Tomas Hubka

The GameAnalytics monetization series: Exploring game monetization: Traditional strategies Exploring innovative game monetization: Alternative approaches Exploring monetization: Maximizing game revenue Exploring monetization: Using data to guide decisions ________________ In our exploration through Part 1 and Part 2, we established the two primary monetization models: freemium and premium games, including numerous examples of monetization strategies. While much attention and effort is often directed towards monetization within free-to-play games, premium games also offer revenue generation opportunities. Regardless of which model your game aligns with, the core principles of successful monetization remain the same – prioritizing player satisfaction while maximizing revenue potential. Successful game monetization strategies To ensure that you’re effectively implementing and managing your monetization efforts, several approaches can be taken: 1. Tracking revenue and player behavior Tracking revenue and player behavior involves collecting and analyzing data related to in-game transactions, player...

The GameAnalytics monetization series: Exploring game monetization: Traditional strategies Exploring innovative game monetization: Alternative approaches Exploring monetization: Maximizing game revenue Exploring monetization: Using data to guide decisions ________________ Last week we explored traditional monetization strategies commonly employed in the gaming industry, focusing on freemium and premium models. We outlined various methods such as in-app purchases, advertising, and limitation removal, highlighting their implementation and impact on player experiences. However, it is not a secret that our industry is constantly changing as player preferences and market trends are shifting over time. What worked once will not necessarily work the second time, and a strategy that uplifted one game could be detrimental to another. This is why Game Developers, Growth Managers and Game Designers should be aware of as many innovative monetization solutions as possible. Beyond revenue generation, these alternatives offer resource-efficient options...

The GameAnalytics monetization series: Exploring game monetization: Traditional strategies Exploring innovative game monetization: Alternative approaches Exploring monetization: Maximizing game revenue Exploring monetization: Using data to guide decisions ________________ Decades ago, you’d place your game with a price tag on a shelf and hope for the best. However, with everything moving into the digital world, there are plenty of ways to earn from your game. Do you charge players upfront, or opt for the freebie route and make money from ads and in-app purchases? It could be a bit of a maze out there, but we’re here to guide you through the world of game monetization. Why should you monetize your game? Before exploring typical approaches, let’s take a moment to remember why we monetize our games in the first place. Understanding the purpose behind monetization is important as it guides...

NOTE: Certain platforms send error events automatically if enabled, while others require manual sending. To start sending events for FPS, Boot time, and Memory, it is required to upgrade your SDK to Unity 7.8.0 or newer. Every game developer strives to deliver a seamless and optimized gaming experience. To support your efforts, we expanded the capabilities of Health reporting, introducing FPS (frames per second), Memory Usage management, and App Boot Time features. Complementing existing error messages and related charts, our health reporting toolset allows developers to delve deeper into their game’s performance metrics, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately enhance player satisfaction. Our health feature offers robust filtering capabilities, enabling developers to dissect performance metrics by country, build, and device. Such a granular level of analysis empowers developers to identify performance inconsistencies across different platforms and tailor optimizations accordingly. At...

If you want to optimize your games, improve user experience, and enhance monetization, insights are everything. Understanding player behavior, trends, and preferences can make or break a game’s success. That’s where GameAnalytics’ Raw Export comes in—an innovative feature allowing you to automate the export of your games’ data in its raw JSON format and transfer it in real time. Raw Export was developed with one goal in mind: to empower developers with a need to perform custom analytics. By providing immediate access to raw data, we enable developers to build internal tools without the need for extensive research and development time or infrastructure costs. Developers can, therefore, focus solely on extracting insights and driving their games’ success. Automate your data flow with Raw Export Raw Export is a cutting-edge service that automatically extracts and transfers your game’s raw data to...

Securing a coveted spot in the top charts can be a game-changer for developers. It opens doors to increased downloads, revenue, player engagement, and long-term success in the competitive mobile gaming world. To help you navigate the complexities of app stores, we developed the Store Intelligence platform. Store rankings are not just empty metrics; they provide valuable insights into player preferences, market trends, and the factors that drive a game’s success. Access to such metrics is especially important for developers and studios aspiring to get to the top, who do not have the resources for expensive data solutions and data scientists to help them translate acquired data into actionable insights. Together with our Benchmarks, Store Intelligence presents a tangible opportunity to understand your competitors’ strategies and how they turn them into engaging gameplay mechanics, monetization strategies, and more. The biggest...

Achieving success when creating a game requires more than creativity and innovation. Knowing and correctly interpreting your KPIs is undoubtedly the foundation of making educated decisions during game development. And to support you on your data journey, we compiled a list of the 22 most essential metrics to keep an eye on. But while paying attention to your game performance cannot be overstated, it is equally important to deeply understand player preferences and industry standards. From performance comparison to trend identification, game industry benchmarks offer a grand scale to set realistic goals and expectations. Providing data and insights from over 140,000 game studios and developers, our Benchmarks are a powerful ally for game developers. The tool offers a wealth of information on key metrics such as retention, monetization, engagement, and advertising, enabling developers to understand player behavior and market trends...

When it comes to game and mobile app analytics, there are hundreds of metrics numbers to track. There are metrics like downloads, sessions, or DAUs on one end of the spectrum. These numbers are relatively straightforward and measure concrete actions. More complicated metrics include user churn or Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU). These are less intuitive to interpret and might raise more questions than answers. While there’s no one-size-fits-all policy for game analytics, some useful metrics can help shed light on how you can improve your mobile game. To better understand how these metrics relate to each other and provide comprehensive insights into your game’s performance, we divide them into three main categories: engagement metrics, monetization metrics, and advertising metrics. Each category focuses on different aspects of player behavior, revenue generation, and marketing effectiveness, allowing you to optimize various...

Addressing developers’ demands for more nuanced retention analysis, we created a solution beyond conventional retention metrics, empowering developers and studios to gain a deeper understanding of player behavior and refine their strategies for long-term success. Our engagement feature enables developers to filter retention based on various event types, offering a granular view of player behavior beyond standard global filters such as country or platform. By creating custom cohorts for retention, developers can tailor their analyses to specific in-game actions, answering critical questions such as whether users return after completing a particular level, making specific purchases, or investing resources in the game. Here is everything you need to know about this feature: Tracking event-based player retention While traditional retention metrics usually focus on install-based data, GameAnalytics’s Engagement feature allows you to filter retention based on player events. You can explore player...

The importance of data in game development is undeniable and crucial for optimizing user experience, player retention, monetization, and more. GameAnalytics helps over 60,000 gaming studios optimize and improve their games, offering a well-supported ecosystem of integrations whatever your dev tools of choice. When considering switching engines, the real challenge lies in preserving historically collected data, which serves as a compass guiding future game enhancements and decision-making. We understand these concerns and make sure that you can confidently switch between engines, knowing that your historical data remains intact and actionable.All you need to do is instrument your SDK of choice, and the data collection continues in our engine-agnostic platform, enabling you to make data-driven decisions and continually refine your games. To make it as easy as possible, GameAnalytics is compatible with a wide range of not only engines but also...