Marketing reports and market data
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Documents
Thomas Brush9 min
Start Your Own Game Studio With These 5 Tools!
The primary objective of this guide is to provide independent developers with a foundational software toolkit for establishing a functional game studio.
- Unity serves as the foundational game engine for the studio due to its robust cross-platform porting capabilities and extensive C# documentation.
- Photoshop is essential for visual asset creation because it allows for real-time graphic updates within Unity during active play sessions.
- Spine 2D provides an accessible alternative to complex 3D software for character rigging and skeletal animation, featuring direct synchronization with Unity’s animation state machines.
Thomas BrushSep 2017
Game Developers Conference61 min
Creating Mixed Reality Trailers and Livestreams
Mixed reality serves as a vital bridge for marketing virtual reality experiences, addressing the inherent difficulty of conveying immersive gameplay to audiences accustomed to traditional flat-screen media.
- Mixed reality bridges the gap between immersive VR gameplay and flat-screen audiences by placing the player inside the virtual environment, which resolves the visual disconnect and motion sickness common in raw first-person captures.
- High-quality production requires precise choreography and technical alignment, often utilizing depth-sensing cameras and calibration software to synchronize real-world physical movements with virtual perspectives.
- Creators must choose between external compositing for superior visual fidelity at the cost of high hardware and space requirements, or internal compositing for better streamer accessibility despite lower resolution and synchronization quality.
Game Developers ConferenceAug 2017
Game Developers Conference33 min
Tooth and Tail: Building Community Within Open Game Development
Pocketwatch Games successfully navigated the resource constraints inherent in small-scale game production by pioneering a model of community-integrated development.
- Pocketwatch Games utilized community-integrated development to offload critical operational tasks like quality assurance, balance testing, and tournament organization to their player base.
- The studio transformed development into a collaborative ecosystem by treating dedicated users as an extension of the internal team, allowing for faster iteration cycles.
- Access to early development builds was restricted to active participants, ensuring that testers were genuinely invested in the project’s long-term success.
Game Developers ConferenceAug 2017
PocketGamer.biz24 min
The growth techniques that every game developer should know about
Game developers often face the challenge of high user acquisition costs that far exceed the lifetime value of their players.
- To maximize organic growth, integrate native sharing tools that allow users to easily capture and share unique, personalized gameplay moments rather than generic marketing content.
- On average, 80% of users open a game only once, making the initial onboarding experience critical; A/B testing often reveals that removing tutorials and dropping players directly into gameplay improves retention.
- Delay requests for push notification permissions until the user understands the value proposition, as asking immediately upon launch creates friction that leads to high opt-out rates.
PocketGamer.bizAug 2017
PocketGamer.biz43 min
Influencing the mobile game universe
The mobile gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental shift in marketing strategy, moving away from rigid, scripted advertisements toward authentic, partnership-based collaborations.
- Mobile gaming marketing is shifting from scripted, performance-based advertisements to authentic, partnership-driven collaborations that integrate games into a creator's personal brand.
- Modern audiences prioritize high-quality, television-style production over high-volume content, showing a marked preference for genuine enthusiasm over forced promotional messaging.
- Long-term engagement is driven by cultivating loyal fanbases through original concepts and transparency, specifically by avoiding deceptive practices like rigged gameplay or fake giveaways.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2017
PocketGamer.biz14 min
Building an effective paid UA operation for mobile apps in a multi-channel environment
The primary challenge in modern mobile user acquisition (UA) is the operational inefficiency inherent in managing a diversified, multi-channel advertising portfolio.
- Diversifying beyond dominant platforms like Google and Facebook is essential to mitigate market saturation and maximize ROI in mobile user acquisition.
- Centralized management software enables teams to scale by providing a unified dashboard for cross-channel campaign execution, asset management, and bulk optimizations.
- Operational efficiency is achieved by aggregating performance data across platforms, allowing for real-time budget reallocation and the identification of underperforming campaigns.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2017
PocketGamer.biz21 min
What you need to know about the future of mobile monetisation
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a transition from a period of rapid user acquisition to a more mature, saturated market.
- Publishers should transition from manual, waterfall-based mediation to real-time and programmatic header bidding to increase eCPMs and fill rates through competitive demand-side platform bidding.
- Vertical video ad formats should be prioritized over landscape alternatives, as they consistently deliver 10% to 20% higher conversion rates.
- Interactive playable ads are now an industry standard that effectively increase both install rates and long-term player retention by allowing users to sample mechanics before downloading.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2017
PocketGamer.biz34 min
Don't go it alone – How choosing the right partner is key to success
Achieving sustainable growth in the mobile gaming industry requires a strategic alignment between a game’s core design and its user acquisition framework.
- Developers should implement a waterfall bidding strategy for game launches, setting specific deadlines for partners to submit bids to maximize revenue during the high-traffic opening weekend.
- To optimize monetization, developers should use placement segmentation to show ads to specific user groups, such as serving high-CPM ads to non-paying users while limiting ad exposure for those already engaged in in-app purchases.
- When selecting user acquisition partners, developers should define clear goals and budgets based on their game's genre and target geography rather than relying on a generic number of partners.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2017
PocketGamer.biz25 min
Does paid user acquisition make sense as a way to scale my game?
Paid user acquisition (UA) serves as a critical engine for scaling mobile games, yet success depends heavily on a developer’s ability to interpret metrics and maintain profitability.
- Scaling paid user acquisition requires a shift from soft-launch metrics to global performance, as install costs typically rise and lifetime value (LTV) fluctuates when targeting broader audiences.
- Developers should establish a baseline of approximately 1,000 installs to achieve the statistical confidence necessary to justify increased marketing budgets.
- Successful UA strategies prioritize a focused set of core indicators—specifically retention, average revenue per user, and behavioral milestones—rather than tracking an excessive volume of metrics.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2017
PocketGamer.biz20 min
Learn the key fundamentals to social casino game design, monetisation and marketing
The social casino industry represents a significant mobile gaming sector, estimated at approximately $4.5 to $5 billion in total value.
- The social casino industry is a $4.5 to $5 billion mobile gaming market driven primarily by high-spending 'whale' players rather than mass-market user volume.
- Success in this mature sector requires prioritizing high lifetime value (LTV) and sophisticated retention strategies over broad user acquisition.
- Developers are increasingly differentiating their products by targeting underserved demographics, such as younger or male-oriented players, through quest-based systems and mission-driven progression.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2017
Game Developers Conference31 min
(Opportunity) Cost Effective Marketing & PR for Indies
Indie game marketing is most effective when developers shift their perspective from a purely technical mindset to a consumer-centric one.
- Treat marketing as a game design problem by identifying your objective—getting the player to the game—and systematically removing barriers to that goal.
- Conduct a competitive audit by analyzing similar titles to determine your game's market position, pricing strategy, and unique selling points.
- Perform a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to objectively evaluate your game from a consumer's perspective, focusing on the 'tip of the iceberg' that players actually see.
Game Developers ConferenceJul 2017
PocketGamer.biz22 min
Using TV to drive app downloads at scale
Television remains a powerful tool for large-scale mobile app user acquisition, yet traditional advertising models often fail to meet the needs of modern mobile publishers due to their inherent rigidity and lack of performance-based data.
- Mobile publishers should shift from traditional broad-reach TV buying to a performance-based model that prioritizes agility, real-time optimization, and clear attribution.
- Attribution for TV campaigns is most accurately measured by monitoring organic install baselines and daily uplifts rather than relying on short-term, granular click-through windows.
- Performance analysis should utilize 24-hour cycles to account for the delay between viewing a TV spot and the user completing an app download.
PocketGamer.bizJul 2017