored by MOLOCO
-
Metaverse Track
Moderator Kelly Vero
Metaverse Expert, NFT Consult
- 11:00 - 12:00
-
Panel Discussion: What does the Metaverse mean for Game Development, Publishing and Monetization?
Moderator Kelly Vero
Metaverse Expert, NFT Consult
Pieter van der Pijl
CEO / Co-Founder, Triple Dragon
Boris Spremo
Advisor, Fayre Labs, Forestbase.io
Fernando Pernica
Co-Founder & CBO, Nefta
This panel will deepen the conversation about the metaverse beyond the hype. Exploring the relationship between games and web3, the panelists will present their individual cases in support of the traditional games model versus this brave new frontier. It promises to be controversial, entertaining, and thoughtful.
- 12:00 - 12:30
-
Bridging into the Metaverse - Possibilities for Gaming Studios and Brands
Arslan Kiran
Head of Growth, The Sandbox
An Extention of Real-World Experiences through the Sandbox Metaverse world and best cases for Gaming Studios and local brands.
- 12:30 - 13:30
-
Lunch Break sponsored by MOLOCO
- 13:30 - 14:00
-
NFTs: Elementary Particles of the Open Metaverse
Boris Spremo
Advisor, Fayre Labs, Forestbase.io
What are NFTs, and how will they power open liquid markets of tomorrow? What is Open Metaverse? Can NFTs be used in AAA games and IRL?
- 14:00 - 14:30
-
Designing for the Mobile Metaverse
Ricardo Flores
Executive Producer - Studio Head, Lockwood Publishing
Mobile Metaverse is evolving and creating new challenges to those that design and think how this universe can be created and managed. We are no longer game designers but world shapers enabling our users to manage their own creations and interactions.
- 14:30 - 15:00
-
Segmentation of Metaverses
Efe Bulduk
Co-Founder & CSO, Troy
Metaverse can be a nebulous concept. The existing metaverse projects can broken down into three distinct categories: art-related metaverses (e.g Refik Anadol's Dataland), professional metaverses (work spaces, job opportunities), and gaming ones. The talk will zoom in on these disctinct facets.
- 15:00 - 15:30
-
RECONTACT METAWORLD / The future of Interactive Cinema
Simay Dinç
Game Producer & Co-Founder, Recontact Games
Dr. Eray Dinç
CEO & Co-Founder, Recontact Games
How Web3 is revolutionising the Film & Game Industry?
- 15:30 - 16:00
-
Happy Hour sponsored by 4CreatorS media
- 16:00 - 16:30
-
Web3 and User Acquisition
Pieter van der Pijl
CEO / Co-Founder, Triple Dragon
Session regarding how games are moving from Web2 to Web3 and what this means for marketing games, acquiring users and user acquisition funding and particular challenges and solutions for Web3 games that monetise in crypto.
- 21:00 - 01:00
-
Networking Party sponsored by Pangle!
*for Premium Pass holders only
- 09:00 - 10:30
-
Welcome Coffee sponsored by MOLOCO
- 10:30 - 11:00
-
How to Choose the Best UA Channels for Your Game
Magdalena Zaręba
Senior Growth Media Buyer, Huuuge Games
Kazimierz Merklejn
Senior Growth Media Buyer, Huuuge Games
No matter what is the scale of your UA, there are always plenty of channels to buy traffic from. At Huuuge we've had many opportunities to explore dozens of networks and learn the channels’ strengths and weaknesses. We would like to share our knowledge in order to help you with planning your exploration strategy and avoiding traps that might be set on your way.
