Player Retention, Digital Game Delivery to Underpin Akamai Presence at Game Developers Conference

Interactive, in-booth gameplay will demonstrate the ramifications of poor player experiences

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Mar 02, 2016, 06:30 ET

Akamai Technologies logo.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- While more gamers are opting for digital game downloads over brick and mortar purchases, 95% of all players are leaving games within the first month of play regardless of format. This means game publishers are continuously challenged to effortlessly deliver and protect more engaging – and increasingly digital – game content.

Executives from Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services, will participate in the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from March 14th to 18th to discuss the industry's changing and immensely connected digital game landscape. In addition to a presentation and panel hosted by Akamai's Senior Games Industry Marketing Manager, Nelson Rodriguez, the Akamai games team will conduct technology demonstrations at booth 1942.

"Player expectations and habits are changing, and nearly every role within the games organization is affected. Marketing and sales teams are working to balance in-store behaviors with growing preferences for digital game downloads, while developers and customer experience managers are challenged to deliver fast and secure content in the face of ever-growing file sizes," said Rodriguez. "Players, on the other hand, just want access to their games and downloads whenever and wherever they are. That's creating intense but constructive pressure on the games industry."

Rodriguez will present "The Death of Preorders" on Thursday, March 17th, from 2 to 2:30 p.m., which focuses on the three key ways game software preorders are changing industry-wide. On the same day, from 3 to 3:30 p.m., he will host "Why Players Leave," a panel discussion of the avoidable points of friction leading to player churn. The panel will include industry veterans Mark Robinson, CEO of game analytics and marketing firm DeltaDNA; Rick Buonincontri, CEO of game delivery firm Solid State Networks; and Omar Abdelwahed, VP of Engineering at development studio Mighty Play.

The Akamai booth will play host to Akamai's team of games experts, and "The Abandoned," a new, interactive experience that uses actual gameplay to demonstrate the risk of bad player experiences.

Akamai works with 23 of the top 25 gaming companies in the world, and more than 60 percent of the top grossing iOS and Android game developers. The company's Media Delivery, Web Performance and Security solutions help gaming publishers deliver secure, seamless transactions and rich, responsive experiences to gamers around the globe and on every device. With this level of reliability and quality, game developers can capitalize on every event, promotion, launch and opportunity to engage at scale and with peace of mind.

For more information about Akamai's presence at GDC, please visit http://www.akamai.com/gdc.

About Akamai
As the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers. The company's advanced web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions are revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere. To learn how Akamai solutions and its team of Internet experts are helping businesses move faster forward, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
This release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about future business plans and opportunities. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, a failure of Akamai's offerings or functionalities to operate as expected, a lack of market acceptance of such service offerings and functionalities, and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10- Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.