Insights and tips about the games industry

Making a game is one thing. An impressive, creative and wonderful thing. But a game really comes to life when it is released to players. Being played is a game’s reason to be – and the vital step in starting to generate revenues that let your studio grow, or allow you to begin work on your next title. As such, getting the release of a game right is about as important as it gets. And in today’s connected era where titles so commonly exist as live, maintained entities, releasing is now about a lot more than making it available for sale. With all that in mind, we’ve built up a checklist of all the things you need to consider before releasing your games. It’s a list that considers quality, performance, marketing, monetisation and more. Bear in mind that many of...

In early 2021 some clever bods* at a university wrote a research paper about how individual game mechanics affect player attrition (i.e. how many players your game loses over time). It was called ‘Serious Snacking: A Survival Analysis of how Snacking Mechanics Affect Attrition in a Mobile Serious Game’. While that title might make it sound a bit daunting, the paper has some really useful tips on ways to successfully keep people coming back to a game over a long period of time (called ‘snacking’). And luckily, we’ve done the reading so you don’t have to. Why is snacking good? Some games are designed for long single-play sessions (called ‘feasting’). But for most casual and hypercasual games played on mobile devices, short daily interactions with people coming back regularly are going to be most profitable for developers. So the more...

This article was originally written by OneSignal. You can it out on their blog here.  Before OneSignal, our company was a mobile game studio called Hiptic Games. Our experiences at Hiptic helped us see the need for a simpler, more reliable, and more powerful messaging platform to improve user engagement. In many ways, we built OneSignal with game developers in mind. The top 25% of mobile games have an average Day 28 retention of just 4% and the cost of acquiring a user that eventually makes a purchase is over $40 USD. Yet, the vast majority of mobile games still don’t implement basic best practices for improving user engagement and retention through messaging. In this guide, we’ll walk through the four main user-engagement channels that every mobile game studio may want to leverage — Push Notifications, In-App Messaging, Email, and SMS — and...

This post and report was originally written by Homa Games. You can check out the original here.  Whether you are participating in a jam or just in your daily game creation practice, building a functional, testable prototype ASAP is essential. First, because you want to be able to test your ideas before investing too much time and resources on them. Second, because in the fast-paced, highly competitive Hypercasual world, you don’t want to let the latest trends slip away or see your genius concepts developed by the competition. When it comes to game design, there are elements like core game mechanics and dynamics that need to be there from the beginning, no matter how simple your prototype is. If you are thinking Hypercasual, you also want your games to be satisfying from the start, so the visual part and the...

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by our friends at Voodoo. You can check out the original article here.  How long have you been working in Unity? Are there simple changes that you could make to your work process to get the most out of your iterations? Whether you’re super experienced or just starting out in hyper-casual game development, taking the time to review your processes can be key to staying efficient and producing great results. A team of our in-house Game Developers recently got together to discuss best practices when working on Unity game prototypes. The result? The Voodoo Dev Manual. Filled with simple tips and tricks to help you work as efficiently as possible and speed up your iterations, this brand new resource is now available for all partner studios on our exclusive e-learning platform . The Voodoo Dev Manual...

A while ago, a bunch of you asked us to add Applovin MAX to the mix of ad networks we integrate with. Well, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve crossed the finish line, and you can finally analyze your ad revenue from Applovin MAX in your GameAnalytics account. There’s now nothing stopping you from making more informed decisions around your monetization strategy. That’s the biggest news in this update. So if you’re struggling to sit still and want to get started right away, then head to our docs here to grab the integration guide and go go go. But if you fancy digging into the details, then read on. What’s new in GameAnalytics Including the news we mentioned above, here’s what’s changed in GameAnalytics and what you can expect to see next time you log in: We’ve added support for...

Every game developer hopes to see their game hit the top of the charts. The thrill of seeing people play it on the train, glowing reviews in gaming outlets, and your own section on Twitch. (The increased revenue doesn’t hurt, either.) But nobody really prepares you for success. What happens when you get that surge of new players and become so popular that even non-gamers have heard about you? With great success comes great responsibility. The more players you have, the more pressure you’re under to improve the game, add new content, fix bugs and keep the game alive. It’s a tough gig and one game can easily turn into an entire career. And there are quite a few tasks you’ll need to take care of behind the scenes. What goes on behind the scenes? This isn’t an exhaustive list,...

Think of your potential team like the Avengers, but with less spandex (although that’s completely up to you). You need a mix of specific skills and people who get on well as you’re likely to be working together very closely, for some time. And you’re also going to be paying them, so you need to make sure they understand your vision and how you want to deliver it. Don’t worry, help is at hand – here’s our advice on how to find the very best game development superheroes. Before you start recruiting The first thing you’ll need to think about is the type of game you’re building. Ask yourself the following four questions: 1. What technology does my game need? This will give you an idea of what you need to look for when it comes to technical expertise in...

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by the crew at OneSignal. Check out the original article here.  You know how powerful player messaging can be. It can improve a game’s experience and enrich competition. It can engage new gamers and win back churned players. Although the potential benefits are compelling, there are also examples of messaging channels detracting from the game experience. As a result, many savvy game developers overlook opportunities to enhance their game experience with messaging because they’re afraid of what might go wrong. Getting mobile messaging right takes some skill and thoughtfulness. We pooled our collective knowledge, along with input from leading mobile development studios, to create a list of seven common messaging mistakes in the gaming industry and how you can avoid them. Sin #1: Leading With an Opt-in Request Imagine you’re a bored commuter. You head...

We break down the top KPIs that Hyper-Casual developers should be aiming for, and reveal a few of the rising superstars that entered the market in 2020.

You’ve probably heard the news. But if you haven’t, we’re thrilled to share that our brand spanking new mobile intelligence platform is here, GameIntel. And it’s filled to the brim with powerful features and data. But that’s just one of the key updates we have for you. We’ve also introduced our new Real-time dashboard into the mix, ready for you to get started and try it out. But before you do, let’s go over the details and what this means for you. (You can check out our previous update here if you need to get up to speed with everything else.) Here’s what’s new: 1. Test our new Real-time dashboard with User ID filtering We’ve redesigned the Realtime dashboard in our GameAnalytics tool. You’ll find it under the GA Labs section on the left menu. And we’ve also added a...

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by Sara De Vries, Content Creator at Coda. You can find the original article here. When it comes to understanding the potential success of your prototype, market testing is the best way to accurately measure a user’s reception to your game. Most rapid market testing is conducted on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, as they allow you to test the marketability of your game in both an economic and efficient way. The types of campaigns or tests on these platforms can range from tracking traffic to engagement, and from them you can calculate important KPIs such as Click-through-rate (CTR) and Cost-per-install (CPI). A CPI or a CTR test are two different types of tests and both have pros and cons worth considering for your particular stage of development. Keep reading...