EiG Expo 2009 In Retrospective

I attended EiG Expo this week and listened to many of the sessions, here are my reflections from the week.

Multiplayer and social games: Monetising the communities by Jörgen Larsson, Founder, AhaBingo, Playzeek, onGolf and esn.

The talk pointed out that you should use viral marketing insted of spending money on marketing. You should also make emotional and entertaining content which is social by nature and customers want to consume social content socially. This can be done by integrating with larger social networks and let players play real money games with friends.

This was one of the most interesting presentations at EiG along with Brian MacSweeney, Founder & MD, Boolabus’s in-running betting presentation.

Opening CEO Panel Discussion

In this panel discussion key players in the industry talked about retaining players and the threaths from media companies coming to the industry. 888 and PartyGaming talked about their B2B strategies and the importance of having a B2B strategy.

Many on the panel also focused on USA wanting to be ready when it will be a regulated market there.

Start-Up LaunchPad

This was a fun session where 4 upcoming companies had the opportunity to present their ideas infront of a panel. Many of the companies had good ideas.

How consumer demographics are changing and how to address those changing patterns in your product offer and marketing campaigns

Alex Czajkowski, CEO, e-gaming 2.0 had an interesting presentation where he talked how we need to find new ways of attracting and entertain players. For example by video and 3D.

I was surprised that the quality of some of the sessions were not very good. This was my first time to EiG and I had expected really good and interesting sessions all around. But maybe half of them weren’t very interesting.

There were a lot of talk about social media, player experience and how to retain players. I believe that thinking about your players and their goals will be the key to be successfull in the future.

See you next year! Maybe I’ll have been able to build a product around my PRIM (Player Relationship & Involvement Management system) idea by then to enter the Start-Up Launch pad 

/Staffan