Monetizing social games globally

Thinking GloballyHow to Monetize International Audiences

Benjamin Joffe, CEO | Plus Eight Star Ltd.Inside Social Apps | San Francisco, 2010.04

Benjamin Joffe

4 years 1 year 5 years

What I Do Now

• CEO, Plus Eight Star | www.plus8star.com– Digital Strategy & “Innovation Arbitrage”

– Best practices from Asia’s Internet

and mobile scenes

• Founding Partner, Cmune | www.cmune.com– 3D social games

– Paradise Paintball, first “social shooter”on Facebook, MySpace, Apple.com

• Mobile Monday Beijing– Monthly forum for mobile professionals

Paradise Paintball | World’s First Social FPS!

www.cmune.comwww.facebook.com/paradisepaintball

AWARDED“BEST NEW

GAME”ON MYSPACE(GDC 2010)

Introduction

Answers

Pony Ma, CEO, Tencent Yoshikazu Tanaka, CEO, GREE

#2 youngest self-made billionaire

in the world after Mark Zuckerberg

Asian Social Networks

Market Caps(February 2010)

$800M

$2.2B

$3.3B

$34.5B

Mobile Platform since Oct.09(330 apps as of February 2010)

City BuildingBy Liveware

Harvest MoonBy Liveware

ShopkeeperBy Geisha Tokyo

FurauniBy Konami

Gree Home

Advertising

Avatars & items

Games

Advertising & Affiliates | 25%

B2C virtual goods | 75%

60% avatars40% games

4Q09 Revenue81M USD

Profit50M USD!

Panel Discussion

Jens Begemann, CEO, WoogaM.I.A.

Thinking Globally:How to Monetize International Audiences

• Rex Ng, CEO, 6 waves

• Season Xu, Co-founder & COO, Five Minutes

• Patrick Liu, CEO, Rekoo

• Ron Hirson, Co-founder & SVP Product, Boku

• Benjamin Joffe, Founder, +8* (Moderator)

Questions? @benjaminjoffe

1.What do you do?

What share of your business is FB?

2.Picking Markets &

Differences Among Platforms

3.Cultural Differences

Fast Following?

4.What do you know that US

companies don’t?

5.What are the arbitration

opportunities?

6.Futures trends

Q&A@benjaminjoffe

Thanks!

+8* | Plus Eight Star Ltd

Plus Eight Star LtdMobile & Internet Innovation Arbitrage

China, Japan & South Korea

www.plus8star.com

Company Introduction

30 | 8© Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. www.plus8star.comMobile & Internet

Innovation Arbitrage

About +8*

• Innovation Arbitrage

– “Bringing proven best practices and business models from Asia”

– +8* (Plus Eight Star) is the leading cross-market consultancy on mobile, telecom and Internet

in China, Japan and Korea.

– We work with large companies, SMEs, investment firms and governments worldwide to bring

them strategic advice and the best practices from advanced Asian markets.

There are more ideas

outside of your country

than inside.

Tom Kelley

Author, The Art of Innovation

• Our expertise

– Internet: our work covers

social media, communities,

ecommerce, online gaming

and virtual worlds.

– Telecom: we have extensive

experience with mobile and

telecom services (e.g. mobile

marketing and advertising,

mobile commerce, mobile TV

and mobile communities).

http://www.plus8star.com/



Our Clients

EUROPE

USA

ASIA


http://www.vectis-intl.com/index.html



Selected References

• Adidas | E-commerce and mobile commerce market analysis and strategic

recommendations for China, Japan & Korea

• Bouygues Telecom | Cases studies of leading Asian Web 2.0 services and virtual

worlds

• Deutsche Telekom / T-Online | Benchmark of Korean mobile & Internet

convergence strategies

• EU-China Information Society | Research on e-commerce and virtual worlds to

support the regulatory dialogue between the EU and Chinese authorities

• Microsoft | Analysis of Japan’s key players and market catalysts for mobile

commerce market positioning in China

• DeNA | Benchmark of leading SNS in China and South Korea (DeNA operates

Japan’s leading mobile social network)

• China Mobile | Benchmark of Korean leading online communities

• Sands Capital Management | Evaluation of investment opportunities in social

networks in China

• MIH / NASPERS | Analysis of leading online verticals in China (MIH is the largest

shareholder in Tencent, China’s leading online community)

• IMVU | Benchmark of monetization and engagement best practices in Asian virtual

worlds & SNS (IMVU is a leading US-based 3D virtual world & chat)




Customer Testimonial | IMVU Inc.

COMPANY: IMVU Inc.

Lee Clancy, VP Product Management & GM of Direct Revenue

August 2009

Q Has the service performed by +8* met your expectations?

A The consulting services provided by +8* met IMVU's expectations. Benjamin and his team showed a deep

understanding of major Asian virtual worlds and gaming companies, as well as their potential implications

for IMVU. In our communications with them, they were very responsive to our follow-up questions and

completed their final deliverables on-time.