- 11:00 - 12:00
-
Designing Games for Maximum Monetization
Moderator Kevan Merlehan
Director of Sales, Liftoff
Erno Kiiski
Chief Game Analyst - Managed Services, GameRefinery
Victor Zaletov
Director of Product Publishing, Huuuuge Games
Burkay Özdemir
CEO, MildMania
Egor Belyi
Co-Founder, Cleverside Ltd
While the vast majority of mobile game revenue is earned through in-app purchases, designing games for maximum monetisation remains a major challenge, requiring deep knowledge of UX design, virtual economy tuning, pricing economics, and many other disciplines. Featuring experts across these fields, this panel will give attendees concrete and proven advice for designing mobile games, as well as more advertising driven games.
- 12:00 - 12:30
-
The Franchise Approach: A Practical Guide
Valerio Di Donato
CEO, 34BigThings
The franchise approach to videogames IPs can be a solid strategy to grow a game studio, have a game IP better known in the world and foster some technology credit. This talk will go through steps, tips and tricks to execute it.
- 12:30 - 13:30
-
Lunch Break sponsored by MOLOCO
- 13:30 - 14:00
-
Startup to Scaleup in Gaming
Sara Asad
Growth Manager, Tamatem
Startups to scale ups, gaming in MENA has always been a world of its own - but not anymore. Having the highest ARPPU globally, the MENA gaming market is on the verge of booming as gaming companies are becoming globally recognized. Similar to how digitization became a necessary adoption for all industries, gaming in MENA has become the newest trend for many industries and emerging startups. Let’s chat about it all: the MENA gamer, regional startup ecosystem, and what it takes to be part of it.
- 14:00 - 14:30
-
The State of Gaming Investment in MENA
Joseph Shomali
Co-founder & CEO, Play 3Arabi
With the recent gaming M&A's happening in Turkey and the MENA region, as well as investments tailored for gaming from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, there are great opportunities for startups. This talk aims to shed light on some of the opportunities available and how to take advantage of them.
- 14:30 - 15:00
-
The Future of the Turkish Game Scene
Moderator Tansu Kendirli
Chairman, Oyunder
Sertac Picakci
CEO, Masomo
Emre Canbazoğlu
Chief Executive Samurai, MildMania
Oğuzhan Kar
Founder / Creative Director, Leartes Studios
Turkish Game industry projected itself as a powerhourse for the last couple of years. This conversation will reflect the upcoming trends and actual status for game industry professionals, business developers, service providers & financial institutions.
- 15:00 - 15:30
-
First Deal’s a Charm or What We Learned from Our First $100 mln M&A
Andrey Kuznetsov
Head of M&A, Nexters
- 15:30 - 16:00
-
Incrementality Measurement 101 - An overview for beginners
Louis Brutton
Senior Analytical Lead, Remerge
The notion of “Incrementality” is becoming increasingly popular among mobile app marketers. Join Remerge’s incrementality expert,as he sh ares the basics of how this methodology works. Find out why incrementality measurement is essential for mobile ad campaigns and learn when you should use it.
- 16:00 - 16:30
-
M&A vs IPO - What’s the Best Strategy for Your Studio?
Christopher Bergstresser
Member Board Of Directors, Pario Games Group
- 16:30 - 17:00
-
WN Developer Contest - Awards Ceremony
- 09:00 - 10:30
-
Welcome Coffee
- 10:30 - 11:00
-
Six Most Important Things (MITs) to Know when working with a DSP
William Melzer
VP of Sales, EMEA, Moloco
Attend this session to learn why you should be working with a DSP and the 6 things you absolutely need to know to succeed.
- 11:00 - 11:30
-
Alternative Monetization, In-Game Ads, Audio Ads & Direct Deals
Anouar Benattia
Head of UA & Monetization, Tap Nation
Talk will focus on how to scale your game without using only the top 10 networks and how to monetize thanks to audio ads to add incremental revenue. How to monetize with ads but outside of the classical way. There are new opportunities that can bring extra incremental revenue and can be easily integrated into your monetization setup.
- 11:30 - 12:00
-
First Day & Every Day: A New Way to do UA
Oğulcan Tufan
Sales Director - EMEA, Digital Turbine
In an ever-changing era of UA reality, there are new opportunities to acquire users that mitigate storms and focus on your growth.
