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7 min read
#Ads & Monetization

Casual Game IAP Monetization Trends

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Joel Julkunen, Head of Game Analysis at GameRefinery. In his role, he leads GameRefinery’s analytics department and has a major role in developing algorithms and statistical models used in the company.  Since the early days of free to play mobile gaming, monetization has been the talk of the town. Resistance, reluctance and rage were common among mobile gamers as designers were trying to figure out this revolutionary business model and its mechanics. Today things have fortunately changed quite a bit, but getting monetization right still isn’t easy – far from it! In this post, GameRefinery takes a look at some of the recent macro trends in casual game IAP monetization. This short read should hopefully give you insights and inspiration to take your monetization to the next level. What Are Casual Games?...
JoyPac
#Case study

How JoyPac uses GameAnalytics to evaluate games for publishing in Asia

Having released 18 successful mobile games in a 7 month period, JoyPac is proving that hyper-casual titles can make it big in Asia. The founding team at JoyPac has decades of experience releasing mobile games across the globe, including throughout Asia. They have first-hand knowledge of the pitfalls that most Western game developers face when trying to break into these markets. That’s why JoyPac was founded on a strong belief of improving transparency, clear communication, and building close partnerships with game developers looking to break into Asia. GameAnalytics helps JoyPac deliver on that promise with uncapped access to global performance data, giving their partners the ability to analyze and optimize their stats – for free. JoyPac’s Western team is based in Copenhagen, which helps them address a lot of the problems that developers often encounter when dealing with publishing partners...
11 min read
#Data & Analytics

How To Conduct User Research In The Prototype Stage For Your Game

Whether it’s your game concept or your core game features, prototyping and testing ideas at an early stage can you let you know a lot about the health of your game, and more specifically, if people are actually going to enjoy it. Ideally, you’ll want to make sure your title is popular the moment it hits the market. Not only is testing in the early stages of development good for getting your game out there, but it can also help you focus your production process on features that will make the most impact on your intended audience. In this post, you’ll find the steps you need to take when conducting user research during that all-important prototype phase. We’ll include a bunch of different examples of specific test methods (with pros and cons of each) as well as advice for pulling...
18 min read
#Game Deconstructions

How Coin Master Disrupted Social Casino And Pocketed $100M

Editor’s note: This post was orginally written by Om Tandon (Founder/Games Consultant at UX Reviewer.com) and Abhimanyu Kumar (Mobile Games Consultant) on Deconstructor of Fun. The State of Social Casino When breaking up the mobile gaming market according to Game Refinery’s taxonomy, the “Casino” (aka Social Casino) category is the third largest by revenue – and it has steadily been growing over 2018. Category revenue grew by +24% YoY, and the “Slots” sub-genre contributed to ~70% of this growth. “Slots” generate anything between an average of 70-80% of real world casino revenues, and the same engagement behaviour is mirrored in the Social Casino space. “Slots” are the largest revenue generating sub-genre of the Casino category, occupying a 78% share. Read more about our thoughts around this category and its future in our 2019 Casino category prediction post. * Ad revenues...
8 min read
#Data & Analytics

Blue-Green Deployments on Terraform (For 850 Million Monthly Active Players)

In this post, you'll get a sneak peak into how we improved our infrastructure deployment practices, all by utilising the “Blue-Green deployment approach”.
6 min read
#Data & Analytics

Popularity Of Mobile Game Art Styles And Genres – Data Breakdown

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Erno Kiiski, Chief Game Analyst at GameRefinery. In his job, he’s played and analyzed hundreds of titles on a feature level, giving him a strong sense of the current mobile game market. This time round, our friends at GameRefinery take a look at the visual elements of top mobile games on the market. They take a deep dive into which game art styles and genres are rocking the US, Chinese and Japanese markets, breaking data down on a game category level to understand their popularity in different game types. Before diving deeper, it’s good to understand how GameRefinery view the mobile game market in terms of genres and game types. In order to classify games in a meaningful way, they take into consideration games’ feature-set, theme and defining mechanics. This creates a three-layered...
10 min read
#Game Deconstructions

Deconstructing Meta Features In Social Casino Games (With Examples)

