Four killer conversion rate optimization musts for 2016

Making a beautiful and interesting game takes time, and most importantly, costs a lot of money. As we see major growth in the games industry, there has also been a major boom in funding for video games. There are more funding options available to a wider range of video game makers than ever before -- from publishers to VC funds that specifically invest in games, angel investors, crowdfunding, and more. However, searching for a source of funding and negotiating a deal can be a grueling process that requires a lot of moving parts, and it's a challenge for even the most experienced developers.

Before you even start, you need to understand the differences between the types of funding and investment companies, and determine which works best for your type of game and your company's goals. On the flip side, you need to know what investors are looking for in a game and a game studio, from a more mature company that will work independently to a brand-new developer that they can guide through the marketing process.

It's a complex undertaking. But in this VB Live event, you'll learn how to get your vision funded from a roundtable of investors in the hottest games. Register now to hear how to determine the kind of funding you need from how to land a meeting, how to develop and deliver a compelling pitch, and more. Registration is free!

You'll learn about:

● The funding available for game developers now
● Determining whether an investor is the right match
● The alternative funding options that are taking center stage
● Building a portfolio and pitch
● Successfully navigating meetings with potential investors
● And more

Speakers:

- Salone Sehgal, General Partner, Lumikai Ltd.
- Amy Wu, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
- Justin Berenbaum, VP, Strategic Planning & GM, Xsolla Funding Club
- Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer, GamesBeat (moderator)

Piracy, app cloning, and multiplayer cheating continue to target games of every size from the big studios to the independent developers. These bad actors have a direct impact on your revenue and tarnish your reputation.

A Global Gaming Survey found that in-game cheating drives 78% of gamers away, and 46% said that they're less likely to buy in-game content. And word-of-mouth can be deadly.

Game publishers and developers can protect their franchise, preserve their app store and in-app purchase revenues, and retain players with anti-tamper and anti-cheat solutions. In this VB Live event, learn more about the games cybersecurity landscape, and how any size studio can implement games protection that's lightweight, easy and fast to implement, has zero effect on the experience of legitimate players, and requires no modification of the source code.

You'll learn about:
- The various threats in video games and how they affect gamers’ experience
- How piracy impacts your revenue and how you can protect your game
- How cheaters operate and how an anti-cheat solution can help maximize engagement
- And more!

Speakers:
- Phillip Koskinas, Anti-Cheat Lead, Riot Games
- Nick Peterson, Staff Software Engineer, Riot Games
- Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director, Denuvo by Irdeto
- Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer, GamesBeat (moderator)

The location technology commonly used in mobile apps and games has been restricted to a flat, 2D world – until now. New geolocation technologies enable accurate vertical location at scale for the first time – and so accurately that it can pinpoint what floor you’re on in a skyscraper.

The technology is unlocking a tremendous number of opportunities. Food delivery services like UberEats and DoorDash can improve user experience with pinpoint-accurate delivery. Car services can find your exact location in an airport. And the technology can unlock urban areas for AR games by making vertical space accessible – i.e. fixing the position of a player in vertical environments, such as skyscrapers, apartment buildings, or malls.

To learn more about the transformative impact of 3D location on mobile apps, gaming, AR, and more join the discussion with the industry leaders who are driving the next generation of location technology in this VB Live event!

Attendees will learn:

-- How 3D geolocation is disrupting the world of location technology, delivering new user experiences and improved operational efficiency
-- How leaders in the mobile app, gaming, and AR space will use vertical location in the next generation of location-based services
-- How the vertical dimension will impact the wider location ecosystem, including mapping, visualizations, and UI/UX

Speakers:

-- Timoni West, Vice President of Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality Tools, Unity Technologies
-- Sarah Burslem, Head of Business Development, EMEA, Niantic
-- Dan Hight, VP/GM Data Partnerships, NextNav
-- Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer, GamesBeat (moderator)

As cloud computing continues to accelerate worldwide, organizations are now deciding which model best serves their needs. Yes, the major public clouds can offer almost unlimited scalability, but users are limited to the hardware and software choices the cloud provider has made.

This is where open clouds come in. Consisting of "open" components, these are tailored to an enterprise's specific needs in compute, storage, networking, and the software stack. A wide range of "instances" can be installed in an open data center, whether made available to internal or external customers, tailored to the needs of the enterprise.

As a result, open clouds can reduce latencies to client device – improving customer and device (IoT) interactions. The latest innovations from the edge to the data center can be quickly brought on-line, and tuned to the exact requirements needed to maintain SLAs. But in making the best decision, you need to ensure three main components for success: the right hardware (the primary instruction set and binary compatibility); the best software stack; and the appropriate network choice.

Join this VB Live event to learn more about the benefits of open clouds – and what’s needed to produce the best outcome.

