Google for Games Developer Summit Keynote

♪ (electronic music) ♪ (John) Hi, everyone.

Thanks for tuning in to Googlefor Games Developer Summit.

I'm John and I overseeProduct at Stadia.

We've got a lot ofexciting news to share from across Google's products and we were eagerto share them at GDC.

Now it was a hard call, but we support the GDC organizers for making the right oneby postponing the conference to protect this global community.

Times like these come withbig sacrifices for your teams, especially the many of youwho are independent developers.

That's why we're partneringwith Wings and contributingto the GDC relief fund to lessen the financial impacton those of you who needed the resources from GDC to continue buildingyour great games.

Even though we can't meetin person today, we're still excitedto meet digitally and share severalnew announcements here at our Googlefor Games Developer Summit.

But let's start by taking a step back.

I want to talk about how you, as game developers have introduced huge shifts over the last decade in gaming tech, marketing and user experience.

Take for instance howmobile gaming has transformed the way people access entertainmentand connect with others.

More players around the worldare able to enjoy games anywhere with anyonethan ever before.

What was once a small fractionof the industry is now on track to become a $100 billionsegment in 2021 with more developers succeedingthan ever before.

Here at Google, we've been a leaderin supporting the mobile ecosystem we know today through platformslike Android and Google Play, creating one of the largest gamingcommunities in the world with billions of players.

These players are a part of an increasingly globaland diverse gaming audience.

Thanks to the continuing expansionof internet access, this year, players inSouth East Asia, India, the Middle East and North Africa will drive the majorityof growth in mobile.

This global audience means more playersto experience your game.

But every group of playershas specialized preferences that you'll need to considerto reach them.

At Google, our Ads productshave helped you make your games more discoverableand tailor your experiences to a unique player preferences.

When someone finds and downloadsthe awesome game your team spentcountless hours creating, this means more delightfor your players and more opportunities for youto continue investing in your business.

And the numbers show thatthis is working.

To date, game developers of all sizeshave generated over 27 billion installs with the help of Google Adsapp campaigns and for players, that means accessing games they enjoyhas never been easier.

Finding the right playersfor your game, it's only the first step to buildinga loyal fan base.

The definition of communityhas shifted beyond just what's happeninginside your game.

Today your communities arealso watching and creating content.

Both have become justas important as playing.

And engaging a global audienceto grow your community at scale it's easier on a platform that reaches2 billion users every day.

With more than 200 million peopletuning into gaming content every day racking at more than50 billion hours of gaming watch time per year, YouTube is a platform for your playersto discover your games and connect with fellow fansthrough content on-demand, live streaming and Esports.

These communities are also shiftingtowards openness and cross-platform.

Today, players have higherexpectations than ever when it comes to connectingthrough global games.

They constantly expect moreimmersive gameplay experiences that connect them with like-minded fansfrom around the world.

The Cloud can help you create and deliver these experiencesfor your communities through multi-player gameplay, better matchmaking, live chat and more.

But scaling and managinginfrastructure, it can be complex.

With Google Cloud, our manage services and strong support for open-sourcereduce that complexity, giving you the freedom of choice.

while also allowing you to focuson core elements in producing amazinggame experiences.

This means smaller developersare increasingly empowered.

Once your game is a hit, it can easily scale to millions of players.

The industry continues to growand more players want access to high quality immersive gameson demand.

These days it can be harder to justifyinvesting and creating these types of incredible games because getting discoveredin the first place is challenging enough as it is.

Your visions need a home on a platformwith a broad player base that will not only allow playersto find your game, but to truly experiencesomething awesome.

This is what makes today's demanda prime opportunity for you to attract a broader audience, and these new and ambitious productions that'll require an upfront investment, a wide ranging platform, and then close partnerships.

When we launch Stadia last year, our goal was to give players a platform to play great games with anyone, anywhere, anytime.

By partnering with you, we strive to empower you to produce the nextgeneration of games.

The shifts we just talked aboutare presenting exciting opportunities.

But they can be a lot to considerin addition to all the other things you're already thinkingabout for your game.

Making the mostof these opportunities, it'll require constantly updatingreal-time strategy, a lot of effort and a partner that's buildingfor the future.

You'll find that partner in Google.

We pride ourselves in empowering you and the rest of the developer community with our innovations and our scale.

We've been partnering with yousince the early days and together, we're excitedto keep creating what's next.

In this next hour, you'll hearannouncements addressing how we here at Googleare tackling some of your biggest challenges and we're setting you up for successin the years to come.

To get started with Androidand Google Play, I'll now hand it off to Gregto share the latest.

(Greg) Thanks, John.

Hi, I'm Greg Hartrell, the head of product management for games on Android and Google Play.

I'm excited to take you throughthis next portion of our keynote.

We'll go through an ecosystem updatefor Android and Google Play and share some exciting announcements that will help you reach more devices and grow your player base.

Let's start with some highlightson the ecosystem in the last year.

Android continuesto be a vibrant ecosystem, with Google Play at its heart.

Android is the world's most popularmobile operating system with 2.

5 billion monthlyactive devices worldwide.

Moreover, Play sees more than 2 billionmonthly active users who all find great games, apps, and content for their Android devices.

We also think deeplyabout how our platforms can make you more successful.

Being global and our payment's ecosystemare a big part of this.

Google Play provides forms of payment in more than 67 countries.

And we offer morethan 270 local forms of payment, more than 182 carrier billing options, and we sell gift cards in over 900, 000unique retail locations worldwide.

What's been incredible about mobile gaming is how it has enabled people of all kinds to play games.

The diversity of games in our ecosystem has allowed almost anyone in the world to consider themselves a gamer.

And more people are playingvideo games as a result.

In fact, in 2019, we saw an amazing1.

