Program

PROGRAM

Europe/Istanbul (UTC+3)

Day 1 - Istanbul

07.Jun.2022

Day 2 - Istanbul

08.Jun.2022

08:30 - 10:00: Welcome Coffee sponsored by MOLOCO

10:10 - 10:15: Welcome to WN Istanbul!

Julia Lebedeva

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

Baris Ozistek

CEO & Board Member, 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

Founder & General 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 Oguz

CEO, Boby.ai

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

VP of Sales, AppNava

Ayşe Betül Eser

User Acquisition Manager, Product Madness

Dominika Pawlasiuk

Senior Mobile User Acquisition Specialist, Huuuge Games

Simay Dinc

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

COO & Partner, WN Media Group

Erkmen Aydogdu

VP, General Manager, SciPlay

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

Growth Lead Turkey at Moca Network, Animoca Brands

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 Dinc

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

Chief Investment Officer, 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

Board Member, Mogul 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

Ogulcan 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

User Acquisition Manager (Chinese Networks), Mamboo Games

Erkmen Aydogdu

VP, General Manager, SciPlay

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

Managing Director, GEM Capital

Roman Gurskiy

Managing Director, 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.