Resources > All

Insights and tips about the games industry

Subscribe for gaming insights, industry reports and product updates delivered straight to your inbox.

9 min read
#Marketing & Publishing

Digital Board Game Companion Apps: The Merge of Physical and Digital Gaming

Board games have always celebrated their physical and tactile nature. Reading the rulebook, unpacking the pieces, and setting up the board are all an intrinsic part of playing the board game. However, digital companion apps have also long been part of this ritual. Some games, like 7 Wonders, have a free app that helps players to calculate points at the end of the game. As the game has a limited number of scoring sheets that can run out, and the point calculation process is quite complex, the app was always a welcome helper. Digital board games also had their own place in the hobby, serving as digital recreations of the physical game on phones or PC that are primarily targeted towards solo play, although they tend to have some multiplayer options too. However, for the most part, physical games and...
17 min read
#Strategies

Creating Your Own Good Company – An Interview With Chasing Carrots

We spoke to Paul Lawitzki about making a community from unlikely places, maintaining a healthy work culture and knowing when it’s okay to put that project on hold, and creating a good company in their upcoming title Good Company, a charming 80s pastiche that sees you creating your own robot manufacturing empire. We did not talk about Skynet.  What is your role in the team, and how did you end up working at Chasing Carrots? I’m programmer and lead game designer at Chasing Carrots. Formally, my employment started in April 2017, but I’ve known the team for much longer; I worked here as a freelance programmer and project lead on Pressure Overdrive for more than two years before my permanent employment. [bctt tweet=”How do you create a community, maintain a healthy work culture, and know when it’s okay to put...
9 min read
#Strategies

A Primer On eSports

On March 22, the Las Vegas Strip welcomed its first eSports arena. eSports Arena Las Vegas, a 30,000 sq. ft. venue that hosts large live gaming events, stands as a physical symbol for where the industry currently stands, and how far it has come. 10 years ago, in March 2008, Soulreapers/pure.gaming won the Play.com UT3 National Championship Final and took home £30,000 (about $71,000, adjusted for inflation). Four days before the Las Vegas arena opening, however, the Russian team won $800,000 from a prize pool of $1.5 million during the Dota 2 competition at WESG 2017 . Simply put: an eSports team in 2018 won over 11 times the prize money in a single competition than a team in 2008 won from an entire tournament. Starker still, in 1998, there were a total of 9 tournaments and 34 players in...
13 min read
#Strategies

A Decade Of Dreaming – The Story of frecle and Youropa

Located within the Copenhagen branch of GameAnalytics is our GameHub, where anyone can come and use the space in order to develop and grow their games. One such group of developers are frecle, who are about to release Youropa, a title ten years in the making. We caught up with them before the launch of the long-coming game… What is Youropa? When Youropa is torn apart by a mysterious force, you must use your unique wall walking ability to navigate a strange fragmented city, restore it to former glory and learn who you really are. Youropa is a gravity defying platform puzzle adventure about breaking rules, being upside down and thinking outside the box. The game comes with a full single player campaign, character, level and map designer. It’s out on Steam in Spring 2018. [bctt tweet=”There’s nothing you can’t...
10 min read
#Game Design

Designing Habit-Forming Games

We are all creatures of habit, whether we like it or not. Not every habit is bad – especially when you’re a developer who’s got players that make your game a regular habit or part of their everyday activities. After all, a player who gets used to playing your game will keep coming back to it, and that’s the key to forming a steady community of players in the long run. [bctt tweet=”A player who gets used to playing your game habitually will keep coming back, and that’s the key to forming a steady community. Read more:” username=”GameAnalytics”] Repeat Customers Are The Best Customers This is the case in nearly every business, but  especially true in gaming. After all, most users aren’t going to finish any game in a single session (and if they can, is that really the right...
16 min read
#Strategies

The Fighting Game Scene On Mobile – An Interview With Shoryuken

After 2 years at Shoryuken and attendance at countless fighting game tournaments, I spoke to Fighting Game Community expert Keegan Spindler about the difficulties of adapting the genre to mobile, the fine line microtransactions have to take to make competition viable, and his tips on how being open with the community can help it grow around you.  Can you give us a little background on your role and what it is you do now? I was the Features Editor for Shoryuken. About 12 months ago we looked at our numbers and realised that by staying as a news network, we weren’t keeping up with things like social media. So my job role evolved as we realised the need to create higher quality, bespoke long-form work around fighting games and the community. I’ve stepped down a bit as I’m about to...
9 min read
#Data & Analytics

The Biggest Mobile Gaming Consumers In 2018 (And Beyond) Are Women

Some of us may associate gaming with guys more than we do girls, and when we picture them, it’s often the stereotypically geeky or nerdy sort. It’s an image that gaming can’t often shift, and that’s despite the fact gaming of all kinds has become pretty mainstream! From eSports on ESPN to mobile games becoming some of the most popular apps in the world, gaming is hardly limited to one gender or a few niche interest groups. In fact, in the realm of mobile gaming, women are more likely to be avid participants than men! According to a 2017 Google Play and NewZoo survey, 65% of U.S. women ages 10-65 play mobile games – and that is a huge audience. What’s more, according to the same survey, women make up nearly half – 49% – of all mobile gamers, and they...
12 min read
#Guides