4 trillion minutes played per month.

With countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia among the fastest growing placesfor playing mobile games.

Another reason for this incredible growth is the diverse and innovative games coming from developers like you.

The innovation for mobile gaminghas created some amazing genre mashups and new, unique types of gameplay.

The increasing diversity is also observed in the people creating these games and across the countrieswhere they reside.

Our Indie Game Accelerator program is an example of where we're helping in this area.

This program helps top indie game startups from emerging markets find success on Google Play.

Last year, we had over 1, 700 applications from developers across 37 countries from Asia to Latin Americaand the Middle East.

Our graduating class received mentorship and bootcamp resources, Cloud and Firebase creditsand an opportunity to be showcased on Google Play.

Congratulations once againto the class of 2019, and we're looking forwardto applications for 2020.

Another program in 2019is the Change The Game Design Challenge, an initiative to increase inclusivenessin mobile game development.

Here, our aim was to inspireteam game creators to share their game idea for a chanceto win a $15, 000 college scholarship and a $15, 000 technology donationto their school or community center.

Partnering with Girls Make Games, we helped five winners produce, develop and launchtheir original game designs on Google Play.

For example, take the game, Brightlove, where the main storyline was to encourage playersto be kind and to take action rather than just beinga mere bystander to the events.

We're looking forward to expandingthis program as well later this year.

That all said, it's important to usthat our platforms are highly useful to every kind of game developer.

Across Android and Google Play, our mission is to deliver the best platform to build, discover and experience games.

We also know there are stilla lot of challenges and opportunities and we can think about them in two ways.

The first is building and increasingyour game's reach.

The sheer scale of Android showsit's still hard to build a game on the platform and manage the fragmentation of this ecosystem.

Then there's accessinga wider player base.

Once you've made a great game, you need to have strong strategies for getting your game discoveredand building the hype for your launches and updates.

We said last year we'd come backwith more in these areas and now we have some awesome thingsto share with you.

Let's start with how we're making iteasier to build and increase the device reach of your game.

We spent a lot of time thinkingabout how to make it easier to build and optimize games for Android.

We heard from you thatwe needed to offer better tools for building and profiling games.

So this area kicks offwith updated tools available in today's Android Studio 4.

1 Canary.

Our Android Studio system trace toolis now overhauled to be more intuitive so you can better understandthe granular timing of how your code is being executedacross the operating system.

We also added native memoryprofiling capabilities so you can better understandhow your game is allocating memory and find memory leaks in your games.

We've also heard your feedback that optimizing graphics on Android is difficult.

The GPU on Android is often a black box and it's hard to navigate different GPU vendor tools to gain the insights you need.

To solve this, today, we're announcinga developer preview of the new Android GPU Inspector.

This single profiling tool works acrossboth Qualcomm and Arm GPUs and provides insights into how your game is using GPU resources and help identify areas for optimization.

Using specialized drivers, you can profile graphics performance bottlenecks through details providedby GPU hardware counters and GPU activity information.

All of this empowers graphic engineerswith insights to help optimize a game for better frame ratesand more battery life.

So your players can experiencesmoother gameplay on more devices.

You can sign up for the previewin the link that you see here.

We also know there are several IDEsto choose from when making a game for Android.

Visual Studio remains oneof the most popular IDEs and for those of you building your games in C++, we heard that your workflows had some pretty complicated setups.

So today, we're announcingthe Android game development extension for use in Visual Studio.

With this extension, it's now easyto add Android Support for your cross-platform games, integrating easily with existing Visual Studio based workflows.

So now, you can generate APKs, deploy to Android devices or an emulator and debug your Android gamefrom within Visual Studio.

You can sign up for that previewat the link that you see here.

Let's switch to another theme.

Helping you reach more Android devices with higher quality experiences has come up in a lot of your feedback.

Today, we're introducing a new setof delivery features for games called, “Play Asset Delivery.

” It builds on our app bundle infrastructure to give you free dynamic deliveryof the right game assets to the right devices at the right time.

Play Asset Delivery allows youto chunk up your game resources into asset packs, deliveredthrough a few smart flexible modes, either as part of the initial install, shortly after install or on-demand during gameplay.

It even supports texture compressionformat targeting to get the most optimal assets onto the right devices.

And manages updates and patchingof all your asset packs.

All of this means your playerscan get into your game sooner while the assets are being downloaded.

And you can also lower the cost of hosting and delivering your game resources.

Play Asset Delivery is available todayto all Play developers with support for native codeand popular game engines.

You can learn more about itat the link you see here and in the recorded session, that will be unlocked in our playlist at the end of this keynote.

Android vitals is another key toolas a destination to understand the technical quality of your game.

To help you get high stabilityin performance on more devices, we're introducing two new capabilities.

The first is supportingnative-crash-symbolication.

So now you can debug game stability issues more easily and crash in ANR's reporting in the Android vitals.

The second is our developer previewof Android Performance Tuner, a new SDK in service that helps youunderstand and improve frame rate performanceacross all Android devices worldwide.

We know that it can be complexto properly tune your game to run at the most optimal fidelityon a range of Android devices.

Integrating Android Performance Tunerin your game unlocks new metrics in Android vitals that showyour game's frame rate performance and issues acrossdifferent Android device models.

Performance Tuner also helps determine your game's best quality level for each device.

So frame rates can run smoother.

For example, you could find aspectsof your game that creates sub-optimal performance on certain devices and choose to avoidrendering certain objects, like in-game vegetation, or turn off graphic effectslike for reflection to smooth out your frame rates.

A better tuned game will minimizethe number of users experiencing poor performanceand avoid negative reviews.

Android Performance Tuneris an invite-only beta starting today and you can fill out the applicationat the link that you see here.

