Insights and tips about the games industry

Behavioural Economics is a fascinating offshoot of economics, which explores psychology of decision making process of customers. Over the years I have been testing and reviewing numerous mobile games and apps in different genres. While I enjoy deconstructing and analysing different aspects of the digital products, on-boarding, core loop, social, meta, PvP etc. Monetisation patterns employed are of special interest to me due to my background in economics. [bctt tweet=”5 incredibly effective monetization strategies in game design (and the behavioural economics behind them)” username=”GameAnalytics”] Here are five unconventional monetisation patterns that differ from the crowd but work incredibly well, each based on a sound behavioural economics principle. But before we dive into what these patterns are, let’s understand the underlying Behavioural Economics Principles and how they apply to these unconventional patterns. What is ‘Behavioural Economics’? The study of psychology relating...

With more than 500 games submitted to the App Store every day, it’s hard to imagine a more competitive environment to get noticed. That’s why every little improvement to your listing is particularly important. With an average conversion rate of 4.47% (for games on the iOS App Store), even the smallest of changes can be hugely influential to your success or failure. Of course, a quality app or game is what matters the most. A well-optimized listing won’t fix this. Yet, what steps should you take once your game is polished? When your UI is on point, gameplay is fine-tuned, well balanced, and all bugs and glitches are detected and fixed. Once you’ve dealt with all of the above, you’ll want to pay closer attention to App Store page. In fact, optimization of each product page element can take your conversion...

Overview As of 2017 you can find almost 5.3 million iOS and Android mobile apps in App Stores which makes mobile app marketing a huge challenge for new mobile app developers and mobile app marketers. The mobile apps market is highly developed and an increasing challenge for developers with Google Play adding almost 50 000 new mobile apps monthly. Mobile user acquisition cost (UAC) is also growing year by year which does not make it any easier with the average iOS app costing $3.04 in the United States according to Chartboost data. Mobile app developers have many more ways to reach their customers, than those in “classic” commodities and services marketing, although this can be a bigger challenge as well. What most characterizes mobile app marketing is its aim on return on investment (ROI). This factor provides data about the...

A note from Ryan: If you’re reading this chances are you’re a part of a larger iOS or design community I’ve been quietly learning from for quite some time. I owe you a great deal and I think it’s my turn to start giving back and sharing more. Here is the first of a few drafts I’ve been holding onto far too long. I added sharing mechanics to Blackbox as an afterthought—but I’ve been designing for sharing since day one. To this day, these design decisions and mechanics keep Blackbox growing and reduce the need for marketing. Below is a breakdown of how sharing in Blackbox works from a mechanical level, as well as some of the design considerations I made along the way. Many of these observations may appear to apply only to games, but I firmly believe they hold merit...

Editor’s note: We wanted to give you the heads up that our Ads Dashboard is now live! Make the most of your in-game ads by seeing your data in our new dashboard. Improve your ads performance by answering the big questions. Advertising is part of nearly every mobile experience, and whether or not you personally approve of it, it’s becoming standard for most mobile games. After all, it’s a billion-dollar industry. And if you’re going to do it, you should do it well. Ads should be well-placed, high quality, and in just the right amounts in order to make sure your users and your finances are both pleased. Let’s start by going through some general categories of games along with the types of ads commonly used in mobile games, and then we’ll cover the guidelines or thought process that should...

Editor’s note – this is an interview from 2017. Since then, we’ve had a couple more interviews and talks with Voodoo. You can find them here:  How To Create “Hyper-Snackable” Casual Games – Tips from Voodoo How GameAnalytics helps Voodoo identify and release hit mobile games each month Hyper-casual in a Hypercompetitive Market (VIDEO & PRESENTATION) Thanks for taking the time to talk to me Hugo, could you kick things off by describing a little about Voodoo, yourself, and what drew you into the gaming industry? Sure. My name’s Hugo and I’m currently a Publishing Manager at Voodoo. I met the co-founders, Alex and Laurent, 4 years ago when the company was still a small startup. I was actually completing a 6-month internship for them at the time. We immediately got on very well and after finishing the internship I...