A Guide To Soft-Launching Your Mobile Game

Every developer who thinks he doesn’t need to soft launch his game is, in my opinion, simply wrong. A successful soft launch is the best way to optimise your game for global launch. Soft-launching allows developers to collect data, identify bugs and receive early feedback from players. A soft launch will provide you with the opportunity to test your server infrastructure and ensure it will be able to handle the load of a global launch. For free-to-play games, and especially for those with in-app purchases, it is important to determine how well the game will do globally and if it has a good retention profile and monetisation mechanics. This will tell you if your game will be profitable and you should aim for global launch or simply kill it. If you plan on looking for a publisher for your game,...
11 min read
#Ads & Monetization

Are Loot Boxes The Future Of Mobile Game Monetization?

In November 2017, EA released Star Wars Battlefront II, developed by DICE studio. The company was met with extreme criticism after it seemed to have not learned from its mistakes with its season pass approach in the first instalment. Famously, EA’s response to that criticism led to the most downvoted comment in Reddit’s history. The reason EA’s response garnered so much negative attention was that it ignored the growing discontent over its use of loot boxes, an increasingly common monetisation strategy in the gaming industry. Though the strategy has been around for over a decade, the success of Blizzard’s Overwatch was a pivotal moment for the loot box model, vastly increasing its visibility and popularity. It has only been in the past few years that the public dialogue has broadened to include parallels to gambling, and whether or not there...
10 min read
#Ads & Monetization

No Mobile Ad Blindness: Making Sure Users Actually Open Their Eyes And See Your Ads

Ads are a part of daily life for pretty much everyone, and in most cases, we’re probably all pretty good at tuning them out. Whether it’s a TV commercial, a billboard, a banner ad on a website, or a pre-roll message on a video or podcast, the various ads that we’re bombarded with probably barely register for most of us, eventually causing ad blindness. While ad blindness might be a good thing in your personal life (who wants to view advertising on purpose, really?), it’s definitely not a good thing for game developers who rely on clicks and perhaps affiliate marketing as well. With that in mind, how do you optimize your ads for actual productive views and engagements, while keeping mobile ad blindness to a minimum? What Is Mobile Ad Blindness? Let’s start with understanding what ad blindness actually...
10 min read
#Game Deconstructions

The 10 Best Digital Board Games For Your Mobile

In recent years board games have had a revival – the hobby is growing faster than ever and the diversity of the games on the market is truly extraordinary. Even though part of the appeal of the hobby is its physical and social format, digital board games soon followed its analog brothers and sisters, proving that good game mechanics can adapt to many formats. Whether you are struggling to get a group of people together to play, or just want to quickly try out a few strategies, or even simply avoid the ponderous rule book and learn the game in an interactive way, digital board games are here to oblige. You might have already been playing a game on your phone or iPad without even knowing that it was originally designed for the tabletop! Here are some of the best...
14 min read
#Game Deconstructions

Thoughts On Mobile Gaming – An Interview With PocketGamer

Ric Cowley has been working at SteelMedia for nearly 3 years, and has recently been promoted to the role of Editor at PocketGamer.co.uk. We spoke to him about the biggest trends in mobile games, what he enjoys as a consumer, how to get your games noticed by the press, and the overwhelming prevalence of games like Clash Royale. Ric, tell us, how did you get into mobile games? I initially started out at PocketGamer.co.uk as an intern for three months, then I was hired as a freelancer for PocketGamer.biz, and then when a job came up after 2 months of doing that, I was hired as a full-time staff writer, and then have worked my way up from there to the role of Deputy Editor of PocketGamer.biz. Now I’m the Editor of PocketGamer.co.uk! What would you say is one of...
19 min read
#Game Deconstructions

UX Insights: Golfclash’s Swing To Success!

Sport simulation games have been a massively popular genre in video games industry since the early 70’s. Many of you must have grown up playing franchises like NBA, FIFA, Ashes, Madden NFL, NFS, Football Manager, Tiger Woods – PGA and many more sports titles across PC and consoles. “Real world sports games imbibe natural qualities like competitive rulesets, challenging opponents, strategy, skills & mastery that video games & gamers already subscribe to. This makes them a natural fit for a digital makeover.” It’s no surprise that the top 10 – 50 grossing charts on mobile games also boast their share of sports simulation games. Source : ThinkGaming 2/03/2018 Mobile space is dominated by many sport titans which are either tactical or strategy based. There is a plethora of choices from basketball, cricket, football manager, golf and tennis to car racing. Heavyweights that dominate the top...