Attendees will learn:

• Why an eco-system based on open standards can reduce costs and increase innovation
• How to evaluate workloads
• How a cloud based on open standards can easily be constructed
• How open standards apply to hardware and software choices

Speakers:
- Keith Tanski, Chief Technology Officer, Optum
- Rick Villars, Group Vice President, Worldwide Research, IDC
- Stephen Watt, Distinguished Engineer, Red Hat
- Michael McNerney, Vice President Marketing and Network Security, Supermicro
- Joe Maglitta, Moderator, VentureBeat

Open banking initiatives across the globe are enabling consumers to share their account and transaction data with third parties, increasing opportunities to deliver innovative new fintech products and facilitating collaboration between financial institutions and fintechs. But this is only the beginning. The open banking movement promises to be part of a much larger open finance trend, and in this webinar you’ll learn why and what open finance means for you and your business.

Join us to see how open finance and access to alternative data can revolutionize customer experiences related to insurance, utilities, and telecommunications, and other industries and sectors. Learn what type of data could potentially be included in open finance and how this data can be safely used to spur innovation, improve efficiencies, increase demand, support consumer decision-making, and improve customer relationships.

Attendees will learn:

--How open finance is evolving around the world and in the U.S.
--How access to alternative data can transform the customer experience
--Why industries like insurance, utilities, and lending benefit from open finance
--How open finance could encompass mortgage info, pensions, investments, and insurance policies
--How to position yourself on the leading edge of open finance

Speakers:

--Dawn Sirras, SVP FinTech Partnerships, Constellation Digital Partners
--David Nohe, CEO, FinGoal
--Brian Costello, VP, Data Strategy and Strategic Initiatives, Envestnet | Yodlee
--Jenn Underwood, Moderator

Right now, esports has a 495 million-strong and growing global audience. And it's surprisingly easy for developers and publishers to add tournaments, event streaming, and VIP content to their own platform to engage those millions of fans and players around the world.

The opportunity is real: Tournaments, ranked play, and matchups encourage continuous and repeat game play as players compete to earn status, rewards, and prizes, both virtual and real. Plus, creating a global community with competitive game play through an esports platform enables your gamers to connect and play together, creating the kind of community that keeps players loyal.

In this VB Live event, you'll learn some best practices into creating your own online esports and skill-based gaming platform and to safely and securely accelerate game commerce globally. Plus you'll hear about the tools you need to streamline and securely manage your fan and player engagement process, how to monetize your fanbase, and more.

Attendees will learn about:
- Creating a fanbase for your game and brand
- Rewarding gamers who are loyal players
- Monetizing the fan experience
- Managing payment processing simply and safely

Speakers:
- John Fazio, CEO, Nerd Street Gamers
- Niccolo Maisto, Co-Founder & CEO, FACEIT
- Berkley Egenes, Vice President of Marketing focused on Game Commerce, Xsolla
- Steve Peterson, CEO, StoryPHORCE Entertainment (moderator)

Your employees are your most valuable resource and companies are now realizing it's as important to invest as much thought and strategy into their employee experience as their customer experience. In this three-part webinar series –The Employee Experience from Recruitment to Retention – we’ll explore different aspects of the important employee experience.

In this first webinar, HR experts will first share insights into why company culture is the key to business growth. The series continues with webinars on how to improve access to employee benefits without breaking the bank; and how companies can attract and retain the best talent in a post-pandemic market.

In periods of disruption and rapid change, company culture can differentiate the best from the rest. Creating an employee-first environment, rooted in a solid foundation of shared core values and beliefs, inspires employee engagement and long-term loyalty – which can drive customer satisfaction and fuel company growth.

How do you create a company culture that empowers your employees to keep growing and gives you a competitive edge? In this webinar, you'll learn about the elements of a successful company culture, how to build a positive employee environment, and what steps to take that can shape and strengthen your culture to align with your organization’s values and goals.

Takeaways:

- The importance of culture as a driving force for competitive advantage
- Actionable tips for creating a more inclusive and connected culture that can help you attract and retain employees
- Strategies that you can use for reinforcing and sustaining culture that helps create ownership and shared accountability

Speakers:

- Deepa Gandhi, Co-Founder and COO, Dagne Dover
- Kristine Gunn, Executive Director, Talent and Organizational Management, TriNet
- Stewart Rogers, Moderator, VentureBeat

When it comes to digital marketing, there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all creative for all platforms. To really perform, you need to make sure you're adapting it to fit the unique audience demand and behavior for every channel and platform. But that can only happen when you have data.

Data helps you understand demographics, user behavior, the organic content, and more on each of the platforms you use, so you can optimize your creatives for every channel, align your strategy with user demographics, and get results.