[latexpage] This article was originally posted on Kongregate’s Developer Blog. Part I I’ve given a few talks in the past about the appeal and general mechanics of idle games, but what if you actually wanted to make one? Theory and patterns are nice, but there’s some complicated math running behind it. And how on earth do you balance a game that has insanely large numbers? This article is Part I of what will be a three-part series detailing topics covered in my most-recent talk. Part I discusses core ideas of growth, cost, prestige, and generator balancing. Part II will look into alternate growth methods (especially derivative-based). Part III will look at prestige cycles and balance. The models for all of the charts produced in these articles are available as spreadsheets. Please feel free to duplicate, peruse, experiment, extend, etc.! Let’s...

The initial launch date – or soft launch date – of a new game is always one of the most exciting times for any game developer. However, like anything else worthwhile, there are some important steps that you need to take in order to make sure you get it right. It’s when you get to show the project that you’ve been working so hard on to the world! And then gain important insights with relatively low risk into its future success and any changes that need to be made for this and any future games you work on. Defining The Soft Launch Essentially, a soft launch is releasing the initial version of the game that’s ready for the public  in a limited geographic area and with a fairly tight marketing budget. It’s meant to assess the potential audience, work out...

At the heart of your game’s design, there are core mechanics, and the core gameplay loop. In short, it’s the main activities that structure the entire design and the players engage into repeatedly, in a looping sequence. It’s part of the essence of the game, something you cannot remove without fundamentally altering the experience. In the original Mario, this would be walking, running and jumping. The various enemies, bosses, and environments stem from the core mechanics. They are here to surprise the player, challenge his skills and keep the experience fresh. In other words: to exploit the core loop to its fullest, and add extra depth to the experience. There are several loops that structure your projects, depending on the lenses you use. Just like there’s a core gameplay loop, there are core economic loops that will derive from your...

When you get started with social networks, it’s tough. Nobody follows you. Nobody reads you. Nobody knows you! How do other game developers get those thousands of followers? 2 years ago, no one knew me either. I was terrible at communication, and I didn’t like it. Back then, I had failed a company, largely due to a lack of online presence. And today? Not only do I enjoy the exchanges with the community every day: I learned to communicate the hard way and it paid off. With a niche concept in game design education, I’ve got 30,000 YouTube subscribers, gain around 50 more every day, and companies who come to me with job offers. Thanks to them all, I’m fully independent. When it comes to getting visibility, there’s no short answer. No definitive formula to drive the people’s interest. It’s...

We barely touched on sound, yet it’s an important part of the game’s experience: It gives cues to the player that will help him to react to the world. For example, you can hint the presence of some NPC behind a wall or inside a building. Or let the player know that an enemy is rushing on him while it’s not visible yet. Sound provides instant feedback to the player’s inputs. We talked about that in the article on juicing, which you can check out right here: Squeezing more juice out of your game design! Music is your most powerful tool to drive emotion. Sound effects greatly contribute to the player’s immersion. The absence of sound, or bad sound design will break your game’s feel. That’s why you want to pay great attention to it. For this article, we collected...

It’s hard to estimate the amount of work required to produce a game from start to finish. We know it can be costly. It turns out there’s not a lot of information on the topic out there, thus it’s hard to schedule a project right. That’s why we asked independent studios to share some advice to help you budget your next indie mobile game. Larger companies have dedicated project managers or producers to take care of that. Hence, we’re going to focus on indie studios. How to get a mobile game budget right: the basics In short, there are only so many steps you must tackle to budget your game right: Plan your fixed costs (office rent, supplies, hardware, software licenses, legal support, accounting…) List all the tasks required to ship the finished product Break down the tasks into small,...