What’s hot in gaming in 2015 - adconnection CEO, Catherine Becker, visited this year’s ICE Totally Gaming exhibition
adconnection CEO, Catherine Becker, visited this year’s ICE Totally Gaming exhibition at ExCel London to take in the latest developments in the industry. We caught up with her to get her thoughts on what’s hot in gaming in 2015. She had this to say. adconnection
Making virtual a reality
The latest
development was the whole 3D experience of the online games, of which, there
were two technologies that stood out for me.
One
was a prototype 3D screen viewable without the glasses. Austrian researchers
have developed a laser system that sends different images to each eye,
projecting 3D images that you can see without
3D glasses. What this basically involves is different pictures being projected
at a number of different angles, and so the left and the right eye will pick up
separate images.
In the demo I saw, the roulette wheel actually came out the
screen without the need for glasses, making it a very involving experience. Though
this technology has been around for three years, the challenge is the current
expense of these screens for every day home use. The price will no doubt come
down at some stage, and when they do, online companies that lead in this area
will benefit from early mover advantage.
The
other breath-taking development was the Oculus Rift applications for gaming. I
tried one out that had a slot machine (sea themed) that not only had fish
swimming in front of it when I played, but when I won, they literally had chips
and pound notes coming down from the ceiling above me.
This isn’t 3D; it’s a
complete surround vision, involving experience. I was then randomly taken on a
roller-coaster ride for winning (stock in trade now for oculus rift videos),
but then taken under water and eaten by a shark (so not so rewarding!), but
very realistic and a truly involving experience. Once these glasses have been
taken up at home, driven by the computer games manufacturers, they will
undoubtedly provide a much deeper experience and profitable opportunity for
online games companies.
Mobile First
Although
at adconnection we‘ve been mobile focused for a while, ICE 2015 was really
waking up to the need to be smart on mobile – both in the game experiences and
the marketing of those games.
Our research has shown that mobile users are
spending on average 32% of their time on games when on their phones showing how
important gaming is to the mobile user. In addition, it’s important to see that
within that, 86% of this activity is through apps rather than the web browser,
highlighting the necessity of creating compelling apps that are well promoted –
both on mobile and indeed offline, with media such as TV and outdoor (both of
which we have found to deliver excellent ROI, downloads and deposits).
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We’ve
spoken about this before in adconnection blogs, and it was a prominent feature
of totally gaming’s event. Personalised advertising is what encourages brand
loyalty. Personalising your services attaches meaning to your brand and
effectively rewards consumers for their brand loyalty. Not only that, but tailor-made
services mean you are effectively handing consumers what they want, so they are
much more likely to respond, engage and stay with you.
And finally…something for the
ladies
An
interesting observation while going round was the large number of reps at the
stands that were scantily dressed females. In an age in which we are pushing
for gender equality and promoting women as senior business-people, I found this
strange.
There were a number of women who commented that they had only thought
of the men in the audience and the appeal wasn’t there for the women. Something to consider for 2016.
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