IndieGameBusiness San Francisco Summer Edition 2020
who it's for
indie developers, studio founders, marketing managers, community managers, business development managers, localization leads
topics
lifetime value (LTV) metrics; Discord community management; paid user acquisition strategies; IP licensing and royalties; in-game ad measurement and viewability; virtual versus physical expo showcasing; game PR and influencer marketing; EU privacy and telemetry rules; Kickstarter crowdfunding best practices; Firebase SDK for live ops
| title | author | length |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding LTV, the most important KPI in gaming | Lloyd Melnick | 58m |
LTV equals a customer’s present value and is driven by retention, monetization and virality; if LTV < CPI the product can’t scale (example: $1 CPI vs $0.95… | ||
| How to get the most out of your Discord community | Paul Hesling | 54m |
A concrete blueprint for a game Discord: use a compact template with read-only channels at the top, hidden mod channels and a logging channel, role-gated… | ||
| Grow your game profitably - Optimal Paid User Acquisition | Bao Dong | 57m |
Covers a concrete playbook: implement the Firebase SDK (Test Lab, Crashlytics, LiveOps), run consolidated Google App Campaigns with ad groups and automated… | ||
| An Industry Veteran's Insight Into IP Licensing For Games | Germaine Gioia | 55m |
Licensing is no longer PR fluff but a measurable business lever: begin with start with passion and audience and validate demand quickly by selling low-cost… | ||
| What It Takes to Grow The Video Game Advertising Market. It's Not Just eSports | Jonathon Troughton | 55m |
Argues esports grabs headlines but represents a small slice of a much larger market: 214 million US adults play games and global player counts hit billions… | ||
| Showcasing Your Indie Game at a Expo: Physical or Virtual | Grover Wimberly | 53m |
Sums up what actually works: virtual expos reach wider but require a ready online demo and clean assets, physical booths cost about $2,500–$5,000 plus travel… | ||
| The Evolution of Game PR and Marketing | Michael Brown | 51m |
Coverage shifts to big AAA titles so indies must stop relying on press alone and instead build community first via closed betas, Discord and newsletter… | ||
| A Legal Perspective on the Business of Games | Paul Lanois, Laura Berton | 55m |
European privacy law applies to IP addresses, hardware and telemetry (including anti‑cheat scans of running processes), not just names; regulators enforce… | ||
| Showcase of Argentinian Games and Companies | paula matus | 59m |
Eight Argentine teams show concrete outcomes: Logic Dots and Logic Traces >1M downloads and a new Home Valley mobile/avatar/crafting soft-launch planned; a… | ||
| A Dive into a Publisher Assessment: What Happens After Your Elevator Pitch | Juney Dijkstra | 50m |
SOEDESCO runs a checklist that filters risk by specifics: team CVs and availability, platform‑holder registration and engine version and plugin support… | ||
| Building Better Worlds through Game Culturalization | Kate Edwards | 51m |
Practical guide to making worlds that sell: culturalization is distinct from localization and happens early, using checklists, spot checks and a layered… | ||
| Clearing out the attic. Tools and of self organisation working from home | Tobias Kopka | 58m |
Overview of concrete tools and habits tested while working from home: use Slack or Discord for ongoing team/community chatter, Zoom for meetings, Trello/Jira… | ||
| Epic Mega Grants: Insights and Best Practices for your Application | Alan Noon | 01h 00m |
Epic Mega Grants is a $100 million fund for games, enterprise, education, tools and open source with specific guidance: prioritize a tight 2–5 minute video… | ||
| Keynote Address: Navigating Today's Business Development Landscape | Phil Adam | 01h 42m |
Practical playbook: cultivate relationships, pick partners who share goals, and keep credibility by answering within 24–48 hours and underpromising then… | ||
| Discord and the Virtual Office | Benjamin Hoyt | 54m |
Turns a free Discord server into a persistent virtual office for a 20–25 person indie team, replacing internal Zoom/Hangouts for meetings and cutting email… | ||
| Everything You Wanted to Know About Kickstarter | Anya Combs | 56m |
Recommends being ~50% complete and including 30 seconds of gameplay (video or GIF), not just a concept; set realistic funding (typical successful goals for… | ||
| What Publishers Want To See | Christopher Kassulke | 01h 04m |
HandyGames wants a clear one‑page pitch plus a vertical slice or short demo (five minutes or less) and a two-minute trailer or play‑through link; include… | ||
| Building Game Studios that Last | Ed Dille | 52m |
Practical playbook: hire for exact skills and train relentlessly, using the airplane test for culture fit; expect low turnover when teams form 15–20 year… | ||
| Your Digital Resume and Game Industry Job Hunt | Marc Mencher | 57m |
Average person has 17 jobs so job hunting is a repeatable skill; 90% of US employers view social profiles and 70% reject candidates for online content. Resumes… | ||
| Africa: The Last Digital Frontier | Sean Gotkin | 48m |
Claims that mobile is the growth engine: Africa is mobile-first, average age 19 and publishers see CPIs around $0.10, with a projected regional market… | ||
| The Game Writing AUA (As Us Anything!) | Toiya Kristen Finley | 01h 12m |
A practical Q&A that names tools and outcomes: use pattern language or Pinterest moodboards for architectural briefs; run table reads, internal playtests and… | ||
| 3 Ways To Understand Your Game's Audience | Chris Zukowski | 54m |
Argues that marketing starts with the game choice not tweets, using Steam data (about 44,000 scraped titles) and a small survey of 53 responses to show which… | ||
| Hiring and Retaining Diverse Leaders: The Next Generation of Games | Renee Gittins | 57m |
Claims that hiring without inclusion fails and that retention is the bigger problem drive concrete actions: the IGDA Foundation runs mentorships and a virtual… | ||
| The Big Win: Relationship-Driven Strategic Partnerships | Adam Creighton | 57m |
Builds studios around measurable relationships that produce concrete deliverables: 6 projects across 6 platforms in a year, an Xbox One port of Rocket League… | ||
| 10 Rules For Business In Mobile Games | Martine Spaans | 50m |
Presents concrete rules: prioritize retention over monetization, tighten the first-week funnel (tiny UX tweaks lift day‑7 which compounds later) and target day… | ||
| The Business of Games - a Philosophical Approach | Larry Kuperman | 53m |
Argues that business habits must shape design with concrete math: use comparable titles (Steam Spy, itch), build an IGDA/LinkedIn network, and track every hour… | ||
| How Indie Developers Can Polish Their Branding | Rachel Presser | 52m |
Claim: marketing fails without a brand foundation. Covers concrete elements: logos, palettes, fonts, copy, brand voice, signature audio like Nintendo Switch or… | ||
| Putting Spectators In the Driver’s Seat: How Our Industry Is Changing As Games and Media Merge. | Chris Cataldi | 53m |
Genvid describes a working SDK that extracts in-game data and feeds it to viewers, powering live features now: selectable player perspectives and AR-style stat… | ||
| nothing matches | ||