Jacqueline Zenn

Wouldn’t it be awesome if your players spent money within your game all of the time? While building a community that spends actual currency in your game’s environment is certainly difficult, it’s not impossible. In-app purchases are a huge form of income for the mobile gaming world, and is only getting more and more popular. This chart from Statista shows just how comfortable users are becoming with making purchases on their mobile devices. The million dollar question every game developer is asking is ‘how can I take advantage of this?’ It all comes back to the game, and your data. By analyzing your users behavior you can better optimize your gameplay so not only will your users have a better experience, you’ll also be able to get them to perform your desired actions. Before you can do this however, you...

Being lean is more just than a tech industry buzzword, it’s a way of life – or at least a smart way of doing business. That applies to many different categories, but especially analytics, and definitely so when you need to figure out your minimum viable analytics. With most analytics programs (including ours) you get a ton of information, but as it’s commonly said – if you can’t measure it then you can’t improve upon it. We’ll build on that further by saying that if you and your team can’t easily track, consume, and find actionable data in your analytics reports, then what’s the point of tracking everything? You’ll likely end up wasting a lot of time and effort on something unnecessary when you have better things to do – like improving your game or working on new ones. That’s...

If you’re a game developer, chances are that you’re running some native ads. Or if not, you’re probably at least thinking about it, because properly done native ads can be incredibly successful and lucrative. However, there are a lot of reasons they are the next big thing in mobile advertising, so let’s dig into how you can best execute native advertising in your game(s). Let’s start by defining what a native ad actually is. Generally, a native ad is considered any type of digital ad that echoes or follows the form and function of the platform on which it appears. And in most cases, the value of a native is the fact that properly deployed, they don’t feel like ads at all. Which is why they can be so successful if they are carefully executed, tracked, and measured – and...

If anything can be said to be ‘old school’ or ‘traditional’ when it comes to digital, it would be classic search marketing. That’s the case for nearly any product you want people to discover online, whether it’s a t-shirt, a gadget, or a mobile game or app. All of these can be searched for online, and are easier to find when good SEO has been applied. Search marketing is about a lot more than just using the right keywords; you have to understand the philosophy and thought process behind creating your game’s app store listing and website in order to properly optimize it. Here’s how to get started. Search Listings = Pull Versus Push One of the first things you should remember and one of the main arguments for the effectiveness of search engine optimization (or app store search optimization...

We are all creatures of habit, whether we like it or not. Not every habit is bad – especially when you’re a developer who’s got players that make your game a regular habit or part of their everyday activities. After all, a player who gets used to playing your game will keep coming back to it, and that’s the key to forming a steady community of players in the long run. [bctt tweet=”A player who gets used to playing your game habitually will keep coming back, and that’s the key to forming a steady community. Read more:” username=”GameAnalytics”] Repeat Customers Are The Best Customers This is the case in nearly every business, but  especially true in gaming. After all, most users aren’t going to finish any game in a single session (and if they can, is that really the right...

Some of us may associate gaming with guys more than we do girls, and when we picture them, it’s often the stereotypically geeky or nerdy sort. It’s an image that gaming can’t often shift, and that’s despite the fact gaming of all kinds has become pretty mainstream! From eSports on ESPN to mobile games becoming some of the most popular apps in the world, gaming is hardly limited to one gender or a few niche interest groups. In fact, in the realm of mobile gaming, women are more likely to be avid participants than men! According to a 2017 Google Play and NewZoo survey, 65% of U.S. women ages 10-65 play mobile games – and that is a huge audience. What’s more, according to the same survey, women make up nearly half – 49% – of all mobile gamers, and they...

Ads are a part of daily life for pretty much everyone, and in most cases, we’re probably all pretty good at tuning them out. Whether it’s a TV commercial, a billboard, a banner ad on a website, or a pre-roll message on a video or podcast, the various ads that we’re bombarded with probably barely register for most of us, eventually causing ad blindness. While ad blindness might be a good thing in your personal life (who wants to view advertising on purpose, really?), it’s definitely not a good thing for game developers who rely on clicks and perhaps affiliate marketing as well. With that in mind, how do you optimize your ads for actual productive views and engagements, while keeping mobile ad blindness to a minimum? What Is Mobile Ad Blindness? Let’s start with understanding what ad blindness actually...

With any analytics dashboard, you’re going to get a lot of information, possibly more than you know what to do with. While all of it is valuable in its own way, you’re probably not going to be parsing every detail of each metric or stat on a daily basis, so you need to be aware of the stats that you should prioritise in order to maximise your game’s revenue – and maintain your own sanity! There are some metrics that you should know by heart, but for some they could prove to be a bit much to take a deep dive into on a daily basis. So without further adieu, these are the metrics you should prioritise if, like most game developers, you want to boost your game’s earning and revenue potential. 1 – Daily Active Users/DAU For your game...

Think about how many times you visit your analytics dashboard on any given day. Then, think about how many times you send and reference analytics. You’re probably not only spending many hours in your analytics in any given week, but you’re possibly also relying on those dashboards and the reports they generate for key insights into your audience, and potentially even investor or C-Suite buy-in. After all, telling a story with your analytics reports is invaluable! Therefore, the creation and curation of those dashboards is incredibly important. In fact, making the choice about what to feature and highlight on each dashboard should be one of the most well-thought-out decision processes that you can engage in as a game developer. After all, analytics are at the heart of your game’s success itself, so they should be crafted carefully in order to...

There’s an infamous quote that’s been ascribed to a variety of artists and creative minds over the years, including Pablo Picasso, but Steve Jobs may have been the most famous to use it when, while discussing the Macintosh, he said that “great artists steal”. However, the phrase applies to much more than just the iconic machines; it can also be used when discussing painting, composing, writing, and – naturally – creating amazing games. That’s probably obvious when it comes to the creative side of developing a game, but being able to recognize greatness, and not necessarily stealing – but adapting it for your own purposes – is valuable when it comes to the analytics side. Learning From The Greatest It should hardly be surprising that the best games tend to have great analytics – and smart analytical minds behind them...

It’s pretty easy to figure out how much a given player has spent on your game during the course of a set period of time. However, it’s much more complicated to figure out that player’s actual value to your community (and your bottom line). After all, you had to spend a certain amount to get that player to your game to begin with – marketing and promotions aren’t free! That’s where calculating player lifetime value or LTV comes in. The most basic definition of LTV is that player lifetime value equals the amount of revenue earned from an individual player throughout their lifetime – or the profit they will generate for you from their first moment playing your game until the last. We’ve talked about calculating player lifetime value before, and the standard simple equation holds true – the return...

Type of players We all know that every player is unique and special, with their own motivations for playing any given game and developing a personalized approach to its ecosystem. However, it’s nearly impossible to assess and cater to each type of personality with every aspect of your game, so it’s necessary to step back, organize, and plan things out a bit. And that starts by understanding what you’re dealing with in regard to your site’s community. Bartler’s Hence the need for a taxonomy and some kind of assessment system. The Bartle Player Taxonomy or Bartle Player Types are based on character theory and player behavior; the classification is meant to establish player personality types based on behavioral patterns and their goals and motivations for playing the game. Note that no player fits into one particular category; rather, most players...