User Acquisition reports and market data
Documents
FTUE: Minions Paradise
Minions Paradise, a mobile resource-management game developed by EA, utilizes a highly guided onboarding process designed to immerse players in its narrative and mechanics within the first ten minutes of gameplay.
- Minions Paradise utilizes a highly guided, restrictive onboarding process that prioritizes narrative immersion over player agency during the first ten minutes of gameplay.
- The game employs an unskippable cinematic trailer to establish the premise before transitioning into a structured tutorial that spoon-feeds core mechanics like building placement and resource collection.
- The economy is built on three distinct resources: party points, sand dollars, and a premium hard currency designed to bypass time-based progression gates.
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.
Biz Daily: Will Instagram be the next UA goldmine?
The integration of Instagram into Facebook’s advertising ecosystem marks a significant development in mobile user acquisition (UA) for the gaming industry.
- Facebook is integrating its advertising infrastructure with Instagram to open its 300-million-user base to mobile game developers.
- Major mobile game developers currently allocate approximately 30 percent of their revenue toward marketing, driving the demand for new high-scale acquisition channels.
- Mobile measurement partners have been authorized to provide granular analytics for Instagram, enabling developers to track ad performance, user interaction, and geographic reach.
Why Kabam is toning down its F2P monetisation
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a shift toward long-term player retention and sustainable monetization strategies, as evidenced by the financial performance and strategic pivots of major players like Electronic Arts and Kabam.
- Kabam shifted its strategy from aggressive, short-term monetization to a 'less is more' approach after missing its 2014 revenue target of $550–600 million, reporting only $400 million.
- To improve long-term lifetime value, Kabam is reducing its game release frequency and easing monetization mechanics, such as gifting players small amounts of hard currency to foster better sentiment.
- Mobile game developers are increasingly utilizing 'extreme user acquisition,' evidenced by companies like Supercell and uCool investing millions in high-profile traditional media, including Super Bowl advertising.
How video is impacting the mobile games biz
The mobile gaming industry is undergoing a significant shift as video content becomes a primary driver for both monetization and user acquisition.
- As of late 2014, approximately one-third of all mobile games have integrated video advertising, marking a significant shift away from traditional banner ads.
- Incentivized video models, where players watch ads for in-game rewards, have proven highly effective for monetization, as demonstrated by Crossy Road generating $1 million through Unity’s video advertising system.
- Developers are increasingly shifting user acquisition budgets from traditional performance-based advertising to influencer marketing on YouTube to achieve lower-cost download spikes.
PG Connects London 2015, the power of Wither and bye-bye Keith
The mobile gaming industry in late 2014 is characterized by significant shifts in user acquisition strategies, data analytics, and monetization design.
- Facebook dominates mobile game user acquisition, accounting for approximately one-third of all industry spending on marketing.
- Major publishers are creating an inflationary cycle in user acquisition costs, where high-monetizing titles like King’s Candy Crush Soda Saga use aggressive spending to saturate channels and price out smaller developers.
- SimilarWeb has entered the mobile app analytics sector with $15 million in funding to provide developers with granular data on traffic sources, specifically distinguishing between organic, viral, and paid acquisition.
Fiksu on overcoming the dangers of discoverability
The primary challenge for mobile application developers is overcoming discoverability hurdles in a saturated market where users typically engage with only a fraction of their installed apps.
- Prioritize 'cost-per-loyal-user' over 'cost-per-install' as the primary metric, defining a loyal user as someone who engages at least three times and completes a value-added action like a purchase or registration.
- Focus acquisition efforts on retention, as over 20% of mobile app downloads are currently used only once.
- Target the top 25 apps in store rankings, as 88% of users limit their browsing exclusively to this group.
TrailPlay on engaging fresh audiences
The primary thesis of this analysis is that developers can overcome the saturation and high user acquisition costs of the mobile market by adopting a cross-platform strategy that includes desktop and web-based platforms like Facebook, Steam, and Kongregate.
- Adopting a cross-platform strategy across desktop and web channels serves as a low-cost user acquisition alternative to the saturated and expensive mobile market.
- King reported a 50% increase in average play time and a 100% increase in user engagement after porting their titles to additional platforms.
- PopCap successfully utilized Facebook Connect to enable cross-platform play, resulting in 20% of their monthly active users engaging with these connectivity features.
Stop relying on app stores and help yourselves, says BlackBerry
The primary challenge for independent game developers is not the creation of a high-quality product, but the difficulty of achieving visibility within oversaturated digital marketplaces.
- Independent developers must shift from relying on organic app store discovery to a proactive, multi-channel marketing strategy to overcome market oversaturation.
- Developers should prioritize building direct relationships with players to foster brand evangelism, using social media engagement and community feedback to drive long-term loyalty.
- App store visibility should be optimized by utilizing tools to identify high-traffic, low-competition keywords and by actively pursuing direct relationships with platform representatives to secure feature placements.
Challenge, engage, and analyse your players, says Plarium's Oren Todoros
Plarium’s mobile PR specialist, Oren Todoros, outlines five strategic trends currently shaping the mobile gaming industry, emphasizing the need for developers to actively challenge and engage their player base to maintain retention.
- Developers should experiment with genre mashups, such as combining RPG mechanics with card-collecting elements or blending hardcore and casual gameplay, to increase player engagement.
- Retention can be improved by implementing periodic, time-sensitive special events and tournaments, which prevent player churn by providing consistent challenges and rewards.
- Push notifications should be treated as a data-driven marketing channel; developers should utilize A/B testing and analytics to track open rates and click-throughs rather than relying on generic messaging.
Localisation isn't everything for Japanese success, says Metaps' McCarthy
Entering the Japanese and South Korean mobile gaming markets requires a strategic shift in focus from traditional localization to core gameplay quality and aggressive user acquisition.
- Prioritize core gameplay quality and effective monetization over perfect linguistic localization, as over-localizing can create an uncanny valley effect that alienates Japanese players.
- Success in Japan requires releasing a dedicated Android APK to fully leverage Google Play store features, alongside aggressive pre-registration and boost campaigns to acquire high-quality users.
- South Korean players exhibit high churn rates, making technical stability and performance optimization critical; even minor lag can lead to immediate user loss.
MAG CEO Daniel Hasselberg on the power of free growth opportunities
MAG Interactive CEO Daniel Hasselberg outlines a strategy for achieving massive mobile game growth through organic, non-paid acquisition, using the word game Ruzzle as a primary case study.
- MAG Interactive scaled the word game Ruzzle to 50 million downloads without an initial marketing budget by prioritizing viral loops and social sharing.
- The company achieved a number-one ranking in the U.S. App Store by leveraging organic growth that originated in a single city in Mississippi and spread through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
- Retention was driven by skill-based gameplay and sophisticated ELO-based matchmaking algorithms that ensured competitive balance for players.