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5 min read
#Tool & Product

About Druid: Our New Backend Technology

By now, many of you will be aware of the fact that GameAnalytics is about to undergo a major technical overhaul. For the past 18 months, myself and a small team of engineers have been rebuilding (and also migrating), our existing infrastructure to an innovative new solution. That solution is called Druid, and it’s essentially a high performance data store. In this post, my aim is to give more of a technical overview of the new systems and solutions that we’re putting in place. I hope this helps to give all users of our service more context about the change, why it was necessary, and the benefits it will bring. For more information about the upcoming changes, you can check out this Beta announcement post. What is Druid? Druid is an open source data store designed for real-time exploratory analytics...
Fast Lane by Space Ape Games
14 min read
#Ads & Monetization

How Space Ape Games Saw 4x Growth with Smart Monetization

Editor’s note: this post was originally published by Nicolas Boulay on the Space Ape Games Tech blog. Nic has 10 years experience in mobile UA and ad-monetisation. He previously worked at Gameloft and Badoo and joined Space Ape in the early days of 2012.  About Fast Lane Fastlane has reached 16M installs, approaching $30M run rate, and is on an explosive growth trajectory 10 months after launch Fastlane is an evolved arcade shooter game available for free on iOS and Android phones From $5,000/d to $45,000/d from ads in 4 months: what are the lessons learnt from our holistic iterations and partnership with Unity Ads We are setting a new benchmark for ads at $0.13 ad arpdau in the US Our Ad LTV – lifetime value – is now based on true ad performance to gain accuracy We multiplied our User...
8 min read
#Marketing & Publishing

Generating Word-Of-Mouth Buzz For Your Game

What do we do when we experience something amazing, profound, funny, emotional or just plain weird? We talk about it. We want to share that experience with our friends, so that they can jump right in and see for themselves. This, of course, is word-of-mouth – and it’s one of the most powerful marketing tools out there. Whether you’re making mobile games or selling underpants, the dream scenario is that whoever engages with your product loves it so much that they have to tell their friends all about it. Think about how often you’ve received a personal recommendation for an app, or a book, or a restaurant – and how often you then actually acted on that recommendation. Contrast that with seeing an advert for that same product, and how likely you’d be to act upon whatever call-to-action the ad...
14 min read
#Game Deconstructions

Disco Elysium – Rezzed 2018 Interview

The yearly Rezzed event run by Eurogamer.net is an absolutely fantastic way for indie developers to display their games and get them noticed. One such title on display this year was Disco Elysium, an amazingly inventive and constantly hilarious open-world RPG where you play as a policeman and seemingly every choice you make can change how the game is played. I spoke to Robert Kurvitz, lead writer and designer of Disco Elysium, about creating a world with so many choices, the consequences of doing so, and the ability to wear cool hats. Disco Elysium is an absolutely incredible game, where did you get the idea from initially? We were at a really dark moment in our lives, there were a lot of people who were, I was personally at a dark moment in my life. So, my executive producer came...
8 min read
#ASO

SEO And ASO Optimization For Game Developers

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...
25 min read
#Strategies

The Future Of Idle Games – Fluffy Fairy Games Interview

Ahead of the release of Idle Factory Tycoon, I spoke to Nate Barker, Director of Business Development at Fluffy Fairy Games, about the history of the studio, what makes the genre of Idle Games so appealing, and the company’s future aspirations of becoming the Supercell of the genre. Can you tell us about your journey to Fluffy Fairy Games? How did you end up working there? I was at Casual Connect in Berlin in February 2017 working for a live-ops company in the social good space. During a Happy Hour, I happened to sit down with a few folks from Fluffy Fairy Games, not realizing who they were. The next day, I had made the terrible choice of a morning appointment (always a bad decision during a conference), and it happened to be with the same two people who I...
9 min read
#Marketing & Publishing

Digital Board Game Companion Apps: The Merge of Physical and Digital Gaming

Board games have always celebrated their physical and tactile nature. Reading the rulebook, unpacking the pieces, and setting up the board are all an intrinsic part of playing the board game. However, digital companion apps have also long been part of this ritual. Some games, like 7 Wonders, have a free app that helps players to calculate points at the end of the game. As the game has a limited number of scoring sheets that can run out, and the point calculation process is quite complex, the app was always a welcome helper. Digital board games also had their own place in the hobby, serving as digital recreations of the physical game on phones or PC that are primarily targeted towards solo play, although they tend to have some multiplayer options too. However, for the most part, physical games and...
17 min read
#Strategies

Creating Your Own Good Company – An Interview With Chasing Carrots

We spoke to Paul Lawitzki about making a community from unlikely places, maintaining a healthy work culture and knowing when it’s okay to put that project on hold, and creating a good company in their upcoming title Good Company, a charming 80s pastiche that sees you creating your own robot manufacturing empire. We did not talk about Skynet.  What is your role in the team, and how did you end up working at Chasing Carrots? I’m programmer and lead game designer at Chasing Carrots. Formally, my employment started in April 2017, but I’ve known the team for much longer; I worked here as a freelance programmer and project lead on Pressure Overdrive for more than two years before my permanent employment. [bctt tweet=”How do you create a community, maintain a healthy work culture, and know when it’s okay to put...
9 min read
#Strategies

A Primer On eSports

On March 22, the Las Vegas Strip welcomed its first eSports arena. eSports Arena Las Vegas, a 30,000 sq. ft. venue that hosts large live gaming events, stands as a physical symbol for where the industry currently stands, and how far it has come. 10 years ago, in March 2008, Soulreapers/pure.gaming won the Play.com UT3 National Championship Final and took home £30,000 (about $71,000, adjusted for inflation). Four days before the Las Vegas arena opening, however, the Russian team won $800,000 from a prize pool of $1.5 million during the Dota 2 competition at WESG 2017 . Simply put: an eSports team in 2018 won over 11 times the prize money in a single competition than a team in 2008 won from an entire tournament. Starker still, in 1998, there were a total of 9 tournaments and 34 players in...
13 min read
#Strategies

A Decade Of Dreaming – The Story of frecle and Youropa

Located within the Copenhagen branch of GameAnalytics is our GameHub, where anyone can come and use the space in order to develop and grow their games. One such group of developers are frecle, who are about to release Youropa, a title ten years in the making. We caught up with them before the launch of the long-coming game… What is Youropa? When Youropa is torn apart by a mysterious force, you must use your unique wall walking ability to navigate a strange fragmented city, restore it to former glory and learn who you really are. Youropa is a gravity defying platform puzzle adventure about breaking rules, being upside down and thinking outside the box. The game comes with a full single player campaign, character, level and map designer. It’s out on Steam in Spring 2018. [bctt tweet=”There’s nothing you can’t...
10 min read
#Game Design

Designing Habit-Forming Games

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...
16 min read
#Strategies

The Fighting Game Scene On Mobile – An Interview With Shoryuken

After 2 years at Shoryuken and attendance at countless fighting game tournaments, I spoke to Fighting Game Community expert Keegan Spindler about the difficulties of adapting the genre to mobile, the fine line microtransactions have to take to make competition viable, and his tips on how being open with the community can help it grow around you.  Can you give us a little background on your role and what it is you do now? I was the Features Editor for Shoryuken. About 12 months ago we looked at our numbers and realised that by staying as a news network, we weren’t keeping up with things like social media. So my job role evolved as we realised the need to create higher quality, bespoke long-form work around fighting games and the community. I’ve stepped down a bit as I’m about to...
9 min read
#Data & Analytics

The Biggest Mobile Gaming Consumers In 2018 (And Beyond) Are Women

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...