You can also learn more about itwatching our recorded talk called “Deliver High Quality GamesOn More Devices” which will be available in our playlistbelow after the keynote.

We all know the game enginesare an important part of the ecosystem.

So we're excited that game engine options for Android developers continue to grow.

This year, Crytek is empoweringdevelopers even more by adding a full Android pipeline to CRYENGINEavailable this summer.

Known for being a high performancegame engine for PCs and game consoles, CRYENGINE stands to help youpush the boundaries of graphics and display hardware on all platformsincluding Android.

You can learn more about Crytek's plans by going to cryengine.

com/android and signing up for the beta.

In the meantime, please join usin welcoming CRYENGINE to the Android ecosystem.

Another important game engine is Unity.

Over the years, Google teamshave created a lot of Unity plug-ins, and we saw that it was becomingunmanageable for many of you to pull together all of the servicesGoogle has to offer into one place.

So today, we're announcingthe game package registry for Unity by Google.

Supporting Unity 2018.

4 and above, our goal is to give you a single package registryfor all of Google's APIs.

With this announcement, you'll get Google Play billing, Android app bundles, Play Asset Delivery, Play Instant and Firebasefor games all in one place with more API support on the way.

You can downloadthe package registry today using the link that you see here.

Once you've made a great game, then you need to tell everybody about it and help make it a commercial success.

For Google Play, we think a lotabout how to make game discovery easier and give you more toolsso your go-to markets plans can grow your player base.

Our work here is paying off.

as Google Play has continued to grow.

Last year we saw 116 billion downloads of apps and games that you created, distributed to devices in every country on the planet.

This has been incredible growthand we're excited to keep innovating to make this even better.

Last year, we lamented a storefrontthat leads with icons.

When you look at the user experienceof discovering games and play, what's going inside of the actual game can be hidden through layers of textand static images.

An icon alone can't expressthe incredible experience your game offers and the information we provide to userscould be far more compelling.

So we thought deeplyabout the ideal experience.

And we were inspiredby real-life video game arcades.

As you walk through a real-life arcade, you can easily see all the gameplay, cabinet decal marketing, and crowds of people playingwhat's popular.

All of these elements combineto evoke the soul of a game in each of us before you decide to play it and we wanted to use these conceptsto make the Playstore an amazing game discovery experience.

So we've completed an extensivevisual refresh from top to bottom to help the Playstore game sectionbe more exciting and gameplay-centric.

Our game section is nowthe sole destination to find games with top charts, categoriesand collections of games that are more tailored for you, based on the games you and our community play.

Moreover, you will see screenshotsand auto-playing videos of gameplay when pausing over rich clusters of games so you can better see what a game is about before you tap an install button.

And it's not just abouta good user experience.

All of these changes have drasticallyincreased the traffic and engagement of the game section, helping users find games they love and leading to more gameplay.

In fact, elevating auto-playing videosand screenshots has shown a 20 to 75% increase in conversion, depending on how well that content shows the true experience of your game.

Having the right contentcan really make a difference for how your game gets discovered.

And we didn't stop there.

Google's mission is to organizethe world's information and make it universallyaccessible and useful.

This mission also appliesto games on Google Play.

It starts with buildinga deeper understanding of what a game is about, how to describe what types of gamesa player might be into and then better recommendingor showing the right ones to try.

We call this the “genomicdiscovery of games.

” And we think it will make a big difference in how players will discover games.

Let's take puzzle games as an example.

While lots of people play puzzle games, grouping them all into one category doesn't do justiceto all the types of puzzles a user could be into.

In the game industry, we know that these games have erratically differentmechanics and dynamics.

Match 3 puzzle gamesare very different from brain teasers or physics-based puzzlesor an escape room simulator.

But an elderly parent or school-aged child might not know these labels and they will struggle to find more games they like without knowing how to describe the gameplay they enjoy.

With the data from genomicdiscovery applied to a broad spectrum of the Game catalog, we're rolling out new ways to browse, search, filter and recommend games based on these granular attributes.

You'll see more informationabout sub-genres, game aesthetics, the multi-player mode and even what kind of connectivity a game requires.

So for example, a player will eventuallybe able to filter down all offline physics-based puzzle games now that they knowthat their favorite puzzle games are known as physics-based.

We're continuously improving this too.

We crowdsourced these labelsthrough those that you suggest through the Play console and further researched and curated them by our team through the Play Store.

As we deepen our understanding of games, we will offer even more ways you can provide us the metadatayou need to describe your game.

All of this culminatesin making Google Play a great discovery experiencewith our increased focus on quality.

In fact, we've updated our featuringand ranking logic to further prioritize high quality games with strong technical performanceand engaging content.

We asked everyone to look at waysto improve your game's quality.

Here are three key areas to focus on.

First, have a greatin-game user experience that your players find engagingand satisfying.

Second, ensure your game's stabilityand technical performance are strong such as being free of crashes.

And lastly, have an effectiveStore listing page, including the gameplay centered videos and screenshots like we showed earlier.

You can read the detailsof how to take action on quality by following the link that you see here.

And we look forwardto you improving discovery for your game in the Play Store.

Let's also talk about the new servicesavailable to game developers.

One long-term bet for us is Play Pass, which we launched in the USA last year.

At $4.

99 a month, users get access to hundreds of awesome apps and games, completely free of adsand in-app purchases.

We want Android to be a placewhere creative indie breakouts and shorter story-based games can be successful as premium experiences alongside free-to-play titlesand innovative apps.

We'll do that by compensatingdevelopers fairly for the value they providePlay Pass subscribers, whether it's a gamethat can be finished in a few hours or one you can play for weeks on end.

We're using many signalsto reward developers and continue to tune the model, curating the best possible catalog for users.