In this VB Live event, you'll learn why data is the secret to a powerful digital marketing strategy. We'll examine best practices for creative in every channel -- from Facebook to Google to TikTok to Snapchat (& more) -- and how to optimize for best results. You'll find out how to make native ads that work with the organic content on each platform, implement influencer content into your creative assets and more. Plus, we'll dive into real examples of high-performing creatives across platforms.

You'll learn:
- How to optimize your digital marketing strategy through creative optimization
- How to leverage user data to create content that really performs
- How to develop a successful creative strategy for all your social channels
- Best practices for creative on every platform
- How to incorporate influencer content into your assets
- And more!

Speakers:
- Courtney Lawrie, Global Head of Brand and Integrated Growth Marketing, Wayfair
- Melissa Culbertson, Associate Manager of Brand Engagement, Social Strategy, Burt's Bees
- Kinney Edwards, Global Head of Creative Lab, TikTok
- Noa Miller, Marketing Creative Strategist, yellowHEAD
- Nicole M. Alexander, Professor of Marketing and Technology, New York University (NYU); Former SVP, Chief Innovation Expert, Ipsos (moderator)

Leaders from all sectors of health care are increasingly integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into their organizations to achieve strategic goals, and confidence in the technology's promise is growing. A 2020 Optum survey on AI in health care found that 59% of respondents expect a full return on their AI investments in under three years, nearly double the 31% who answered similarly in 2018.

Health care’s Quadruple Aim is to simultaneously improve health outcomes, enhance and simplify the experiences of both patients and providers, and reduce overall costs — and AI is seen as an integral tool to help achieve it. The risk is that predictive models may unintentionally perpetuate harmful racial and gender biases that directly impact a patient's health or access to care. In order to overcome these challenges, health care organizations need to acknowledge their existence — and take proactive steps to promote equity by examining both the data these models interpret and how the models are being applied.

In this VB Live event, you'll learn more about how AI can help health care experts do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and how stakeholders throughout health care can use AI responsibly, ethically, and equitably. Plus, you'll get an in-depth perspective on the strengths and limitations of data, AI methodology, the application of AI results, and more.

You'll learn:
- What it means to use advanced analytics "responsibly"
- Why responsible use is so important in health care as compared to other fields
- The steps that researchers and organizations are taking today to ensure AI is used responsibly
- What the AI-enabled health system of the future looks like and its advantages for consumers, organizations, and clinicians

Speakers:
- Brian Christian, Author, The Alignment Problem, Algorithms to Live By, and The Most Human Human
- Sanji Fernando, SVP, AI Products & Platforms, Optum
- Kyle Wiggers, AI Staff Writer, VentureBeat (moderator)

The pandemic drove gaming revenue up by 9.3% in 2020, and advertising is a significant source of that income. But it's not easy money. It's a tough market, where new games are proliferating, advertising is shouting for gamers' attention, and attention spans are short. At the same time, consumers are more concerned than ever about how companies are using and sharing their data, propelling data privacy and security to the forefront of the industry’s priorities.

Join this VB Live event to learn how data changes the game for ads, marketing, user acquisition and monetization. Securely leveraging data can help developers cash in on the industry's growth opportunities, attract consumers, create optimized, personalized gaming experiences, protect your users’ privacy, and more.

Participants will learn how to:
- Better use data to improve the effectiveness of ads and marketing
- Make data-driven decisions around optimization and personalization
- Overcome challenges with legacy data stacks
- Break down data silos for a single-source, holistic view of audiences
- Ensure data privacy and security

Speakers:
- Daniel Lopez, Director, Mobile Growth, Electronic Arts (EA)
- Brian Sapp, SVP, User Acquisition Marketing & Ads, Jam City
- Daniel Myers, Senior Developer Relations Manager, Snowflake
- Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer, GamesBeat (moderator)

Audio is booming. Consumers are spending 30% more time listening to spoken word audio, including podcasts and news. And 43% listen daily, with 48% listening an average of two hours a day. A big percentage of those are podcasts, which will reach 112 million listeners in 2021.

That's why audio is an incredibly powerful way to reach customers, and brands that do it right can increase personalization, consumer convenience, and customer loyalty. Learn how to add audio to your marketing mix in this VB Live event.

Attendees will learn:
- How brands can include both branded audio and media, and user-generated media in their go-to-market strategy
- The benefits of branded audio media
- How offering services, or partnering with audio forward companies, to generate or support quality audio can provide a competitive advantage and differentiation

Speakers:
- Rebecca Michals, Director, Seller Community and Engagement, eBay
- Will Mayo, Founder + Chief Strategy Officer, SpokenLayer
- Sabba Keynejad, CEO, VEED.IO
- Sripal Mehta, Senior Director, API Platform, Dolby Labs
- Stewart Rogers, Moderator, VentureBeat

As open banking initiatives gain traction in the U.S., fintechs and innovative financial firms are in an ideal position to deliver personalized products, apps and services based on consumer-permissioned data. The ability to leverage timely rich consumer data and insights positions open banking as the launchpad for open finance experiences that can assist consumers to make positive impacts in every aspect of their financial lives.