- 12:00 - 12:30
-
The MENA Games Market
Mohamed Zaher
Analyst, Niko Partners
The MENA games market has quickly emerged as a key growth region for the global video game industry. Niko Partners recently published the industry's first report on the MENA games market. This talk will provide data and analysis from the report covering Arabic speaking markets including market size and forecast, important games and publishers, and the growth drivers and trends impacting the market, and also covers gamer behavior and spending from our survey of 3,000+ gamers in the region.
- 12:30 - 13:30
-
Lunch Break
- 13:30 - 14:00
-
Panel Discussion: Opportunities in Turkey for Game Startups, Companies, Enterprise and Service Providers
Tansu Kendirli
Chairman, Oyunder
Murat Kahraman
Co-Founder, Game Factory
Emre Akarkarasu
Head of Start-Up Advisory, Aksan Danışmanlık A.Ş
Expanding conflicts and struggles causes great challenges both for Game industry companies and enterprises around the world & especially Eastern Europe. During this session we will talk about possible business and cooperation opportunities inside Turkey to provide a brief overview for foreign business owners.
- 14:00 - 14:30
-
Google Cloud for Gaming
Levent Polater
Gaming Lead, Google
Scaling games globally is one of the biggest challenges gaming studios are facing. Any latency can disrupt gameplay which means gamers leaving the game that causes revenue opportunities. This session walks through how gaming studios can solve complex scaling issues.
- 14:30 - 15:00
-
Fireside Chat: How Mobile Game Developers Sir Studios Are Winning The Race To Monetization With In-Game Ads
Tuğba Gül
Head of Marketing, Sir Studios
Jascha Maijer
Head of BD EMEA, Mobile, Anzu.io
With almost 450k mobile games available worldwide, the world of mobile gaming is a constant jostling for attention, popularity, and revenue – so how can mobile game developers monetize their games effectively without alienating their players with annoying pop-ups and distractions? Ask them yourselves, as Sir Studios, the development studio behind popular hit mobile game Ultimate Car Driving Simulator, share their experiences with in-game advertising in this exclusive session. Joining the fireside chat is Anzu's Director of Mobile Games, where game developers can learn first-hand what it takes to easily set up in-game ads, and how they can enhance both developers’ revenue and the gaming experience.
- 15:00 - 15:30
-
Panel Discussion: Creativity & Community in Game Marketing
Moderator Sezer Degirmenbasi
Head of METAP & Eastern Europe Gaming, Global Business Solutions, TikTok
Sinem Demiroz
Performance Marketing Specialist, Masomo
Anastasia Zykina
Head of UA, Mamboo Games
Erkmen Aydogdu
Growth Team Lead, Alictus
The session will focus on shifts in game marketing, increasing importance of creativity and community to expand user acquisition to marketing. We will hear from panelists about their point of view,
solutions and opportunities for game developers and publishers to build connections with current and potential gaming audience and how gaming companies can expand their marketing strategy in order to win in this new hyper-competitive era.
- 15:30 - 16:00
-
Influencer Marketing in Europe - A Lucky Shot or a Level Off?
Anya Stoyanova
Senior MBD Manager, Imperia Online JSC
This session reveals insights about the influencer marketing ecosystem in Europe. We will discuss and provide answers to all Indies, Game Developers and Big Publishers on if it is worth it to work with influencers.
- 16:00 - 16:30
-
Useful Fundraising Tips for a Games Company
Kirill Gurskiy
Games & Entertainment Leader, GEM Capital
Roman Gurskiy
Games & Entertainment Leader, GEM Capital
Kirill and Roman will talk about useful tips for founders at each of the following fundraising stages: preparation for pitching, negotiations with investors, the first months of living together. Brothers will expand on homework that needs to be done by any company prior to fundraising, preparation of materials and negotiations.