Marketing reports and market data
1,534 documents·91 writers·5,954 charts and tables
Documents
PocketGamer.biz10 min
Playstack’s Harriet Hughes On Finding The Right Publisher For Your Game
The primary objective of a game publisher is to act as a strategic partner that complements a developer’s creative vision rather than replacing it.
- The primary role of a publisher is to act as a strategic partner that manages operational gaps like marketing, PR, and user acquisition, allowing developers to focus exclusively on creative production.
- Community-driven marketing is a critical success factor, as evidenced by a 2020 title that built a 80,000-member community on Discord prior to launch without revealing specific game details.
- The gaming industry is shifting away from hyper-casual models toward subscription-based services, such as those provided by Netflix, which prioritize ad-free experiences and deep engagement with intellectual property.
PocketGamer.bizMar 2023
PocketGamer.biz5 min
Creadit's Luis Leon On Generating Impressive Creatives Without Breaking The Bank
Creative production in the gaming industry has shifted from high-budget, traditional studio output to a performance-driven model that prioritizes strategic iteration and audience engagement.
- Creative production has shifted from high-budget studio output to a performance-driven model where partners act as strategic advisors to align assets with specific platform requirements.
- Efficiency is maximized through a modular strategy that repurposes a single master asset into multiple variations, allowing for high-volume A/B testing without increasing production costs.
- Raw, mobile-shot, ephemeral content often outperforms highly polished traditional advertisements because it appears more authentic to users on platforms like TikTok.
PocketGamer.bizMar 2023
PocketGamer.biz7 min
Leanplum’s Yeshas Nakshathri On Reinventing Live Ops And Deciphering Your Data
Modern mobile game development requires a fundamental shift toward efficient, data-driven live operations to maintain user engagement and revenue growth.
- Implementing automated, hyper-personalized in-app messaging can drive a 300% increase in event-based revenue while simultaneously reducing dependency on engineering resources.
- Modern live operations must shift from manual, engineering-heavy workflows to automated platforms that empower marketing teams to execute complex campaigns independently.
- Effective hyper-personalization relies on behavioral triggers that engage users at context-aware moments, fostering habit formation rather than relying on static content updates.
PocketGamer.bizMar 2023
PocketGamer.biz9 min
The days of black box ad networks are gone | Maggie Mesa from Chartboost
The advertising landscape for mobile game developers has shifted toward a model defined by transparency, data-driven iteration, and privacy compliance.
- The mobile advertising industry has shifted away from opaque black-box models toward transparent platforms that provide granular performance data via dashboards and APIs.
- Privacy regulations, specifically Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and GDPR, have forced advertising platforms to fundamentally restructure their targeting methodologies.
- Success in user acquisition and monetization now requires a collaborative data-sharing model between developers and their DSP/SSP partners to refine targeting algorithms.
PocketGamer.bizMar 2023
PocketGamer.biz7 min
Targeting isn't being used enough in gaming | Ofir Pasternak from Persona.ly
The mobile gaming user acquisition landscape is currently defined by a shift toward contextual targeting and retargeting as the industry adapts to privacy-centric changes like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT).
- Retargeting is significantly underutilized in gaming compared to e-commerce, offering a cost-effective way to improve return on ad spend (ROAS) by segmenting users based on purchase frequency and activity history.
- Demand-side platforms (DSPs) are compensating for the loss of user-level signals post-ATT by utilizing machine learning models that process millions of auctions per second across 60 distinct data dimensions.
- The current privacy-centric landscape has lowered market prices for ad inventory, creating a strategic opportunity for advertisers who effectively leverage contextual targeting features.
PocketGamer.bizMar 2023
Report12 pages
Think Forward: Sports Edition 2023
This analysis examines the evolving relationship between Gen Z and sports culture, identifying a significant disconnect between traditional sports institutions and younger audiences.
- Nearly 40% of Gen Z now use social platforms like TikTok and Instagram as their primary search engines for sports discovery rather than traditional search tools.
- Sports organizations should prioritize adapting to digital cultural behaviors over altering fundamental game rules, as rule changes often alienate core fanbases.
- Sports consumption is shifting toward 'textured discovery,' where fans search by emotion and feeling rather than specific keywords or traditional narrative structures.
