Live Ops reports and market data
455 documents·27 writers·596 charts and tables
Documents
PocketGamer.biz70 min
Game Economy Design: How to ensure player satisfaction and commitment, with Oscar Clark
Game economy design functions as a dynamic, mathematical system of sinks and sources rather than a static progression model.
- Game economy design relies on balancing 'sinks and sources' to maintain player momentum, ensuring that the flow of resources creates a dynamic equilibrium between progression and grind.
- Power progression should follow an S-curve model, where power grows rapidly to provide immediate excitement but tapers off to prevent power creep and maintain long-term balance.
- Retention is driven by providing players with meaningful choices, which requires a design loop of mastery, introduced challenge, potential for failure, and foreshadowing of future rewards.
PocketGamer.bizSep 2024
Deconstructor of Fun74 min
Gameloft's Cross Platform Live Services: Past, Present, and Future with Dima Dimov, VP of Live Ops
Gameloft’s approach to live operations centers on the transition from siloed, monetization-heavy models to a cross-functional, product-centric discipline.
- Gameloft has shifted from siloed, monetization-focused operations to a cross-functional model that integrates marketing, community management, and development to prioritize long-term player lifetime value over short-term acquisition spikes.
- Operational efficiency is driven by team autonomy, replacing rigid executive-led quarterly reviews with lightweight, team-led forecasting and internal dashboards that allow for real-time adjustments to game features.
- The company manages the complexities of cross-platform live services by synchronizing update cycles across mobile and console certification processes through a hybrid of internal infrastructure and third-party solutions.
Deconstructor of FunSep 2024
PocketGamer.biz61 min
Game Monetisation Design: Strategies, Trends, and Best Practices with Oscar Clark
Sustainable game monetization centers on the principle that revenue should be a byproduct of player value rather than an end in itself.
- Prioritize player value over immediate revenue, as viewing money as the sole driver causes designers to miss the psychological factors that influence engagement and retention.
- Design monetization around 'shortcuts'—tools that allow players to play longer, perform better, or maximize rewards—while distinguishing between temporary consumables and permanent aspirational items.
- Understand the 'fan' economy by recognizing that a player's willingness to spend is not directly correlated to their disposable income; developers should value all fans regardless of their monthly spend level.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2024
Deconstructor of Fun67 min
TWiG 288: Fortnite in Trouble, Anime Girl Horse Racing Game, and Switch’s New Life
The global gaming industry is currently navigating a period of significant regulatory pressure and shifting market dynamics.
- Apple faces potential fines of up to 10% of its global revenue following formal European Commission charges regarding Digital Markets Act violations related to restrictive app store practices.
- Fortnite is recording its lowest player counts since late 2023, prompting Epic Games to pivot toward a 2025 re-entry into the Japanese mobile market.
- Netflix has invested $3 billion into its gaming division, yet the initiative continues to struggle with demonstrating a clear return on investment.
Deconstructor of FunJun 2024
PocketGamer.biz46 min
Metaplay’s Teemu Haila On Scaling And Saving Smaller Studios $1 Million/Year With One SDK
Smaller game studios face significant operational hurdles when transitioning to live-service models, often struggling to balance rapid player growth with the technical demands of backend infrastructure.
- Developing a custom backend for a mobile game typically requires three years and an investment of approximately $21 million.
- Metaplay’s SDK aims to reduce the time-to-scale for live-service Unity C# games from years to two weeks, potentially saving studios $1 million annually.
- To prevent cheating and bot activity, developers should move the game logic to a server-side architecture, ensuring the server runs a full copy of the game rather than trusting data from the player's device.
PocketGamer.bizJun 2024
Deconstructor of Fun71 min
TWIG #287 Trouble in Paradise: Squad Busters and Netflix Games
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a period of stagnation and strategic recalibration, characterized by flat inflation-adjusted spending and a shift in how companies manage growth and valuation.
- Mobile gaming is experiencing a period of stagnation with flat inflation-adjusted spending, forcing companies to pivot toward social network valuations to escape lower gaming-sector multiples.
- Voodoo’s acquisition of BeReal for $100–$120 million fell significantly below initial market expectations, illustrating the difficulty of achieving high-valuation exits in the current climate.
- Supercell’s Squad Busters is failing to convert high download volumes into sustainable long-term retention and monetization, highlighting a broader industry struggle with 'leaky bucket' user acquisition.
Deconstructor of FunJun 2024
Naavik73 min
The Business of Cloud and Game Servers
Modern game development relies heavily on sophisticated backend infrastructure to ensure high-performance, low-latency experiences for global player bases.
