• Published:May 15th, 2009
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:Events, eRepublik V1

It’s been a busy week at the Login Conference in Seattle. The conference gathered hundreds of people from the online gaming space all coming together to share their experiences and knowledge in what could be considered a fairly intimate show in comparison to others of its kind. I spent the days cramming in session after session and chatting with countless intriguing people in between.


From a business standpoint it was a tremendously interesting conference providing insight into things ranging from diverse payment options, to community management, to the future of gaming and more. Given eRepublik’s youth, there was indeed a lot to be taken in.


Highlights included a fantastic session given by Scott Rigby of Immersyve on violence in gaming and the true source of the satisfaction players get from it. It was eye opening not only to understand the true motivations behind players’ fascination with violence, but in reality the satisfaction players get from all aspects of gaming. If you are guessing that the source of satisfaction may not indeed come from the blood and gore itself, then you’ve guessed correctly!


Also tremendously interesting, was the very last session that I attended, which included a modest sized round table moderated by Gameforge’s CEO Carsten van Husen. It was apparent from the group’s brief discussion, which could have lasted for hours, that the main consensus on monetizing free to play gaming is that you must bring value to your players – whether it’s via advertising, subscription, micropayments, or otherwise. Anything short of that is likely to fail at some point or another. Which model, or hybrid of models, proves to most efficient is yet to be seen though. There was certainly much speculation though!


It was definitely an enlightening conference of which I hope more of our team can attend next year!