SZ Cheat Sheet: Mobile Trends and Analyses 2/12/16
Before happy hour tonight, here is some useful info we’ve aggregated for you to use during cocktail conversations
Keen insights in this Chartboost blog post about finding success in every facet of game development, not simply in isolating one goal (usually sales) as your metric. This doesn’t mean that success is simple. Compared to when Roofdog started out, building games has simply become more complex. “In general, all the work you need to do around your game to have any chance of being profitable is much higher,” Germain says. “You need a very well-designed game, good monetization systems and analytics to keep users interested.”
Everett Wallace explains the relentlessly addictive qualities that have helped the game Tap Titans earn millions of installs in the United States and find global success. Hint: it’s M-O-N-E-Y. A button on the screen lets you gamble real money to win fake gold, and an in-game store that lets you buy virtual weapons for cash. Oh, and the game’s text is in Chinese! Read the content here.
This is from Oscar Clark’s (Evangelist for Unity Technologies) presentation on measuring the player lifecycle at White Nights Helsinki 2016:
“I don’t want people to spend too early”, Clark said, saying that players should feel comfortable within the game before they spend, in order to encourage them to spend repeatedly. “Players churn, get over it.”
The mobile games and advertising industries are buzzing with the notion of pre-registration being more universally embraced as a means of monetizing gameplay. Mobile games have employed similar marketing tactics to those of the movie and sports industries.
Still, mobile games rarely get the same build-up, which in part prompted PreLaunch.me, an app that lets users track the game’s development and engage in a community with other like-minded users.
According to Ken Akasura and Pocket Gamer, 49% of these users say that they would be willing to spend between $1 and $30 on a mobile game.
How it works: Users tap the “pre-register” button and receive a notification when the app is ready for download. These notifications serve as push-advertisements, reminding users to download a new game once it’s released.