- Studios optimize long-term profitability by transitioning from variable-cost public cloud providers to hybrid models incorporating bare metal servers once player populations stabilize.
- Server-authoritative architecture is the industry standard for competitive gaming, serving as the primary mechanism for enforcing security and anti-cheat validation.
- Effective backend orchestration relies on abstraction layers to manage complex services like matchmaking and identity management, allowing developers to focus resources on core gameplay.
NaavikJun 2024
Deconstructor of Fun70 min
TWIG #285 Squad Busters Busted? Destiny 2, Too?
The gaming industry is currently defined by a tension between aggressive transmedia expansion and a fragile economic landscape characterized by studio closures and workforce reductions.
- The gaming industry is facing a business model crisis where cosmetic-only monetization often fails to generate sufficient revenue to sustain live-service operations for titles like Concord and Marvel Rivals.
- Supercell’s Squad Busters is experiencing a rapid decline in daily active users despite high lifetime download figures, driven by an over-reliance on pre-registration incentives and a user base skewed toward lower-revenue markets.
- Sony’s PlayStation 5 install base remains split evenly with the aging PlayStation 4, indicating a stagnant hardware upgrade cycle caused by bloated development costs and a lack of compelling software.
Deconstructor of FunJun 2024
Two & a Half Gamers70 min
Brawl Stars to the Moon? A monetization deepdive! GameMakers x 2.5 gamers crossover
Brawl Stars has experienced a notable revenue resurgence, successfully reversing a period of decline between 2022 and 2023 to surpass the performance of Clash Royale.
- Brawl Stars experienced a significant revenue surge in December 2023, reaching $20 million compared to $12 million in November, effectively surpassing Clash Royale's $19 million performance.
- The game's recent growth is primarily driven by structural changes to the in-game economy, aggressive sales promotions, and the introduction of 'Hypercharges'—a new power progression layer at level 11 that costs 5,000 coins per unit.
- Supercell is shifting its operational model by increasing team sizes, with the Brawl Stars team expanding toward 45 members to support more intensive LiveOps and content production.
Two & a Half GamersMay 2024
Two & a Half Gamers47 min
two & a half gamers session #40 - Q4 Live ops tips, Q4 UA Budget optimisations, Admon bidder updates
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a complex landscape defined by shifting advertising dynamics and seasonal volatility.
- The Google AdMob bidder has shown significant performance improvements, delivering an average ARPU uplift of 10% to 12% for previously underperforming games and effectively capturing market share from Meta demand on Android.
- During the Q4 holiday season, rising CPIs driven by e-commerce competition make it necessary to narrow UA focus to core audiences and pause underperforming campaigns to maintain profitability, even if it results in lower overall revenue.
- Despite budget cuts in Q4, developers should maintain a 10% to 20% allocation for creative testing to ensure a pipeline of winning assets for rapid scaling in January.
Two & a Half GamersMay 2024
Two & a Half Gamers27 min
two & a half gamers honest interviews #5 - Rafael Vivas (How to monetise digital items?)
The mobile gaming industry is currently undergoing a significant shift in monetization strategy, moving away from niche-targeted, high-spending user models toward broader, higher-quality content.
- Privacy-focused tracking changes like Apple’s ATT have forced a shift from whale-dependent monetization to broader models requiring purchaser rates of 10% to 20% of the total audience.
- Vessel provides a centralized, non-crypto marketplace for trading in-game assets, aiming to generate an incremental 20% to 30% of a game’s total revenue.
- The platform utilizes a revenue-share model where developers retain 90% of transaction value, with the marketplace taking a 10% cut on both primary and secondary sales.
Two & a Half GamersMay 2024
Two & a Half Gamers50 min
two & a half gamers session #31 - survivor.io redemption story, You scaled your game, now what?
Survivor.io serves as a primary case study for modern mobile monetization, demonstrating the efficacy of a hybrid model that blends hyper-casual accessibility with deep, long-term progression.
- Survivor.io achieves over $1 million in daily in-app purchase revenue by utilizing a hybrid monetization model that combines hyper-casual accessibility with deep, long-term progression systems.
- To maximize monetization without sacrificing retention, developers should target a 45% to 70% rewarded video viewer rate with four to five impressions per daily active user.
- Long-term player engagement is best sustained by introducing secondary progression layers and new currency tracks, which prevent unsustainable spending gaps caused by simple stat-based scaling.
Two & a Half GamersMay 2024