We Are SocialMar 2023
Game Developers Conference39 min
How Great Key Art Can Lead to Doubling Marketing Numbers
High-quality key art serves as the primary visual anchor for video games, functioning as a digital billboard that dictates store visibility, click-through rates, and overall conversion success.
- High-quality key art acts as a primary conversion catalyst, with case studies showing that updating store assets can lead to a doubling of visitor and wishlist numbers.
- Trailers using custom key art thumbnails can achieve significantly higher engagement, as evidenced by a specific trailer that garnered nearly 500,000 views—three times the volume of a version using a generic thumbnail.
- Effective key art should maintain a clear focal point, limit graphical elements to two or three, and ensure the logo is legible and not locked to a single position to allow for easier resizing across different store formats.
Game Developers ConferenceMar 2023
PocketGamer.biz48 min
Panel: A Love Story: Essential Strategies to Attract (& Keep) an Audience.
Establishing a resonant game identity early in development is the foundational requirement for attracting and retaining a sustainable audience.
- Design games with a specific, well-defined audience in mind rather than relying on broad, ineffective demographic labels like 'millennial men.'
- Validate player feedback by investigating the root cause of requests; for example, increasing the volume of a weapon's sound effect can satisfy player demands for 'more power' without requiring actual mechanical changes.
- Prioritize authenticity when partnering with influencers by conducting research to ensure their content and values align with your specific game, rather than simply targeting the largest creators.
PocketGamer.bizFeb 2023
PocketGamer.biz22 min
Maximising Your Odds of Success: Tips for Building Confidence in Your Game - Jai Dâvé, Ramp.
In the current, highly competitive mobile gaming market, achieving commercial success requires a shift from intuition-based development to a data-driven, strategic approach.
- Shift from intuition-based development to a data-driven strategy to mitigate high failure rates caused by market saturation and rising user acquisition costs.
- Prioritize product differentiation through unique mechanics, themes, or IP rather than attempting to replicate existing hits, which forces direct competition with established, optimized products.
- Integrate product and marketing teams from the start of development to ensure core features, art style, and branding are aligned for long-term retention and monetization.
PocketGamer.bizFeb 2023
PocketGamer.biz32 min
Looking to TikTok For Trends and Product Madness' Alex Haley On Live Ops Made Simple
Successful live operations strategy in the mobile gaming sector centers on the principles of simplicity, agility, and rigorous documentation.
- Successful live operations rely on simplifying technical workflows and documentation to shift team focus from maintenance to rapid experimentation and iteration.
- Building a flexible infrastructure is essential for scaling, as it allows developers to test new concepts quickly and respond dynamically to shifting market demands.
- Effective live ops management requires a dual focus on fostering strong cross-departmental relationships for realistic roadmapping and maintaining analytical, enthusiastic internal teams.
PocketGamer.bizFeb 2023
PocketGamer.biz9 min
The value of a user is not only monetary | Alex Pham from Adjust
Mobile marketing analytics requires a strategic shift toward privacy-first infrastructure and holistic performance measurement.
- Mobile marketing must shift from deterministic tracking to privacy-first infrastructure, utilizing predictive modeling and aggregated intelligence to navigate regulations like GDPR and Apple’s SKAdNetwork.
- Success requires moving beyond cost-per-install metrics to evaluate long-term user value, specifically focusing on retention, virality, and delayed monetization patterns.
- Developers are increasingly adopting all-in-one platforms that integrate analytics, visualization, and campaign automation to improve efficiency and manage leaner teams amid industry consolidation.
PocketGamer.bizFeb 2023
PocketGamer.biz8 min
Understanding the important events in your app | Neasa Bannon from Meta
Optimizing user acquisition and advertising performance in the mobile gaming sector requires a strategic shift toward automation, privacy-compliant measurement, and creative innovation.
- Advertisers must shift from granular, user-level tracking to aggregate measurement solutions like conversion lift testing and marketing mix modeling to maintain efficacy in a privacy-centric landscape.
- Developers should refine conversion schemas to prioritize high-value in-app events and analyze customer lifetime value rather than focusing solely on bottom-funnel acquisition metrics.
- Integrating AI and automation tools is essential for achieving liquidity and efficient campaign scaling across Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms, which serve several billion monthly active users.
PocketGamer.bizFeb 2023