MoPub recently published its quarterly Mobile Advertising Marketplace Report for Q1 2013, which, combined with other such reports from mobile advertising operators, reveals three interesting, emerging trends in mobile advertising. Advertising placements are getting bigger The performance of larger ad sizes (480×320, 769×1024, and 1024×768) experienced a marked increase in Q1 2013, creating a wide [...]
The performance of Zynga’s stock in the almost two years since its IPO has chilled public markets ambitions for gaming companies. But two Western gaming developers, both of which have capably navigated a transition from Facebook (and other web-based platforms) to mobile, currently contend for the distinction of most likely to undertake the first post-Zynga [...]
(The model referenced throughout this post can be downloaded here) Supercell’s recent $100mm secondary financing round raises some interesting questions about how mobile game developers capitalize on a hit game. A title in the Top 10 grossing chart for the US can, as evidenced by a number of recent high-profile examples, generate upwards of $500,000 [...]
The macro trend playing out in mobile gaming over the past six months has been the shift away from casual gaming toward the mid-core experience: niche games driving high ARPU values through extended retention profiles and engagement metrics. You know a trend has breached the public consciousness when Forbes writes about it, which it did [...]
Last week I participated in a panel at Casual Connect called “Emerging Strategies to User Acquisition”. I was honored to share the stage with Jussi Laakkonen from Applifier, Stefan Bielau, Erlend Christoffersen from Supercell, Gilad Rotem from InGaming, and Billy Shipp from Iddiction. Below you’ll find a video of the entire panel, which clocks in at [...]
(Dashboard template can be found here; source code on GitHub here) In freemium mobile, my experience has been that the principles of the Minimum Viable Product as a product strategy are respected but sometimes necessarily abandoned because the concept isn’t perfectly transferable to mobile platforms. The MVP approach was designed for a platform (the web) that allows [...]
Download the model here (updated 20-03-2013) As free-to-play transitions from an emerging, vaguely defined abstraction into the dominant business model on mobile, developers will face an increasing need to understand the concept from an analytical standpoint. I spent some time this weekend thinking about how free-to-play games generate revenue: what mechanics converge to deliver positive ROI on the [...]
Part One As I mentioned in the first post on this topic, a marketing manager knows only a few things about a user acquired from a mobile user acquisition network; one of those things is that the user was put up for sale.
Last week I published a post on Pocket Gamer in which I outlined what I consider to be the three “pillars” of free-to-play economics; that is, three core tenets of the business model that must be implemented correctly in order for a game to experience success.
I read this piece on GigaOM the other day about what VCs look for when investing in gaming start-ups, and this bit caught my eye: Hyatt’s number one metric for games that interest him as investment prospects: Day-one retention, i.e. whether new users come back the next day to play. This is an especially important way [...]
