Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Arttu Anttonen, Game Analyst. Aside from turning Chinese games inside out, Arttu has a solid understanding of what works and what doesn’t in the mobile game market in the East. Everyone working with mobile games in the West already knows Archero. The successful shoot-em-up style ARPG-esque roguelike-ish action game, where players clear sequences of short levels of enemies with their archer hero while avoiding getting shot themselves. And, since many Western game developers struggle with the age-old dilemma of how to make their game more appealing to the Chinese audience, you could be asking yourself: “What would Chinese Archero look like?” Baozou Daxia has been grossing steadily since launch (source: GameRefinery service). Well, a textbook example of how to do it emerged in early September, although made by a Chinese developer, Dream of...

In the first part of our guide, we shared a few key tips game developers can use when reaching out to influencers. So, if you’re working on your pitch, or still figuring out which one is best for you, then we recommend you to head to part 1 before reading this one.  For part two of our series, we’re going to give you the lowdown on how to build a (manageable) timeline for your influencer marketing campaigns, no matter what your company’s size or budget is. And just like any other strategy or timeline, this isn’t a “one size fits all” plan. Rather, you can use this as a simple framework to follow when building your own strategy. This is what we will cover: How to estimate how much time you’ll need Pre-campaign planning Production/creative process If you’re beta-testing Post...

Editors note: We originally published this earlier this year when Apple Arcade was originally announced. As promised, we’ve updated this post with the latest info about Apple Arcade (latest update October 11th 2019). Updated text will be in italics.   A lot has happened since we last reported on Apple Arcade – the launch has finally happened, games have been confirmed, and we’ve had a taste of what’s to come. To keep you guys up-to-date with what’s going on, here are a few things that have come to light since April 2019, and what this means for mobile game developers. Here’s what we cover (feel free to skip to something in particular, if you’d like): Will Apple Arcade be an industry shake up? What we know about Apple Arcade so far What this means for developers Some useful resources Will Apple...

Our friends at JoyPac recently wrote us some tips about how to get your game published in China. In this second installment, JoyPac’s Falko Böcker looks at the details of China’s ever-evolving process for granting publishing licenses. Publishing games in China is a complicated business. The State Administration of Press & Publication (SAPP) decides who can get a license to publish games, and their approach is very much ‘quality over quantity’. They’re limiting the number of developers who can publish games in their territory, and they’ll only greenlight games of a high standard that they see as healthy entertainment for Chinese gamers. The rules have changed recently, and are likely to keep changing in the future. So we’re going to run through what it takes to get a license, and explain how we go about navigating this tricky process. So...

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Joel Julkunen, Head of Game Analysis at GameRefinery. In his role, he leads GameRefinery’s analytics department and has a major role in developing algorithms and statistical models used in the company.  Third-party brands and IPs have solidified their place in the mobile games industry, often providing (or at least promising) that crucial extra boost for your title. In the US, a whopping 30% of top 100 grossing games are currently based on a 3rd party IP, and when zooming out to the top 200, the figure holds at almost 25%. In other words, IPs play a significant role in mobile game revenue generation and based on the variety of IP types utilized, there are license owners all across the board joining the party. US top 200 grossing IP utilization from the GameRefinery...

Just in case you haven’t noticed, China is massive. It’s now the largest single-language market on the planet – three times bigger than the US. To put that into perspective, China has 242 million iOS devices, which is pretty much the same number of the total mobile phones in the US. That should mean it’s rich pickings for game developers. But it’s not that simple. Because the way we market games in the West looks very different in China. Here at JoyPac, we combine the open and communicative style of western game publishers with the specialized know-how needed to be successful in Asia. And in this post, we’re going to help you navigate the potentially lucrative Chinese market, and avoid the potential pitfalls by telling you a bit about some of the cultural differences you need to be aware of...

Influencers are increasingly holding sway over the performance of titles on any given week, and players these days can’t get enough of their zany content. And it’s not surprising that titles like Apex Legends and Brawl Stars owe a large part of their appeal to well-executed influencer strategies. With that in mind, how can developers not only find social media influencers, but also position their game so they’ll be lining up to review it? So in this post, influencer-experts, Matchmade, let you in on some of the best-kept secrets in how to entice influencers (especially the ones on YouTube and Twitch) to help you make a success of your new release. First things first – the fundamentals Before you start reaching out to influencers, we recommend you to hash out your expectations and goals for your influencer marketing strategy. Having...

In June 2019, GameAnalytics hosted a mobile gaming event to talk about casual gaming, which we called ‘The Arcade (R)Evolution: Making Hit Casual Games‘. Valeria Castro of Platonic games somewhat stole the show with her presentation – speaking with wit and passion about how to find a niche in the world of hyper-casual gaming. If you couldn’t make our last event, don’t worry. Here’s Valeria to fill you in on what you missed (and here’s the video of her talk): We’re Platonic Games – a 10-person dev team from Madrid. You might know us if you’ve ever played Kawaii Kitchen, Happy Hop or Sailor Cats. As you can probably guess from those titles, we make super-cute, hyper-casual games. And there’s one question we get asked a lot. Can we actually compete against the big developers? In reality, no. We can’t....

In this talk, our audience learned just what exactly is Voodoo’s development approach, what their publishing agreement is, and what metrics they care about. You’ll learn from start to finish, the journey of a viral hit (looking specifically at AquaPark). If you fancy watching the other talks from this event, you can find them here: How We Found A Hyper-Casual Niche – Platonic Games The Latest Trends for Hyper-Casual Games – GameAnalytics

During this event, Valeria from Platonic Games took to the stage, and showed us just how exactly her small-time studio tackled the competitive market by finding their niche in Kawaii mobile games. If you fancy watching the other talks from this event, you can find them here: The Latest Trends for Hyper-Casual Games – GameAnalytics Hyper-casual in a Hyper-competitive Market – Voodoo

If you’ve been following our blog, email, or social channels recently, then you may have heard the words ‘Arcade (R)Evolution’ or ‘Making Hit Casual Games’ been muttered about once or twice. But what exactly is this? And what does this mean for you? In short, we’re hosting a series of GameAnalytics events (alongside numerous partner speakers from leading studios/publishers) around casual mobile games (called the Arcade (R)Evolution), and we’ve just held the first one of this series last week. If you were able to join us, brilliant! And thanks so much for coming. If you were sadly busy, then no worries, next time. But whether you want to catch up on missed content, or are eager to relive the evening, we’ve recorded each talk and shared the slides from this event below. Before you dig in, here is some more...

After the launch of one of their biggest games, I spoke with Vincent Hart de Keating, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Homa Games, to learn how they improved their now biggest hit, Tiny Cars, and key lessons they learned on the way.  Thanks for chatting with us today. Before we get started, can you give us a bit of background on Homa? What do you guys do? Sure thing. At Homa Games, we consider ourselves experts when it comes to mobile game publishing, especially within the hyper-casual space. We actually only started about a year ago (mid-2018) as a fairly small team. But in the space of just a few months, our team grew, with new members in game design, data analysis, motion design, and mobile development (making the ultimate A-team for publishing). Since then, we’ve managed to publish over...