We want to thank hundreds of developers who joined in the initial offeringas well.

Personally, it's been a great way for me to discover great titles and hidden gems alongside some of the amazing indies we've seen in our indie game contests.

It's still early days and we thank youfor your patience as we scale the program.

Google Play Instant has helped drivemillions of game demos and fast loading games sessionsin the Play Store.

We saw another opportunityto open up a new discovery surface for indie and mid-tier game makerswho have more casual experiences.

The newly updated Play Games app is now an instant gameplay destination that attracts millionsof weekly Android users, including a new gameannouncement each week.

For games that can package themselvesas a Google Play Instant app and incorporate Play Games services, you can apply to publish to the surface and reach a big casual game audience.

We think it's a new and fungameplay surface that can open up the top of your funnel.

We're now accepting applicationsto participate and be considered for featuring at the link that you see here.

At GDC last year, we announcedthat pre-registration was available for all developers on Google Play.

And hundreds of millionsof users registered for your upcoming launches last year.

Combined with early access testing tracks, we think a lot about how to make your launches and updates more successful.

Your biggest fans just wantto get into the game on launch day, and that's why we're rolling outday one auto install for all pre-registered games.

Players will have the optionto auto-install the game the day that it becomes availableand not just receive a notification.

This will just work for gamesthat have billing permission enabled and it's best experience for your users who are eagerly awaiting the dayyour game becomes available.

Let's touch on Play Billing Library 2.

0, which we launched last yearat Google I/O.

Updating to this library gives your games some great new monetization capabilities.

For example, your players can payfor in-app purchases with cash at participating retail locations, like convenience stores.

Also players can discover and purchasein-app purchases outside of your game, such as in the Play Store itself.

And you can expressin-app purchase discounts and sales informationin the Play checkout experience so it matches your in-game storefronts.

Today, we're launching a new versionof Play Billing Library 2.

0 for Unity developers.

It replaces older versionsof the Play IAP store inside of Unity, making it easy to upgrade.

We recommend all developers upgradeto Billing Library 2.

0, both to take advantage of its new features and to prepare for the new Play Billingversion requirements in 2021.

You can learn more about thisin the link that you see here.

One last announcement.

Another big bet we're makingis on Play Points, a user rewards programthat first launched in Japan in 2018 and in Korea, in the USA last year.

Users can earn pointsfrom all of their spending across Google Play.

They can also earn points for freefrom trying new apps and redeeming weekly rewards.

To date, over 6.

6 billion pointshave been redeemed for special items, discounts, Google Play credits and donations to support a good cause.

Our goal is to both thank usersfor their engagement with Play and offer re-engagement opportunities for your players who spend in your game through unique promotions.

Today, we're announcingthe expansion of Play Points in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and we're excited to expand iteven further this year.

Today we announced a lot of new tools and services to help your games reachmore devices and grow your player base on new surfaces and with new go-to-market tools.

A wise man once said, “It's dangerous to go alone.

” Take this handy link as the best resource to catch up on everything we covered today including where to sign upfor all the new betas and developer previews.

As a reminder, at the end of the keynote, we'll be unlocking our playlist below with additional recorded talksthat will go even deeper on many of these topics.

2019 was an amazing year for mobile games, and I'll just end with thank you for all of the amazingand innovative games you bring to Android and Google Play.

For this year, we wish you the very best in your creative and gaming pursuits.

Now I'll hand it off to Abhita to share the latest announcementsfrom Google Ads.

(Abhita) Thanks, Greg.

Hi everyone! I'm Abhita.

I lead development for our app platformand gaming initiatives.

Greg just spoke about how Androidand Google Play tools make it easy to reach and engagewith more players.

Next, I'm excited to share how the newest features from our Ads team will compliment this organic growth and help you createa strong games business.

One of the things we consistently see is that those who builda strong games business always put players first.

In fact, the top game developerssee much higher retention than industry average, suggesting they are creating gamespeople love to keep playing.

The best game developers not onlyunderstand the value of their players, but also their behaviors, and they then use these insightsto build them amazing experiences.

Today, I'm going to show youhow the latest innovations from our Ads and Measurement Teams can help you developa player-first strategy.

We think about building featuresfor game developers in three ways.

First, creating an engaged player base.

Second, improving your gameby learning from your players.

And third, earning more from your game.

Let's dive in to see how.

Creating an engaged player base not only drives positive user experiences, it can also help growyour business revenue.

Invested players are likely to spendmore time in your games and hence generate more revenuefor your business long term.

The first step to creatingand engaged player base is finding those playerswho will love your game.

That means reaching the playerswho are interested in your game in the moments they're lookingfor something new.

Google App Campaigns is our Ads productthat does exactly this.

You just define the goalsthat matter to you based on whatever audience it isyou're trying to reach, whether that's people likelyto install your game or those likely to take actionin your game.

Then, Google's Machine Learninggoes to work and finds more of these playersacross Search, YouTube, Play, Discover, and over 3 million sitesand apps in our network.

We know that App Campaignsare driving more value than ever for the developer ecosystem.

We have seen over 27 billion installsfrom Ads to date, and this is why we're continuingto invest in this area and innovate, so you can do even more.

Our two latest App Campaigns innovationsare designed to help ensure you can capture valuable players at launch and deliver more relevant adsto the right people.

Based on Google internal data, we know that more than half of installs come within the first eight weeksof an app's release.

To make the most of this window, leading developerstypically test their apps in beta before releasing them publicly.

That's why a year ago we introducedOpen Testing in the Google Play Console.

If you're a player, you can try new games before they launch.

If you're a developer, Open Testing enables you to release a test version of your appto get early feedback from users on metrics like battery life, app stability, app startup time, and monetization.

But you need to have enough users for those early insightsto be meaningful.