Q How have you used or plan to use this research within your company?

A Only a few weeks after +8* delivered their findings to IMVU, we had already identified and roadmapped

various product enhancements that were a direct result of our learnings from the +8* study. What is more,

we have since launched pilot versions of those new features that have received extremely positive feedback

from IMVU users (e.g., "My Pets" mode). Additionally, +8*'s comprehensive report is an invaluable

reference that I consult often when considering new product enhancements.

Q What decided you to hire +8* for this project?

A We chose to hire +8* for this project because 1) they had a strong professional track record, which we

confirmed with representatives from several blue chip clients of theirs prior to the study; and 2) we felt that

their area of expertise and past studies were strongly aligned with our research needs.




Speaking Engagements

• Speaking Engagements

– Regular keynote speaker & moderator in IT,

Media & Investment events.

– Engagements in 2008/09/10• CHINICT (Beijing, Upcoming)

• Global Mobile Internet Conf. (Beijing , Upcoming)

• Echelon 2010 (Singapore , Upcoming)

• Mobile Social Networking Asia (Hong Kong , Upcoming)

• Virtual Goods Forum (London)

• Stanford University (Entrepreneurship)

• Berkeley University (MBA)

• SXSW Interactive (Austin)

• PICNIC (Amsterdam)

• Virtual Goods Summit (San Francisco)

• Inside Social Apps (San Francisco)

• eComm (San Francisco)

• Ad:Tech (Beijing)

• Ad:Tech (Shanghai)

• Ignite (Amsterdam)

• Ignite (Beijing)

• Ignite (Paris)

• Mobile Asia Congress (Hong Kong)

• Lift Asia (Jeju, Korea)

• ITU Asia (Bangkok)

• Infinity Ventures Summit (Sapporo, Japan)

• LeMobile 2.0 (Paris)

• Asia Venture Capital Forum (Hong Kong)

• Graphing Social Patterns (Washington, D.C.)

• iGaming Asia (Macau)

• Unite Conference (San Francisco)

• China Mobility International Summit (Beijing)

• 3G Summit (Kunshan, China)

• Red Herring Asia (Hong Kong)

• China Internet Forum (Beijing)

• Media’08 (Sydney)

• China Internet Forum (Beijing)

• Wireless Developer Forum (Beijing)

• Open Web Asia (Seoul)

• XMediaLab: Virtual Worlds (Seoul)

• Mobile Monday Global Summit (Helsinki)

• Mobile Monday Global Summit (Kuala Lumpur)

• EU-China Virtual Worlds Conference (Beijing)

• EU-China eCommerce Regulatory Workshop (Beijing)

• Startonomics (Beijing)

• UnConference (Singapore)

• BarCamp (Shanghai)

• La Cantine (Paris)

• Mobile Focus (Stockholm)

More information at www.plus8star.com/presentations/


http://www.plus8star.com/presentations/



Media Coverage

• Media Coverage

– Our research and views have been quoted by numerous media outlets on topics ranging

from Telecom and E-Commerce to Social Networks, Gaming and Virtual Goods.

– Selected media: Forbes, The Economist, The New York Times, International Herald Tribune,

The Guardian, Advertising Age, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Gamasutra, etc.

More information at www.plus8star.com/press/


http://www.plus8star.com/press/



Event Organizer & Advisor

• Founder & Organizer: Mobile Monday Beijing

– Mobile Monday is the leading network of mobile industry

professionals, counting over 50 chapters around the world.

– We founded the Beijing chapter of in 2006 to support the ecosystem.

– Results: 35 events, 125 speakers, 3,000+ participants (avg.100).

• Co-Organizer

– Startonomics (Beijing, May 2009)

– Startup2Startup (Beijing, May 2009)

– Open Web Asia (Seoul, October 2008)

• Advisor

– TEDxBeijing (November 2009)




Contact

• Benjamin Joffe, Founder & CEO

– 10 years experience with Telecom & Internet in Asia.

– “China’s Top 100 mobile industry influencers” in 2007 & 2008.

– Senior Expert for the EU Delegation to China.

– Regular speaker at events on mobile and Internet in Asia.

– Fluent in English, Japanese, French with working knowledge

of Mandarin, Korean and Spanish.

• Contacts

– [email protected]

– benjamin0123

– http://twitter.com/plus8star

– www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminjoffe

– www.slideshare.net/plus8star

Beijing Office (HQ) Tokyo Office

Oriental Kenzo, Tower A-20D Flat Hagiwara 2D

48, Dongzhimenwai, Dongcheng District Setagaya-ku 6-36-8

100027 Beijing, P.R. China Tokyo, Japan

Tel: +86 (0)10 8447 7985 [email protected]

+81 | Japan

+82 | Korea

+86 | China

Telecom & Internet

+ Added Value

* High quality


http://www.slideshare.net/plus8star

Monetizing social games globally

Documents

Transcript of Monetizing social games globally