Join our webinar to discuss open banking and open finance with industry thought leaders from FinGoal, Tiller Money, and Envestnet | Yodlee. Learn how the new open banking movement is fueling digital experiences that result in better financial outcomes for consumers. We’ll also walk through what you need to do to prepare for open banking and connect with the open APIs that make this revolution possible.

Register for our webinar to discuss:

- What’s happening with open banking in the U.S.
- How open banking ecosystems work
- Ways open APIs drive financial wellness
- How to leverage deep consumer insights
- How to prepare for open banking

Speakers:

- Peter Polson, Founder, Tiller Money
- David Nohe, CEO, FinGoal
- Brian Costello, VP, Data Strategy and Strategic Initiatives, Envestnet | Yodlee
- Evan Schuman, Moderator

When it comes to running a business, time is one of your most precious resources. Many small businesses are performing digital health checks and taking a fresh look at how they will provide a better digital experience for their customers in the new year. Finding ways to become more efficient can greatly improve the customer experience and your bottom line. One of the easiest ways to improve operational efficiency is by building your digital toolbelt. From accepting digital payments to automating your entire agreement process, digital tools streamline your efforts, saving you time and money.

Here are three benefits digital tools bring to your business:

- Accelerate Quote-to-Cash - getting paid quicker, digital tools help you hold onto your own money as long as you can.

- Enhance Customer Experience - simplifying the agreement process makes business convenient for you and your customers

- Increase Security - digital tools offer you and your customers peace of mind and gain a competitive advantage

Speakers:

- Anthony Heckman, Head of Business Development, unitQ
- Laurie McCabe, Cofounder & Partner, SMB Group Inc.
- Dave Simon, VP of SMB Commercial Sales, DocuSign
- Stewart Rogers, Moderator, VentureBeat

To meet the increasing player demand, developers and publishers are going to be firing out new mobile game titles at breakneck speed in 2021. To successfully launch your own game in an increasingly crowded market and capture user attention right from the start, you need to think beyond the app store.

Going beyond the traditional avenues can help you create a community with your players, improve the discoverability of your mobile game, and scale your mobile business.

To learn how to develop a multi-platform launch strategy, how to both capture and keep user attention, and how to keep your game growing, don't miss this VB Live event!

You'll learn about:
- Acquiring new users with a multi-platform experience
- Creative ways to build a community beyond the app store
- How to target the right markets, platforms, and regions for your game

Speakers:
- Michail Katkoff, CEO & Co-Founder, Savage Game Studios
- Chris Hewish, President, Xsolla
- Miikka Luotio, Interim Director of Business Development, Europe, Xsolla
- Steve Peterson, CEO, StoryPHORCE Entertainment (moderator)

To stay on top of cutting-edge AI innovation, it's time to upgrade your technology stack. Major
advances in computer architecture are ushering in next-generation AI capabilities. Three
notable trends are emerging: technology has advanced beyond the limitations of multi-core
processing; inference and training are converging in deep learning applications; and new
hardware and software capabilities can powerfully accelerate machine learning applications.

In this VB Live event you'll learn how cutting-edge computer architecture can unlock new
capabilities for natural language processing, visual AI, recommendation models, and scientific
computing, from common use cases to real-world case studies and more.

Registration is free.

You'll learn:
- Why multicore architecture is on its last legs -- and how new, advanced computer
architectures are changing the game
- How to implement state-of-the-art converged training and inference solutions
- New ways to accelerate data analytics and scientific computing applications in the same
accelerator

Speakers:
- Alan Lee, Corporate Vice President and Head of Research and Advanced Development, AMD
- Kunle Olukotun, Co-founder and Chief Technologist, SambaNova Systems
- Naveen Rao, Investor, Adviser & AI Expert (moderator)

In a pandemic-struck world, organizations need to do more with less to support the legions of new customers who are going digital for the first time, and the customers who are expecting more than ever.

Digital maturity is essential, and getting started with artificial intelligence is critical to accelerating your customer service offerings. It helps optimize costs, boosts customer satisfaction significantly, and improves self service, which needs to be a top priority for organizations, and more.

To learn about emerging data and customer service trends, don't miss this VB Live event!

Register for free!

You'll learn:
- Why foundational self-service improvement is a top priority
- How to make digital more effective for employees and customers
- Why AI is a catalyst for digital maturity

Speakers:
- Srini Janarthanam, Conversational AI - Technology Designer, NatWest (National Westminster Bank)
- Chad Oda, Head of Consulting | Partner, Chat Mode
- Stewart Rogers, Moderator, VentureBeat