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Fueling Growth Through User-centric UA Creative Design PG Connects Digital #2
Modern user acquisition strategies in the mobile gaming industry have shifted away from simple trial-and-error testing toward a framework rooted in neuroscience and behavioral psychology.
- Creative assets are the primary drivers of return on ad spend (ROAS), superseding automated media buying tools in importance for modern user acquisition.
- Effective UA strategies must shift from surface-level demographic analytics to a framework based on neuroscience and behavioral psychology to trigger intuitive System 1 processing.
- Developers should categorize players into psychological archetypes—such as achievers, strategists, and escapists—to align ad narratives with core user motivations.
Capturing Great Footage for Game Trailers
Game trailers serve as the primary vehicle for audience engagement, necessitating a shift from standard gameplay recording to a deliberate, filmmaking-oriented approach.
- Effective game capture requires tailoring the performance to the game's intent: character-driven games should be played to reflect the protagonist's personality, while competitive games should showcase the player's actual inputs and skill.
- To ensure high-quality, professional-looking footage, developers should provide debug tools such as free-roaming cameras, toggles for HUDs and music, time-of-day controls, and the ability to disable head-bob in first-person titles.
- Maintain consistent and aesthetically pleasing shot composition by using the rule of thirds, which can be easily implemented by placing a 3x3 grid overlay on your monitor using tape or digital guides.
Superstar Session: Bidstack: A New Era of Advertising for Your Game PGCD#2
Programmatic, native in-game advertising represents a transformative shift in how developers monetize 3D environments while preserving the integrity of the user experience.
- Programmatic, native in-game advertising allows developers to monetize 3D environments across PC, console, and mobile platforms by integrating non-clickable, brand-building placements via specialized SDKs.
- In-game advertising prioritizes user immersion by treating ads as natural elements of the virtual world, which empirical data shows results in superior viewability and higher user attention compared to traditional digital display formats.
- Gaming is becoming a primary destination for advertisers as legacy media channels like television and social platforms face declining viewership and high rates of ad-blocking.
Influencers as Part of Your Video Creative Mix PG Connects Digital #2
The modern mobile gaming landscape is shifting away from traditional influencer marketing, which often suffers from high costs and unpredictable performance, toward a strategy centered on Influencer Generated Content.
- Shift from traditional influencer marketing to Influencer Generated Content (IGC) to use creators as actors for scalable, authentic video ads rather than relying on their personal reach.
- Leverage IGC to improve click-through rates and lower costs-per-install across major advertising platforms including TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and Google.
- Prioritize micro-influencers over larger personalities to achieve more cost-effective, reactive content that resonates with mobile gaming audiences.
Your Virtual Game Arts Studio PG Connects Digital #2
The presentation outlines the expansion of Creadits, a creative services firm, into the game art production sector.
- Creadits has expanded from performance marketing into a virtual game art studio, providing on-demand access to a global network of talent for concept art, 3D modeling, animation, rigging, texturing, and lighting.
- The service operates as a scalable extension of internal teams, utilizing centralized management hubs in the US, UK, Japan, and Singapore to maintain quality control while developers retain creative direction.
- Typical project-based outsourcing engagements range from $1,000 to $10,000, with $5,000 serving as the common baseline cost.
Finding Inspiration: Tools for When You're Stuck
Creative block is a common challenge for game developers, particularly when transitioning from structured, well-defined tasks in large studios to the more ambiguous, experimental problem-solving required in smaller, independent teams.
- Treat creativity as a muscle that requires consistent practice and habit rather than viewing it as an innate, static talent.
- Transition from a 'closed mode' of rapid, stressful execution to an 'open mode' that prioritizes playfulness, contemplation, and deliberate problem-solving.
- Use mindfulness meditation to increase comfort with ambiguity, which prevents the tendency to settle for the first, often mediocre, design idea.
Ad Creatives Framework: Optimization Deep Dive (Matej Lancaric SuperScale)
Ad creatives serve as the primary engine for profitable user acquisition in the mobile gaming industry, functioning as the most effective lever for reducing cost-per-install.
- Ad creatives are the primary lever for user acquisition efficiency, with optimization capable of reducing cost-per-install from four dollars to fifty cents.
- A balanced creative budget should allocate 70 percent to video content, with the remaining budget split between static images, carousels, and playable ads to combat creative fatigue.
- To ensure a continuous pipeline of high-performing assets, 10 to 15 percent of the total creative budget must be reserved for testing experimental concepts.
Superstar Session: Build a UA Strategy Around Affinity With Contextual Ad Targeting
The mobile gaming industry is shifting toward contextual ad targeting as a primary strategy for user acquisition (UA), moving away from a reliance on traditional player data and behavior.
- Mobile user acquisition is shifting toward contextual targeting, which uses granular game metadata rather than personal identifiers to reach players based on their affinity for specific mechanics, art styles, and themes.
- This strategy relies on a framework of 52 distinct sub-genres, developed through expert analysis of major gaming markets including the US, Japan, and China.
- Machine learning models process this qualitative data to generate hundreds of specific data points per game, covering player personas, motivations, and core gameplay attributes.
Panel: Maintaining Authenticity: Best Practises to Work with Influencers
This panel discussion from Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020 explores strategies for collaborating with influencers in the gaming industry, focusing on the tension between maintaining brand authenticity and achieving measurable performance goals.
- Prioritize contextual alignment and long-term partnerships over superficial metrics like total follower counts to ensure sustainable influencer marketing success.
- Balance performance-driven user acquisition goals with brand-building strategies by treating influencers as creative partners rather than simple advertising channels.
- Avoid rigid, over-scripted briefs to allow influencers the creative freedom necessary to leverage their personal brand and maintain authenticity with their audience.
Superstar Session: Influencer Marketing Sucks (and Some Best Practices)
The influencer marketing landscape for mobile applications is currently plagued by inefficiencies, lack of transparency, and poor scalability.
- Transitioning from flat-fee influencer payments to a performance-based, pay-per-install (CPI) model ensures advertisers only pay for verified user acquisition, guaranteeing positive ROI.
- Traditional influencer marketing suffers from low scalability and inefficiency due to manual outreach, reliance on unreliable vanity metrics, and the prevalence of bot activity.
- Integrating mobile measurement partner (MMP) tracking allows for the automation of influencer campaigns, removing the need for manual negotiation and constant oversight.
Trailers - Sell Your Game
High-end cinematic trailers serve as a critical marketing tool for mobile games, helping titles distinguish themselves in an increasingly saturated marketplace.
- High-end cinematic trailers are now essential for mobile games to compete in a saturated market, closing the production quality gap previously held by PC and console titles.
- Production costs are primarily driven by the complexity of assets, specifically the number of characters, environmental variety, and the requirement for advanced simulations like fluid dynamics, destruction, or hair physics.
- Client-provided assets are often low-poly proxies, requiring studios to perform extensive look development, including re-topology, 8K texturing, and advanced rigging to meet professional standards.
Superstar Session: Building a Future-proof Ecosystem for Hypercasual
The hypercasual gaming sector requires a rigorous balance between creative ideation and data-driven optimization to achieve commercial success.
- Automated AI-driven feedback systems, such as Rollic's 'Elephant' tool, have increased production speed by three-fold and achieved a 92% success rate in positive-metric iterations.
- Hypercasual success relies on a high-volume testing model; for example, Rollic tested 472 games in 2019 to identify 13 global hits.
- Individual-level optimization allows games to dynamically adjust difficulty and ad frequency based on specific user behavior, directly improving player retention.