After the launch of one of their biggest games, I spoke with Sung-Ku Kim, Director of Studio Q at BitMango, to understand more about the history of the company, and key lessons the studio learned on their path to success.  Before we dig into the details, are you able to give us some background into how BitMango started? BitMango has had an interesting journey actually. We originally started out as a subsidiary of a company called Datawave, which was mainly focused on keyword search ads. The CEO of Datawave, Kisup Lee, was inspired by the gaming industry, and so looked to invest in it. And that’s where BitMango came in. To enter such a competitive market, we really had to maximize our data analysis capabilities and use key metrics to monitor the performance of our games  – which was our...

In an increasingly competitive mobile games market, developers and studios vying for greater user traffic to their titles must pay closer attention to their User Acquisition (UA) strategies. We’re seeing that even tried and tested processes that have gathered impressive numbers of new users in the past are now at risk of becoming ineffective. This is just as much due to overall market competition as it is to the increased automation and machine learning potential of platforms like Google and Facebook. Essentially, automatic optimization of mobile ad creatives has made it harder for titles to differentiate themselves from competitors. And there now remains only a few ways to truly stand out from the crowd. From recognising the importance of original concepts to testing different ad formats, we dig deep into what the best creative strategies are for advertising your mobile...

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Sunny Cha, VP of Marketing at Tenjin. Having worked in previous companies including Tapjoy, Animaco and Gaming Insiders, Sunny brings her extensive experience to the mobile industry. Mobile game publishing is undergoing a dramatic paradigm shift, and hyper casual games are at the center of it all. Characterized by their short engagement loops, low retention, and ad-based monetization, hyper casual titles represent a stark departure from the whale-driven, IAP-centric, tentpole economies traditionally found in the social casino and build & battle genres. This new publishing approach, which has allowed innovators like Voodoo to attract investor attention to the tune of an estimated $200 million, is the product of a disciplined, data-driven approach to growth. By unifying the traditionally disparate practices of user acquisition and mobile ad monetization, data scientists are constructing efficient growth engines to...

Being one of the five biggest developers on Facebook Messenger, I spoke with Alexander Krug, CEO of SOFTGAMES, to learn about the history of the studio, and how they use analytics to monitor their successful portfolio of HTML5 messenger games.  SOFTGAMES is the world’s largest HTML5 games platform with a pretty awesome vision. Can you give us some background into how it all started? Our journey began in 2006 as a four-person startup in Berlin. At that time, we exclusively developed J2ME Games for all major German television channels such as ProSieben, Sat.1 or RTL, and built titles for TV shows like “Germany’s Next Top Model” or “Formula 1”. The market witnessed a drastic change with the release of the iPhone 3G in 2008. After Steve Job’s open letter “Thoughts on Flash” in 2010 announcing that Flash won’t be allowed...

Editors Note: In June 2019, we held an event dedicated to making hit hyper-casual games. Alongside GameAnalytics, we were joined by publishing giants, Voodoo, and Kawaii specialists, Platonic Games, to share the latest stats, trends, and insights when making hit hyper-casual games. You can find all of the info, decks, and videos from the event here.  As a relatively new genre, we’re rapidly witnessing changing trends with hyper-casual games, as well as seeing regular new titles fighting for top positions on the app store. With this in mind, relying on tired marketing strategies or an ill-informed idea that free-to-play titles don’t need a marketing budget won’t do you any favours. When monetizing your hyper-casual game, you’ll want to focus on getting as many people playing as quickly as possible, but also make sure they come back. Usually, if a hyper-casual...

Wouldn’t it be awesome if your players spent money within your game all of the time? While building a community that spends actual currency in your game’s environment is certainly difficult, it’s not impossible. In-app purchases are a huge form of income for the mobile gaming world, and is only getting more and more popular. This chart from Statista shows just how comfortable users are becoming with making purchases on their mobile devices. The million dollar question every game developer is asking is ‘how can I take advantage of this?’ It all comes back to the game, and your data. By analyzing your users behavior you can better optimize your gameplay so not only will your users have a better experience, you’ll also be able to get them to perform your desired actions. Before you can do this however, you...

So first, what’s the story behind Claws of Furry? I created Terahard Studios about 5 to 6 years ago, and about a year ago we started making a prototype for a platformer. We were playing around with a few different concepts, but the idea of cats being ninjas stuck straight away and was one of the first concepts we tried and we loved it. We changed the shape of it a few times to make it more interesting – and the version we’ve shown here is the version that stuck with us – and the more we played the game and the more we were making it, while still playing it every day, we tried to make it more extreme. We had a lot of little different fun mechanics added in that almost compliment each other; you can fight quickly,...

If you’re a game developer, chances are that you’re running some native ads. Or if not, you’re probably at least thinking about it, because properly done native ads can be incredibly successful and lucrative. However, there are a lot of reasons they are the next big thing in mobile advertising, so let’s dig into how you can best execute native advertising in your game(s). Let’s start by defining what a native ad actually is. Generally, a native ad is considered any type of digital ad that echoes or follows the form and function of the platform on which it appears. And in most cases, the value of a native is the fact that properly deployed, they don’t feel like ads at all. Which is why they can be so successful if they are carefully executed, tracked, and measured – and...

Editor’s note: The yearly Rezzed event run by Eurogamer.net is a great way for indie developers to showcase their games. One title we got to look at was Kenshi, an open-world RPG with a map that reaches over 870km² and a new danger seemingly lurking around every corner. After initally getting absolutely wiped out within minutes of starting, we discovered that this isn’t like most titles around. Kenshi requires strategy, wits, and leadership skills. How did you become a game developer and end up working on Kenshi? I started about ten years ago, self taught, and just decided to start making it from scratch. The first version of the game was made completely single-handedly. It looked a lot rougher due to this – it was a lot smaller and less complete. I got it alpha-funded. So, before Steam Greenlight I started releasing and selling it...

Editor’s note: this post was originally published by Nicolas Boulay on the Space Ape Games Tech blog. Nic has 10 years experience in mobile UA and ad-monetisation. He previously worked at Gameloft and Badoo and joined Space Ape in the early days of 2012.  About Fast Lane Fastlane has reached 16M installs, approaching $30M run rate, and is on an explosive growth trajectory 10 months after launch Fastlane is an evolved arcade shooter game available for free on iOS and Android phones From $5,000/d to $45,000/d from ads in 4 months: what are the lessons learnt from our holistic iterations and partnership with Unity Ads We are setting a new benchmark for ads at $0.13 ad arpdau in the US Our Ad LTV – lifetime value – is now based on true ad performance to gain accuracy We multiplied our User...

Ahead of the release of Idle Factory Tycoon, I spoke to Nate Barker, Director of Business Development at Fluffy Fairy Games, about the history of the studio, what makes the genre of Idle Games so appealing, and the company’s future aspirations of becoming the Supercell of the genre. Can you tell us about your journey to Fluffy Fairy Games? How did you end up working there? I was at Casual Connect in Berlin in February 2017 working for a live-ops company in the social good space. During a Happy Hour, I happened to sit down with a few folks from Fluffy Fairy Games, not realizing who they were. The next day, I had made the terrible choice of a morning appointment (always a bad decision during a conference), and it happened to be with the same two people who I...

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...