Very soon you will be ableto use App Campaigns to promote Android apps in Open Testing, to help you find even more testers.

This is how it works.

To start, you just set up your Open Test in the Google Play Consoleand then select your app when setting up a new App Campaign for installs.

By driving players to engagewith your game in beta you can see what's workingand what's not, and then you can use those insights to help you make meaningful improvements before the all-important launch.

Here's an example.

[Netties] is one of our partnerswho took advantage of Open Testing ads in App Campaigns.

Open Testing Ads allowed them to reach a large and representative audience to test their app.

Early feedback was not in linewith their expectations.

It showed lower purchasing behaviorand LTV than what they were expecting.

The team was then ableto use these insights to change the game mechanics.

The end result was a 2X increasein purchases after launch.

Besides testing, early creative insights are also very importantfor a successful launch.

Whether you're promoting an Open Test or a game you've already launched, you really need your ad creative to strike the right chordwith your audience.

Experimenting with creative assetswill soon be easier with App Campaign'snew reporting features.

We've heard requestsfrom a lot of our developers for more actionableinformation on creatives, and we think we've built the right tools to help you build your campaigns using the right assets, and make improvementsto your ad creatives with more detailed reporting.

We have a new tool to help youwith campaign creation.

We're calling it the “Ads Trend Indicator.

” Google's Machine Learning performs best when you upload the highest allowable number of assets.

The more assets we have, the more combinations we can create to build custom creativesand find you the right users.

That's why we give you options for text, image, video, and playable assets.

Our Ads Trend Indicator will now appearin your campaign setup workflow and alert you if you're missingany assets in your campaign.

Once you've set up your campaign, with the optimal set of creatives, our new reporting featureswill provide more transparency into how your ad creatives performacross campaigns and over time.

Not only will you be able to seewhat an asset's overall effectiveness is, but you can alsodive deeper and understand how that asset performs in eachspecific ad group, where it's served.

You can take action to replace an asset only where it's underperforming, while leaving it unchangedwhere it's doing well or still learning.

Continuing with the spirit of makingyour reports easier to use, we're also introducinga Performance Chart.

This chart lets you closely trackperformance movement for your assets over time and against the metricsthat matter to you, whether that is installs, actions, conversions, or value.

If you have similar assets that share the same performance ranking, their performance trendscan provide valuable guidance on which you should double down on, and which you shouldtake out from rotation.

And finally, we're givingyou more visibility into how your creativescan look as real ads through our new Creative Preview tool.

The Preview will show you sample adsassembled from your assets, as they might appear acrossdifferent app campaign placements.

This feature will give you the confidence that your adsare going to look their best.

We hope that these new featureswill give you the control to make more informed decisionsabout what to do next with your assets.

They will be rolling out this spring.

We will continue acting on your feedback, and you can expectmore improvements in the future.

Our goal is to make our reporting features more helpful, more detailed, and more actionable, so you have the insightsto make ads that wow your players and encourage them to installand keep playing your games.

Now, insights about the performanceof your ad creatives can help you tuneyour acquisition strategy, which helps you builda strong player base.

But in order to builda strong games business, you need to make sureyour players stay engaged.

This is where understandinghow people are playing your games becomes really important.

The right insights can help you focuson the parts of your game players love, improve features that they don't, and understand how player engagement is contributingto your overall business goals.

Google Analytics allows youto better understand what's working well for your players, and where their experiencecan be improved.

Last year we launchedApp + Web properties which is a new property typein Google Analytics that is cross-device and cross-platform.

This allows you to measure your appand web data in a single place and do all sorts of custom analysis.

And today, for gaming apps, we're taking it a step further, and announcinga new game reporting experience.

This new reporting experienceorganizes your reports so that the insights which aremost relevant to your games business are surfaced to you first, saving you time and effort.

Here's a screenshotof what this looks like.

You'll see a new navigation menuof acquisition, retention, engagement, and monetization reportswith game-specific metrics like user stickiness and revenuefrom in-app purchases and ads.

This can help you see how playersmove through your game, and then you can use these insightsto improve the game experience and drive more revenue.

For example, if you noticeplayers dropping off after level three, you can make the level easieror try giving away in-game boosters to help them complete the leveland keep playing.

You can also use Google Analyticsto identify an audience of players who've stopped playing your game, and easily export itright back to Google Ads, where you can then use App Campaignsto reach those players with a tailored messageencouraging them to return.

In order to accessthis new reporting experience, you'll need the Firebase SDKintegrated in your app.

You can then create an App + Web property in Google Analytics and add an app stream for your game.

A web stream is not required, but the option is there, if it's relevant for your business.

As you use these insightsto improve your game, you also need to make sure these changesare paying off for your business.

To help you stay on topof your ads revenue, we're excited to announceour new AdMob mobile app.

We're taking key reports like revenue and impression trendsfrom our AdMob platform, and making them available on mobile so you can easily monitor your earnings even when you are away from your computer.

We also want to makethe data we surface a lot more useful.

We have heard from many developersthat it has been a challenge to pinpoint the valueof Ads-monetized users.

That's why, in additionto ads-based metrics like impressions and aggregated payments, we're also introducinguser-based reporting, beginning with our new user cohort report.

This report will give you insights into how the lifetime valueof a particular user cohort changes as they progressthrough the player lifecycle, allowing you to start to understandwho your most valuable players are.

This report is our first step on the way to developingactionable user insights, while still protectingyour players' privacy.

A lot of developers have told usthat they're very excited about how this report will maketheir data not only more useful, but also cut down on the workneeded to access it.

Uri Danan, from Crazy Labs, one of the top global game developers, is looking forwardto the launch of this report to save time and overheadacross his company.

