User Acquisition reports and market data
Documents
Superstar Session: The State of Mobile Gaming 2020 PG Connects Digital #2
The mobile gaming industry underwent a period of significant volatility during 2020, characterized by an initial surge in user engagement followed by a strategic market correction.
- Mobile gaming fraud has evolved from simple install manipulation to complex in-app event mimicry, where device farms and emulators simulate human retention and spending patterns to deceive attribution systems.
- To combat sophisticated fraud, developers must shift from surface-level metrics to advanced analytical frameworks that detect nuanced, human-like patterns of deception to protect profitability.
- Monetization strategies shifted in 2020 toward in-app purchases to compensate for declining advertising revenue, necessitating a greater focus on retargeting to boost average revenue per paying user.
Exploring the Mobile Industry with Nadav Ashkenazy | Game Dev Unchained Episode 230
The mobile gaming industry has undergone a fundamental transformation, shifting from speculative development cycles toward a rigorous, data-centric model that prioritizes marketability and financial sustainability.
- Mobile game development has shifted to a data-centric model that uses minimum viable products (MVPs) to test marketability, cost per install, and lifetime value before committing full production resources.
- The integration of creative design with rigorous business metrics is now the primary strategy for mitigating high development risks and reducing the frequency of studio closures.
- Studios must prioritize mobile-specific user experience design rather than simple platform porting to remain competitive in an increasingly complex digital landscape.
Data Driven Decision Making | Murka's Growth Through Data at the Organization and Product Level
Murka achieves sustained revenue growth and market outperformance by embedding a comprehensive, data-driven framework across its organizational, product, and portfolio operations.
- Murka utilizes a three-tiered player segmentation model—categorizing by demographics, activity patterns, and a 360-degree holistic view—to dynamically adjust live-ops, rewards, and challenges.
- The organization maintains a structural separation between business intelligence infrastructure and business-focused analysis to ensure teams can adapt to player behavior without being overwhelmed by data.
- Data analysts are embedded directly into product and monetization teams to facilitate the use of machine learning for predictive modeling, including churn forecasting and conversion optimization.
Opportunities in Games as Marketing Channels PG Connects Digital #2
The integration of advertising into indie games serves as a critical revenue stream for developers, provided the implementation balances commercial viability with user experience.
- Games are the most viewed media globally, providing a significant opportunity for brands to reach audiences through non-intrusive, integrated marketing channels.
- Developers should prioritize creative partnerships like branded reskins, product placement, and gamified loyalty programs over disruptive ad networks to maintain user experience.
- Strategic brand matching is essential for revenue, as high-paying ads—such as insurance—often fail to align with the demographics of younger gaming audiences.
How LBC Studios Used Social Media & Innovative Marketing Strategies to Grow Their Hempire PGCD #2
LBC Studios, a Vancouver-based mobile game developer and publisher, utilizes community-focused social media strategies and data-driven marketing to overcome significant advertising barriers in the cannabis-themed gaming sector.
- LBC Studios has generated over $30 million in gross revenue and achieved 12 million installs for its flagship title, Hempire, since its 2017 launch.
- The studio maintains a strict business model that prioritizes a 30-day payback window for all user acquisition (UA) costs.
- To overcome advertising restrictions on cannabis-themed content, the studio iterates on 12 to 15 active creative assets weekly, ranking them by IPM and ROI to optimize spend.
Promoting Growth Even During Lockdown PG Connects Digital #2
Securing investment in the gaming industry requires a disciplined, ten-slide framework that prioritizes founder credibility and operational transparency.
- Investors prioritize founder credibility and team track records as the primary indicators of a studio's future execution capability.
- A successful investment pitch requires a disciplined ten-slide framework that balances core game mechanics with realistic key performance indicators.
- Founders must demonstrate business acumen by providing transparent financial forecasts, including specific burn rates and projected break-even timelines.
Fueling Growth Through User-centric UA Creative Design PG Connects Digital #2
Modern user acquisition strategies in the mobile gaming industry have shifted away from simple trial-and-error testing toward a framework rooted in neuroscience and behavioral psychology.
- Creative assets are the primary drivers of return on ad spend (ROAS), superseding automated media buying tools in importance for modern user acquisition.
- Effective UA strategies must shift from surface-level demographic analytics to a framework based on neuroscience and behavioral psychology to trigger intuitive System 1 processing.
- Developers should categorize players into psychological archetypes—such as achievers, strategists, and escapists—to align ad narratives with core user motivations.
Superstar Session:Ten ways that No More Robots Makes its Games Sell (that You're Probably not Doing)
The publishing label No More Robots, led by Mike Rose, emphasizes a data-driven, non-conformist approach to game publishing on PC and console.
- Prioritize unique, genre-defying game hooks over industry trends to ensure distinct market positioning and better algorithmic visibility on platforms like Steam.
- Limit the marketing announcement window to four to eight months before launch to maximize hype and effectively trigger platform algorithms.
- Conduct rigorous mathematical modeling to establish clear break-even points and avoid unsustainable development cycles, as longer production times do not correlate with higher quality.
The Death of the IDFA | PocketGamer.biz RoundTables
The deprecation of the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) on iOS marks a fundamental transition in the mobile gaming industry, moving away from deterministic, granular user tracking toward a privacy-centric, probabilistic measurement landscape.
- The deprecation of IDFA has forced a permanent shift from deterministic, granular user tracking to a probabilistic measurement landscape, significantly reducing the precision of campaign attribution.
- Publishers must now rely on machine learning and predictive analytics to identify high-value users within the first 48 hours of gameplay to compensate for the loss of individual-level tracking data.
- The industry is pivoting toward the development of robust first-party data sets, such as email addresses and phone numbers, to maintain control over audience targeting without relying on third-party identifiers.
Mobile Marketing for Card Games | Growing WildCard Games Ultimate Cribbage (UA Coffee)
Scaling a niche mobile title like Ultimate Cribbage requires a disciplined approach to user acquisition that balances aggressive automated bidding with rigorous creative testing.
- Scale niche titles by using a tiered geographic strategy, starting in low-cost markets like India before expanding to higher-value regions like Canada and the United States.
- Target specific D90–D120 payback windows to ensure long-term profitability rather than focusing solely on short-term acquisition metrics.
- Diversify marketing channels beyond Facebook’s automated bidding to avoid unpredictable costs and fragmented data that obscure true player lifetime value.
Driving One Million Installs with TikTok Influencers PG Connects Digital #2
TikTok represents a transformative channel for mobile user acquisition, offering a distinct advantage over traditional advertising platforms through its highly engaged audience and a discovery-focused algorithm.
- Mid-tier influencers with one to five million followers are the most effective partners for driving high-volume user acquisition.
- Collaborations with influencers can generate tens of thousands of installs per post, often resulting in a lower effective cost-per-install than traditional paid media.
- Influencer campaigns on TikTok frequently trigger significant organic uplift, leading to measurable spikes in app store rankings and increased user-generated content.
Panel: What Does Success Look Like in UA? PG Connects Digital #2
Modern user acquisition strategies have evolved beyond a reliance on vanity metrics like raw install volume, shifting instead toward a rigorous, data-driven focus on long-term profitability and return on ad spend.
- Success in user acquisition has shifted from raw install volume to a focus on long-term profitability, return on ad spend (ROAS), and the retention of high-value users.
- Marketing, finance, and product teams must collaborate to align cohort-based profitability analysis with broader business objectives to ensure sustainable growth.
- While Google and Facebook remain dominant, TikTok and Snapchat are essential for their creative capabilities and influence on multi-touch customer journeys.