Marketing reports and market data
Documents
Space Ape on the power of CRM for F2P success
Space Ape Games emphasizes the strategic integration of customer relationship management (CRM) and data analytics to drive revenue and player retention in the free-to-play mobile gaming market.
- Space Ape Games found that 20% of total revenue was directly attributable to players who had experienced positive interactions with customer support.
- The studio prioritizes high-value users by augmenting support tickets with comprehensive player profiles that include spend history, churn propensity, and technical crash logs.
- Direct engagement with influential players via private, invite-only chat groups on platforms like LINE serves as a more effective marketing channel than traditional user acquisition.
Concept Art House CEO James Zhang on helping Supercell make its Super Bowl advert
Concept Art House provides high-end art, 3D animation, and pre-production services to the global gaming industry, contributing to approximately 500 games annually.
- Concept Art House supports approximately 500 games annually, providing high-end art and 3D animation services for major developers including Riot Games, Blizzard, and Hasbro.
- Mobile gaming is shifting toward console-quality graphics as developers utilize high-fidelity assets to differentiate products in a saturated market and justify rising production costs.
- The integration of established entertainment intellectual properties, such as Jurassic Park and The Hobbit, has become a primary strategy for securing top-grossing positions in mobile app stores.
Her Story dev Sam Barlow on how the innovative detective game found an audience
The detective game Her Story represents an experimental approach to non-linear narrative design, utilizing a police procedural framework to engage players through a database of real-life video footage.
- Her Story achieved a balanced revenue split of 60 percent from desktop and 40 percent from mobile by launching simultaneously on Steam and mobile platforms.
- The game’s search-based mechanic, which mirrors intuitive web browsing, made its unconventional non-linear narrative accessible to a broad audience beyond the traditional 13-to-17-year-old male demographic.
- Releasing the title shortly after E3 2015 allowed the game to capitalize on a media vacuum, driving organic discovery and social media engagement.
PechaKucha: Eric Seufert's Mobile Ads Marketing 101
Mobile advertising sales operate as a high-pressure war of attrition rather than a traditional relationship-based business.
- Mobile ad sales are characterized by a high-pressure, confrontational model that prioritizes aggressive outreach and volume over professional relationship-building.
- Sales tactics frequently rely on deceptive practices, such as name-dropping high-profile clients to establish false credibility and using unsolicited communication to secure initial test budgets.
- Operational strategies often prioritize vanity metrics like daily active users over actual return on investment or traffic quality to maintain the appearance of growth.
Mike Bithell on indie design - PG Connects Bangalore 2015
The definition of independent game development has shifted from a focus on production scale to a philosophy centered on creative autonomy and the willingness to take calculated risks.
- Indie development is defined by creative autonomy and calculated risk-taking, requiring a balance between a singular personal vision and rigorous, iterative playtesting.
- Small teams must adopt a jack-of-all-trades mindset to prioritize core mechanics and emotional resonance early, maintaining the agility that larger corporate studios often lack.
- Marketing and design must be integrated from the project's inception, utilizing channels like YouTube to capture authentic player reactions for actionable feedback.
Appodeal's Pavel Golubev on trends in mobile advertising
Appodeal serves as an automated monetization platform designed to optimize revenue for mobile application developers by aggregating various advertising networks.
- Appodeal originated as an internal tool for a publisher managing over 3,000 applications and was commercialized after proving it could triple ad-related earnings.
- The mobile advertising industry is currently transitioning toward increased automation through the maturation of real-time bidding and programmatic exchanges.
- Virtual reality and wearable devices are considered nascent segments that currently lack the standardized user interfaces and consumer adoption required for large-scale monetization.
HyprMX's Dan Laughlin on bringing brands to mobile advertising
HyprMX serves as a bridge between Fortune 500 brands and mobile application developers, facilitating the transition of large-scale advertising budgets from traditional desktop platforms to mobile environments.
- Mobile advertising now represents a substantial revenue stream for major mobile companies, with some publicly traded firms generating 10% to 30% of their total income from ad-based monetization.
- HyprMX facilitates the transition of Fortune 500 advertising budgets—including brands like Microsoft, McDonald’s, and Audi—from desktop to mobile environments for small-to-medium-sized developers.
- The launch of Hypr Mediate automates the management of multiple ad networks, allowing developers to shift engineering resources away from ad-integration maintenance and toward core game development.
Rovio and ZeptoLab talk at PG Connects Bangalore 2015
The mobile gaming industry has reached a scale where top titles generate revenue surpassing traditional entertainment sectors like the Hollywood box office.
- To achieve long-term viability in a competitive market with hundreds of daily releases, developers must transition from simple mechanics to building enduring, character-driven franchises that prioritize brand recognition.
- High brand awareness is the primary strategy for driving organic downloads and reducing dependency on expensive user acquisition costs.
- Leading studios utilize a high-volume prototyping process, filtering hundreds of concepts through iterative soft launches to identify potential hits before global release.
Top tips for great game PR
Securing effective media coverage for mobile game launches requires a strategic approach that prioritizes relationship building and professional preparation over mass-market solicitation.
- Cultivate long-term, non-transactional relationships with journalists to build trust and recognition well before a major game release.
- Provide media with early access to the game at least one week before the official launch to ensure sufficient time for review and coverage.
- Research and target specific journalists, platforms, and genres that align with the game's profile to avoid irrelevant pitches and maximize efficiency.
Why KLM is publishing mobile games
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines utilizes mobile gaming as a strategic tool for brand engagement and customer acquisition, moving beyond traditional marketing to foster long-term relationships with a global audience.
- KLM uses mobile gaming as a strategic tool to increase brand awareness in key international markets like the United States and China, where traditional advertising is less effective.
- The airline’s flagship simulation game, Aviation Empire, has achieved 700,000 downloads and maintains user engagement through 20-minute average session lengths.
- The gaming strategy bridges online and offline experiences by using GPS check-ins to allow real-world passengers to integrate their actual travel activities into the digital game environment.
Alistair Aitcheson on why you should be always pitching
The practice of pitching serves as a critical tool for indie developers, functioning not only as a promotional strategy but as a fundamental exercise in game design refinement.
- Pitching serves as a diagnostic tool that forces developers to identify and prioritize the most engaging mechanics by articulating the game's core value proposition to others.
- Developers should prioritize immediate accessibility and intuitive rules, allowing the game's core loop to demonstrate its own merit without requiring extensive explanation.
- Treating every interaction as a pitch helps developers bridge the gap between their intended design and the actual player experience.
LoopMe CEO Stephen Upstone on the rise of mobile video advertising
Mobile video advertising is undergoing a rapid transformation driven by the shift toward full-screen formats and programmatic buying.
- Mobile video advertising is shifting from traditional ad networks to programmatic demand-side platforms to better leverage real-time data for targeting specific user behaviors.
- The industry now processes approximately 30 billion full-screen ad impressions monthly, requiring infrastructure capable of handling 30 billion data points daily to optimize delivery.
- The Chinese market is a primary growth driver, supported by data sets tracking 800 million smartphone devices and a high concentration of globally competitive game developers.