This new cohort reportwill automatically be available in your AdMob account this spring.

These player-oriented reportsgive you deeper insights on how people are engaging with your game.

But to grow your business, you need to be able to take action, based on what you've learned.

If you're monetizing your game with ads, AdMob can help you maximizethe value of every impression by A/B testing your monetization setup.

Speaking of monetization setups, mediation is a tried-and-tested way to help developers maximize revenuefrom multiple networks.

But we know that it comeswith a lot of challenges: you have to manage multiple SDKs, multiple reporting and payment systems.

Waterfalls can also causeslow loading times that cause disruption for your players.

And most importantly, because mediation uses historical data, you could be missing outon potential revenue.

That's why Google is movingbeyond the traditional waterfall model to our in-app bidding solution, Open Bidding.

Rather than using historical datato prioritize networks, Open Bidding calls all participatingnetworks at the same time, enabling them to compete equallyin a single real-time auction.

For any given impression, the winneris always the highest-paying network, because all networksget the same priority, including Google.

Open Bidding has the potentialto maximize the value of every impression and bring in more revenuethan waterfall mediation.

But in order to be sure, you would want to compare the performance of each monetization setup.

Today, developers who wantto test a new approach don't have many options, and we see them using all sortsof imperfect techniques.

One common approach that we see is deploying a changeto the players in one country to see how that group respondsbefore rolling the change out globally.

But player behavior is very differentacross different countries.

For example, players in Japanare very different from players in Brazil.

This and other such approachesare easier than setting up a true test, but it's not a scientificallyrigorous way to gain insights because there are many variablesthat can influence your results.

To make testing easier and more reliable, we have built a tool to run A/B testsright from your AdMob account.

Using this tool, you'll be able to easily test different ads monetization setupswithout updating your app, and then analyze the test results easily with a dedicated report in our front end.

This is how it works.

Once you set up your test, AdMob will split your traffic to run on your control groupand the variant at the same time.

We will analyze and deliver the results so you can decide whether you wantto commit to the changes or keep your original setupwith just one click.

Here's an example.

A Dutch game developing company, called GameHouse, used mediation A/B testing when they were considering Open Bidding.

They set up a test on one app to compare waterfall mediation to Open Bidding.

After running the test for two weeks, they found that Open Biddingdelivered a 12% lift in total revenue.

The team now plans to replicatethe same test in two other apps to continue growing their revenue.

A/B testing different monetization setups is a great way to understandwhat sort of a revenue uplift you can expect before committing to a change.

This is especially useful when considering new monetization models like Open Bidding.

Here's another idea you can test.

AdMob provides an automated featurefor ad network optimization called “ANO.

” You can set up a test to seewhich one earns you more: ANO or inputting CPMs manually.

One last note on this tool, and this is my personal favorite.

This tool is built on the sameexperiment infrastructure that we use for Google Search and for all of Google'sinternal analysis.

That means your tests will be backed by the same stabilityand statistical rigor that we expect of allof Google's product launches.

As you've heard, taking a player-first approach can help you build a thriving businessaround your game.

You can create an engaged player baseby bringing in more players through open testing ads in App campaigns and improved asset reporting.

Improve your gameby learning from your players with the games reportfrom Google Analytics and the mobile appand cohort report from AdMob, and maximize the value of your player base by finding the right monetization strategy through A/B testing your AdMob setup.

All of these new Ads toolscan help you reach a wider player base and sustain success at scale.

That's all I have.

Thank you so much! I'll be handing it off to Rob, who will talk about how Google Cloud can help you scale your infrastructure.

(Rob) Thank you, Abhita.

I'm Rob Martin, Chief Architectfor gaming at Google Cloud.

Abhita just talked about the importance of developing a player-firstmonetization strategy.

At Google Cloud, player experience comes first.

Our goal is to help you simplifyinfrastructure management, focus on deliveringgreat cross-platform player experiencesat a global scale.

We do that in three ways.

First, we provide highly performantand globally available infrastructure to power seamless gaming experiences.

Second, we give youthe data analytics and insights you need to optimize your game's performance.

And finally, we help reducethe management complexity and lock-in with our open-source gaming solutions.

Everything we do starts withour globally available infrastructure.

Our powerful compute offerings, such as compute-optimized VMs, that run at 3.

8 GHz, are spread across our 22 regions, including gaming meccas, such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Seoul.

We've previously announcedthree more regions to come in Las Vegas, Jakarta, and Warsaw.

And earlier this monthwe announced new regions in Delhi, Doha, Toronto, and Melbourne.

This is the same technical infrastructure that makes low-latency experienceon Stadia, possible.

These locations are tied togetherby our private fiber optic cable network.

We have two tiers of network offerings, but our premium network tieris what we recommend for games.

This keeps traffic on Google's private fiber networkas long as possible and exits to the public Internet at the closest location to the player.

Apex Legends with Multiplayis one of the many games that are utilizingGoogle Cloud's infrastructure to power their game, reaching millions of playersin record amounts of time during their launch.

Hit games produce billionsand billions of data points per day.

Embedded within those eventsare the insights that can change your gamefrom a flash in the pan to a sustainable, long-term success.

Google Cloud offers a complete, smart analytics platform to help you capture, process, and analyze data so that you can give your user acquisition, live ops, and game development teams the insights they need to be successful.

BigQuery is the cornerstoneof our smart analytics platform.

It's a scalable, serverless data warehouse that can handle large amountsof data seamlessly.

Our analytics platformcomes with ML capabilities built in, so your analysts can access the datathey need in real-time and build ML modelsdirectly inside BigQuery with familiar SQL.

BigQuery ML has expanded functionalityto address even game-specific needs, such as k-means clusteringto build player segmentation, and matrix factorization to bring advertisingand product recommendations.

