1. Social Gaming Crystal Ball: 2012 Dave Rohrl Creative Director, Playdom Casual Connect Europe February 9, 2012

2. What Is the Crystal Ball?

4. Goal Predict important FB gaming trends Understand reasons Forecast impacts

5. Methodology But seriously – Year in Social Games reflection Deflecting trends lines – General industry trend lines Inside/Outside social – Interesting financial events and key quotes

6. Caveat Auditor Hugely speculative Hard to predict Consider the source

8. Prediction #1 Social Goes Casual (Not Easy Money)

9. Trend Line 2008-2009: Text RPG

10. Trend Line 2008-2009: HTML RPG 2009-2010: Simple Decorators

11. Trend Line 2008-2009: HTML RPG 2009-2010: Simple Decorators 2010-2011: Builder

12. Trend Line 2008-2009: HTML RPG 2009-2010: Simple Decorator 2010-2011: Builder 2011-2012: Genre diversification

14. Dominant Mammal? Casual!

15. 2010 Casual Hits

16. 2011 Casual Hits

17. Why Does This Work? Demographics/Psychographics Large pool of experienced devs Well-understood core game

18. Why Now? Development experience Code has been cracked Market is very, very proven

19. 2011 Casual Hits

20. Missing From the Picture?

21. But…… Expect lots of failure – Merging is hard – Execution is key – Lots of people trying

22. So? Classic casual gameplay as entry point Stock up on high skill – Both sides of the coin Winners win big Execution wins

23. Prediction #2 HTML5 Makes A Dent (But Doesn’t Become Dominant)

24. What is HTML5? Web development standard Open Cross-platform 2D gaming support via canvas 3D gaming support via WebGL (still in infancy)

25. Trend Line Early yet Late 2010Late 2011

26. Why Now? April 2010: “new open standards, created in the web era, such as HTML 5, will win (over Flash) September 2010: Zynga buys Dextrose AG January 2011: Facebook publishes HTML5 browser performance stats, suggests future prefs March 2011: Disney acquires RocketPack November 2011: Adobe abandons Flash for mobile, focuses on HTML5

27. Why Does It Matter? Web/mobile apps Web = big $$$ today Mobile = web of the future – Internet in your pocket

28. Is Web/Mobile Cross-Platform Always a Good Idea? Mostly, kinda, sorta UI refactor Different play patterns Different purchase drivers Different release cycles BUT partial is better than nothing

29. Why Not Dominant? Lots of skilled Flash teams Lots of games in the pipeline Variable browser performance

30. So? If you’re not gearing up now, you should You NEED a mobile strategy – Free-ish (with HTML5) Watch out for browser performance variance This section will look VERY different in the 2013 version.

31. Prediction #3 IP Becomes Really Important (But Still Isn’t a Magic Wand)

32. Why is IP Important? Facebook had over 550,000 apps as of January 2010 – Probably 2MM+ by now iPhone had over 300,000 apps as of January 2011 – 600,00 by now

33. Where Do Little Users Come From? Directory Search Game Channel Virals Word of Mouth Advertising Directory Search Game Channel Virals

34. IP and Advertising Does IP lower acquisition costs? Yes!

35. Oh, and

36. Additional Benefits Fan Base Price Points Content Stream

37. But…

38. Remember… Trial ≠ Conversion Conversion isn’t just monetization

39. Prediction #4 Mobile-> Web Gets Leverage (But Doesn’t Dominate)

40. Web->Mobile 2010

41. Mobile->Web Stories 2010

42. Pseudo Web->Mobile

43. Mobile->Web Stories 2011

44. Mobile->Web Stories 2012??

45. Why? Similarity of play patterns Related expertise Enough resources

46. But…. Not a freebie – UI – Play duration & other variations Interoperation is hard Competition will accelerate

47. …And the Rest The All-Singing, All-Dancing Photorealistic 3D Game Still Doesn’t Make It 2009 Won’t Come Back For Hardcore Strategy Games 2012 (post-IPO) Will Be An Interesting Year For the Zynga Quality Bar

48. Thank You! Questions? Feedback! drohrl@playdom.com