Date: Friday 1st September
Time: 12:10pm
Join us for an honest and down-to-earth panel discussion, where industry veterans from Google, PikPok, and RocketWerkz spill the beans on making your game financially successful.
Our panelists Lyle Warren (Google), Karah Sutton (PikPok) and Stephen Knightly (RocketWerkz) will be interviewed by Melanie Langlotz (Geo AR Games).
Hear about some of the real-life tales and revenue struggles our panelists have experienced and learn strategies on how to increase your revenue and build your playerbase.
About the Facilitator
Melanie Langlotz trained originally as a digital visual effects artist and worked on many TV and film productions over the course of 20 years. Her passion for media and entertainment led to developing the world’s 1st digital playground experience “Magical Park” in 2015, after her stepdaughter, back then 7 years old, lost interest in parks and playgrounds. Her company Geo AR Games was founded with the initial purpose to get kids off the couch and physically active outside through educational mobile games. The ever-growing climate change issues drove the international development of new digital education experiences and innovative projects that won Ms Langlotz and her company Geo AR Games several awards and nominations. A steady interest in global collaboration and problem solving stimulated a new “pay-it-forward” business model which assists cities in getting their environmental messages out into their community.
About the panellists
Lyle Warren is a tech and monetisation specialist with experience supporting developers and publishers to maximise the revenue potential of their products. Lyle has worked at large corporations such as Yahoo and Google, (his current employer), as well as his own business.
A long time gamer, having started playing on his Atari ST in the 80s, Lyle is now fortunate enough to be able to match his passion for gaming with his experience and skills, helping developers monetise their games in online environments.
Karah Sutton is the Chief Publishing Officer at New Zealand-based video game developer and publisher PikPok. With a decade of experience in games and entertainment, Karah oversees the Publishing operations at PikPok including marketing, advertising, customer support, community management, licensing, and public relations. She has had the pleasure of working on more than 20 of PikPok’s games since starting with the studio in 2013, including recent successes Agent Intercept, Rival Stars Horse Racing, Into the Dead 2, and mobile classics Flick Kick Football, Four Letters, Robot Unicorn Attack 2, and the original Into the Dead.
Outside of games, Karah has worked on films, board games, and published her first children’s novel, with a second to be published in October of 2023.
At RocketWerkz, Stephen Knightly led the marketing of PC survival game Icarus which launched at #1 worldwide on Steam and has been monetised through DLC and constant weekly updates since. He has also developed mobile games at his own studio InGame and done marketing consulting for Xbox, Grinding Gear Games and MTV Games. Stephen was a board member and former Chairperson of the NZ Game Developers Association and former partner in tech marketing agency Pursuit PR.