King is using BigQuery to analyze billions of events per dayfrom their hit games.

This data is usedfor a variety of purposes.

But one of the coolerand more productive use cases is in training ML player modelsthat can simulate playtesting, reducing the time it takesto test individual levels from days to hours.

Your data scientists will alsohave access to AutoML Tables.

AutoML allows you to producestate of the art ML models on structured data with just one click.

Jam City is using AutoML tables to predict player behaviorin a short amount of time.

By combining those insightswith their Google AdWord spend, they're able to increase the ROI on their user acquisitionand their revenue.

Finally, Google Cloud is workingwith the games industry to build open-source solutionsthat fit the needs of developers.

Open Match, co-founded with Unity, provides a flexible, extensible, and scalable matchmaking framework.

It gives you controlover your custom match logic but frees you from the complexity of managing the underlying infrastructure.

Agones, co-founded with Ubisoft, provides a simple, open-source solution for game server scaling and management.

Since it's based on Kubernetes, it can run on bare metal or multiple cloudswith standard Kubernetes tooling.

Agones is ideal for managing game server deploymentson a regional level.

But we want to makemanaging a global game simpler, and that's why we're happy to announce Google Cloud Game Servers, or GCGS, now in beta.

Game Servers is a managedservice offering for Agones that reduces the complexityof running Agones clusters globally.

It provides developerswith choice, simplicity, and flexibility.

Developers running Agones in production can simply opt in to the managed service by registering Agones clusterswith the Game Services API.

You can opt out and choose to manage these Agones clustersyourself at any time.

Game Servers also lets you define custom policies that are suitedto your global game.

Finally, Game Servers will support Google Kubernetes engineworkloads in beta, but we know that avoiding being locked in to a specific environment is important to developers, and we're working on multi-cloud support, which will come later in the year.

If your game is running on Stadiawith Google Cloud as the backend, your players can havea more consistent experience as both Stadia and GCPhave a common technical infrastructure.

Of course, Stadia gamescan run on any cloud, and Google Cloud supports all platforms.

We'll hear more about Stadiafrom Erin, shortly.

Finally, we're working with a wide rangeof publishers, studios, and developers to bring these innovationsto the gaming industry.

No matter what genreor platform your game is on or where in the world it's running, we can help support your game.

We're proud to have recently announced a strategic partnershipwith Activision Blizzard to power their games on Google Cloud, and we look forward to workingwith all of you on your next big hit.

And now I'd like to pass it to Erin, who's going to tell usabout the latest opportunities for game developers on Stadia.

Thank you.

(Erin) Thanks, Rob.

I'm Erin, and I lead the creative teamfor research and development at Stadia.

You've just heard how Google Cloud can help you scale your gamearound the globe.

I'm here to share how Stadiais empowering you with new opportunities on our platform.

It was just over one year ago, at Moscone Center in San Francisco, kicking offthe Game Developers Conference where we first unveiledour vision for Stadia to developers, players, and YouTube creators.

Since last March, we've createdmultiple social channels, a community blog, and our own series of direct-to-consumerdigital press conferences called “Stadia Connect, ” all of which are starting to buildconversation and community for Stadia.

Gamers across North America and Europe are now playingnewly released games on Stadia, like DOOM Eternal, across TV, PC, laptops, and a variety of phones.

Before now, a brand-new AAA titleplaying on a low-end PC or a smartphone would have been unthinkable to players.

But for today's presentation, we're focused on a singular audience: game developers.

We'll share how our team at Stadiais expanding partnership capabilities for developers of all sizes as we tackle the futureof gaming in the Cloud together.

A year ago, at GDC, we showed youthe long-term vision for Stadia.

Thank you to the many of youwho have partnered with us on the beginning of this journey.

We showed you the vision of a platformthat delivers your content to the world in a brand-new way.

Since November, you've shipped more than 30 games and more than 60 game updates, all of which were deliveredto players in seconds without waiting for downloads.

Thank you for all of your hard workover these first few months.

Last March, we showed you a vision of players getting into your games easier than ever.

Today, a brand-new playercan sign up to Stadia, check their connection, and get into your gamein under four minutes.

And players who already havea Stadia account can get into your gamein an average of nine seconds.

We showed you playersinteracting with your games in new ways through YouTube, with features like Crowd Play.

In the last few months, we've delivered those APIs to many of you who are working to integrate and test them in your upcoming games shipping this year.

We showed you players watching videosabout your games on YouTube and jumping directly into them in seconds.

Later this year, we'll roll this out globallyfor all partners.

We promised you development tools that would workwith your existing workflows, letting you bringyour best ideas to Stadia.

Since then, we've workedwith hundreds of you to start your work on Stadia with more than 120 gamesshipping this year alone.

Together, we're delivering on the vision to bring your gamesto more players in seconds and in more places than ever before.

And the immediacy of Stadia extendsto the development community as well.

We've heard from you that the easeof sharing a build across the world is a much simpler process on Stadia.

Just upload a buildand teams can click a link and test instantly.

Distributed teamslike Chump Squad, makers of Kine, can have artists in Australiaand QA in Poland and collaborate more efficiently, thanks to what it meansto create games on Stadia in the Cloud.

And the support from the game developmentcommunity only continues to grow.

We have hundreds of titlesand active development from the best studios in the world, from teams with incredible history, like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, to immensely talented development studios, like Robot Entertainment.

We're also thrilled to announcea new partnership with the accomplished teamat Splash Damage in London.

In the coming months, we'll be sharing more about the gamewe've been working on together, and we're so excitedto see how it comes to life exclusively on Stadia.

The developers we're working withcontinue to inspire us as we grow our platform.

It takes a leap of faith to step into somethingthis new and different.

Thank you for your hard work.