Why study social casino games? There’s a huge amount that any developer can learn from social casino games. The casino genre has some of the most avid and engaged types of players, and developers have therefore built many sophisticated meta game features in order to support the success of these types of titles This means you can find a much greater array of unique rewards, challenges or even enhanced purchasing options that provide an important distinction and added value to the players that dedicate a lot of their time to these types of games. People don’t play for real money here, so these features are crucial in order to keep them engaged. So, that’s why we’ve written this post – to showcase some of the most innovative ways to complement your core game and keep your players engaged. We look...
Homa games cover image
Homa
#Case study

How Homa uses GameAnalytics to propel their game into top charts globally

After reaching #1 in Korea’s Top Game Charts in less than 48 hours, Homa knew it was just the beginning of what was to come. Despite their recent success in Korea, the studio remains humble as it continues its core mission of helping developers in making their games into the next big hits. Focusing primarily on the hyper-casual market, the studio has published six games that have hit charts globally in the US, Korea, Japan, and China. The foundation of their success is partly due to their core values around transparency, ensuring open communication and respect of all developer intellectual property. Being a product of their successful sister company BidMotion, the Homa team is made from experts in user acquisition and monetization. With this industry experience and knowledge, they’re able to help developers achieve the best results possible for every...
9 min read
#Marketing & Publishing

Referral Marketing For Mobile Games: How To Grow Your Game With Referrals

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Ben Meakin, Content Marketer at Megacool. With over ten years of experience writing for and about games, Ben has a strong understanding of what games need to do to succeed. Referrals are one of the most cost-effective ways to grow your game, and should play a major role in your marketing strategy. They are a gateway into your game for new players, and, with a little effort, can deliver huge rewards for developers. Yet referrals are an opportunity that are still not widely maximized by game developers. In this post, we’ll take a look at the various ways to implement referrals in mobile games, and some best-in-class examples. In its most basic form, a referral is an Invite Friends button within a game that lets players share a short message to social media...
6 min read
#Ads & Monetization

Battle Royale In NBA & Star Wars – 6 Exciting Ways To Implement A Battle Royale Mode In Your Next Game

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Kalle Heikkinen, Chief Game Analyst at GameRefinery. With over 400 game analysed under his belt, Kalle has a solid understanding of what works and what doesn’t in the mobile game market. No matter how you measure it, 2018 was the year when Battle Royale took us by storm. What got started in the modding scene of PC survival games such as H1Z1, DayZ and Rust, eventually developed into a global phenomenon including the likes of PUBG and Fortnite.  While these titles are fully-fledged classic examples of battle royale games, it has since then become apparent that with a pinch of creativity, it is possible to include a battle royale mode in a surprisingly wide array of different game genres. Using GameRefinery’s Market Explorer tool to make sense of the battle royale market. While just...
12 min read
#Marketing & Publishing

Finding A Publishing Partner Vs Self Publishing – Everything You Need To Know

If you’ve stumbled across this post, then you’re most likely considering publishing your mobile game (congrats!). However, before you dive in and start making money, you’ll need to make an important choice. Self publish, or find a publishing partner? In the past, finding a publisher was almost standard practice due to their expertise in areas like UA & marketing. But now, it has never been easier to self publish, with developers having access to the steam and app stores but also a bunch of online resources and guidelines. However, with this ease comes competition, and as you may be aware, the market has never been more competitive (this is where those nifty Publishers come in handy). So, how do you know what the best option is for your title? To give you a helping hand with this all-important decision, we’ve...
1 min read
#Data & Analytics

Mobile Gaming Industry Analysis for 2018

Performance insights from more that 60K mobile games, and over 3B players worldwide.
15 min read
#Game Deconstructions

How Enemy AI Works In Dicey Dungeons

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Terry Cavanagh, indie game designer currently working on Dicey Dungeons. To stay up to date with what Terry is currently working on, your can find him on Twitter, or follow his other projects on his website here.  For the past month or so, I’ve been tackling one of the biggest technical problems in my new game, Dicey Dungeons – improving the enemy AI enough for the final release of the game. It’s been pretty interesting, and lots of it was new to me, so I thought I’d write a little bit about it. First up, a sort of disclaimer: I’m not a computer scientist – I’m just one of those people who learned enough about programming to make video games, and then stopped learning anything I didn’t have to learn. I can usually muddle...