In addition to these partnerships, we are also investing heavily in our own first-party efforts under the Stadia Games& Entertainment division, led by Jade Raymond.

Over the past six months, we've opened two new studios: one in Playa Vistaled by Shannon Studstill who previously ran Sony Santa Monica, the studio responsible for God of War; and the other studio in Montrealis led by Sebastien Puel, the Executive Producerof Assassin's Creed Black Flag and many other hit Ubisoft titles.

We'll continue to invest in these studios and deliver world-classAAA content to Stadia.

In December, we acquired Typhoon Studios, creators of the critically acclaimedJourney to the Savage Planet, which brings Alex Hutchinson, creative director of Far Cry 4 and Reid Schneider, former Head of Productionat Warner Brothers Games Montreal, to the Stadia family, along with the rest of their fantasticdevelopment team at Typhoon.

With strong creative teamsand infrastructure in place, SG&E's first-party efforts are focusedon utilizing Google's unique technologies to create richer, more immersive experiences that are only possible in the Cloud.

We're also building publishing servicesthat bring together the best of Google.

We want to help you publish your gameon any screen playable anywhere.

Together, we will discover and createeven more unique ways to transform interactive entertainment.

If you're interested in joining uson this adventure and having your gamepublished exclusively on Stadia, please reach out at stadia.

dev As a new platform, we could only workwith a select few of you for our launch in November.

Thank you for your patienceand understanding.

Now that we're a few months down the road, we've improved our toolsand built new partnerships that will let us workwith many more of you.

We're now ready to take the first steps to welcome more independent developers to Stadia.

To do this right, we started by taking a step back and talking to you about what you're trying to accomplish, what you need, and how you want to work with us.

So today, we're announcing Stadia Makers, a self-publishing program for experienced, independent game developers.

For these first stepsinto self-publishing, Stadia Makers is partnering with Unity, a team with a history of building new platforms hand in handwith the development community.

Unity has worked with thousandsof game developers over the years.

Today, Unity has optimizedsupport for Stadia and more than 25 other platforms and powers 50% of all new games.

Launching a game on a new platformcan be a challenge.

There's no way around it.

And there's even more to considerwhen that new platform lives in the Cloud.

Which is why we've worked with Unity to define a committed technical support structure coming from experts on the Unity team.

In addition, the Stadia Makers programwill include funding from us at Stadia and up to five piecesof development hardware for your team.

And we won't be impactingyour list of target platforms beyond asking you to ship on Stadiaalongside your other planned skews.

But, of course, the journey to launchis only one piece of the puzzle.

It's also important that we delivera valuable marketplace to our development partners, a marketplace where your gamecan be discovered once it's time to launch.

That's why we're keepingthe list of approved developers for Stadia Makers small as we take steps towards broader supportfor independent developers.

For this initial stage of our self-publishing efforts with Stadia Makers, we're looking for experienced game developers who have shipped games in the pastand are using Unity 2019.

3 or later for their in-development title.

If you're interested in getting involvedwith Stadia Makers and being one of the firstapproved developers to self-publish on Stadiawith technical assistance from Unity, head over to stadia.

dev and apply.

We'll also continue to expandour engine support for Stadia Makers, so long as we can guarantee a strong developer support systembefore doing so.

Part of that ongoing investmentin developer support comes in the formof new developer tools as well.

We're happy to announcenew integrations with Backtrace, which makes it easy for Stadia developers to push crash reportsfrom their Stadia games to Backtrace, enabling them to captureand monitor errors, prioritize issues to work on, and get everything they need to debug and resolvegameplay impacting problems.

And Vivox, which deliversscalable, feature-rich and proven in-game voice and text chat.

It's used by some of the world'slargest developers, like Ubisoft and Riot Games.

Vivox is fully engine-agnosticas well as being cross-platform.

And the same goesfor our last new tool of the day, PlayFab, from our friends at Microsoft, a complete backend platform for live gameswith managed games services, real-time analytics, and LiveOps, so Stadia developers can boost revenueand increase player engagement across any engine or platform.

And this is all in additionto the suite of tools that already exists on Stadia today, including RenderDoc, GAPID, and tools from AMD, Intel, and others.

These tools are just the beginningfor where game development is headed on Stadia.

We have a lot more in store.

We're deeply investingin the field of machine learning to bring new workflows and approachesto the practice of game development.

The Stadia researchand development team and I have put together a full breakdown of the current state of our workand machine learning in our talk following this keynote.

And that's just oneof the many great talks from team Stadia and the rest of Google.

Thank you for your time today.

Stadia has madeexciting progress as a platform in just a few short months since launch, and none of it would bepossible without you.

We're excited to hearfrom you on stadia.

dev, whether you're interested in partneringwith Stadia Games & Entertainment to build the next big hit, or interested in bringing your Unity title to our new self-publishing program, Stadia Makers.

Now, I'll hand it back to Johnto share some final thoughts.

(John) Thanks, Erin.

You've just heard the latest announcements across Google focused on addressingsome of your biggest challenges and setting you upfor success for years to come.

Android and Play are makingit easier to build games and reach new audiences.

Ads are introducing waysto grow your business and earn more by increasingfocus on your players.

Cloud is helping youscale your game globally with ease and Stadia shared some excitingnew platform opportunities.

Here, at Google, our teams are working together to build solutions that will empower you throughout the game developmentlife cycle and beyond.

We are here to continuepartnering with all of you to create the next generation of games, to connect with new players, and to scale your businessaround the world today and tomorrow.

I invite you to learn moreabout what we've shared today by tuning into our Mobile, Cloud and Stadia sessions.

And from all of us, thank youfor keeping this community thriving.

The future of gaming is already here, and we can't wait for what comes next.

♪ (electronic music) ♪.