20 trends in the mobile gaming industry
Following the conference, GDC shared its view on what is happening now in the global mobile industry and what will happen to it in the future. The material is very large, but so interesting that we are sure that you will finish reading it to the end.
Now many developers are testing their games without monetization. They release beta versions, grind gameplay and carefully watch how users behave. And they pay special attention to the training mode (as we already wrote in our blog, the training mode in the game is extremely important for the success of the game).
')
In their opinion, if the project shows good metrics, if it is played, it will not be difficult to implement monetization, which means to make money on it. By the way, the soundness of this approach was proven by NimbleBit (the authors of Tiny Tower) and Imangi (the creators of Temple Run), by releasing free, but extremely profitable projects.
Free-2-Play projects are present on the mobile market for two years. So it is already clear to many that such games should be developed with the expectation of more than one year: they do not start earning decently right away.
For clarity, a couple of wonderful examples: one of the highest-grossing games of 2011 in the USA was Tap Zoo (Pocket Gems), which was released in September 2010; The peak of earnings at Diner Dash (PlayFirst), released in March 2009, came only in January 2012.
From this we conclude: LTV - the player's Lifetime Value Value (the total amount that a player spends on a particular game over the entire period of its existence) becomes an increasingly important indicator.
Gambling (poker, casino, roulette) may well explode the mobile market in 2012.
At least, the leading market players are sure of this and are buying up developers who understand these kinds of fun: Playtika, responsible for the development of Slotomania, bought Caesars for the 2011 final; Big Fish Games acquired Self Aware Games, famous for Card Ace Casino; giant Zynga recently announced its intention to cooperate with Wynn Resorts, a company that makes money at a real casino.
Why is everyone so eager for this still free market?
It's simple - it's about money. You can earn up to $ 150 on average at a gambler. As for the LTV player in a mobile farm, then there it fluctuates around $ 20. Feel the difference?
The iTunes App Store is the most promising market. Especially for those who want to make big money. True, in recent times, developers have increasingly criticized the Cupertini. The fact is that the guys from Apple are too slow: they solve problems for a long time, requiring quick, immediate intervention.
Examples?
Please: "Yablochniki" for a long time did not respond to bots; at the moment they are slow in matters relating to the protection of rights. As for their Game Center, they still complain about it because of its modest functionality.
Beat - yes, but, funny, exactly in the iOS segment. Because of the new device in this market, there is now no place for outsiders, and there is a place for fragmentation.
So, in order. New features of the tablet will be easily learned by developers of the Epic level (as well as Fishlabs, MadFinger, NaturalMotion, Revo Solutions, and many others). But for smaller companies that do not have such budgets, and therefore opportunities, a new device with a Retina screen is not a step forward, it is a new chain: it did not optimize the application — the textures stretched four times — the graphics are bad — low sales.
Go ahead: many new games on the old iPad will not go (some no longer go on the first generation of gadgets or go, but with huge brakes). And this, in fact, is already fragmentation. Let it not be the same as in the case of Android, but still ...
Total: the emergence of a powerful gadget may well remove small developers from the market.
Everybody dreams about attracting users to their projects. The question is how this can be done without great expense.
The answer in the title is through cross-advertising.
Many developers and publishers have been using it for a long time, promoting new items in their successful projects or simply less popular games. So it comes as no surprise that the number of cross-ad networks is growing rapidly.
Together with the number of cross-ad networks, the number of companies engaged in market research, evaluation and analysis is growing. Already there are a lot of them, however, in the first place, Flurry Analytics, App Annie and Distimo always remember. Perhaps, one more asterisk will ascend among the analytical companies soon - and this is great, because there can not be much information about applications and sites.
Now often talk about the opposition platforms. Developers argue who will win - iOS or Android, maybe someone else? Share their thoughts about the future of BlackBerry (foggy), Microsoft (controversial) and Amazon (promising). But, in fact, the impact of all these companies on the market is much less than is commonly believed, more precisely, than the one they can actually have.
For example, only 20% of Bejeweled Blitz players on iOS use Facebook Connect to compare their results with friends. This is despite the fact that the game is social.
The thing is that so far none of the major players have decided for themselves whether the games are their priority development vector or not. And until that happens, the giants will remain asleep, and the real struggle for leadership will be a matter of an unpredictable future.
The keyword of the March GDC - platform.
Her definition is: a network of applications with an integrated service.
It is, let's say, very common. But the problem is that recently there are more and more of them. Each more or less large publisher tries to open its network (in which, as mentioned above, he is happy to cross-advertising).
For example, so did GREE and DeNA. But this is a drop in the ocean, because there is a Game Center on iOS, Scoreloop from RIM, as well as a sea of ​​Chinese platforms, among which Papaya plays a big role. In addition, let's not forget about The9, which opened Game Zone and iDreamSky, which launched Skynet. In general, the list can go on for a long time, because Zynga is still remembered with its Platform and Sulake with Habbo Hotel.
Ideally, the best platform picks up all the offers, but this is ideal. In fact, it turns out that any avid mobile player is registered on at least six platforms.
Which ones? Well, it depends on his gender, age, geographical location and the type of games he likes.
And this is only the user side of the business.
Indeed, at a time when publishers are trying to keep the user in their own gaming networks, companies like Tapjoy, Fiksu and GetJar create common marketplaces covering several other platforms at once.
Do not forget that the application stores are also platforms.
So it turns out that the mobile applications industry is a kind of pyramid, formed from various platforms that form among themselves platforms, which, in turn, form large platform formations. In other words, our industry is not a couple of large companies competing with each other, but a huge number of networks dependent on each other.
With the release of more and more powerful gadgets, games are becoming more and more complex. Yes, and more money is spent on their marketing. On the other hand, games like Tiny Wings and Temple Run show that it is not always necessary to complicate things. Sometimes it works just a good and sensibly implemented idea.
Judging by the latest GDC, many understand this.
As we have already mentioned above: a rare publisher does not create his own platform. And this, in principle, is not so bad. Especially for the developer, clearly interested in the markets for its products as much as possible.
The problem is that each platform has its own rules for placement and promotion. So the lion's share of time and effort is not devoted directly to development, but to trying to sell the application immediately on a huge number of markets.
For this, in turn, the developer has to step on the rake more than once or twice. Given that they are different on each platform, the developer often has only to regret.
In the global mobile market, Russian and Chinese companies are increasing their presence. And ours, mainly, are guided by the markets of North America and Europe.
Despite the numerous problems of the Canadian “Blackberry” company, lately other developers have pinned great hopes on it.
On the sidelines of GDC 2012, many were actively discussing the platform. By the way, without any irony.
Moreover, there were those who claimed that in 2012 they would collect more money from BlackBerry than from Android. And you know, there are sources of such optimism: the company compensates for a small number of users with high prices for their applications.
In addition, it became known that at the moment with the BlackBerry App World for all its existence, applications downloaded more than 2 billion times.
So the company can still manage to conquer the market.
Last year was the heyday of the studios, which were engaged in not just mobile, but mobile social games. I was told about myself Storm8, TinyCo, Pocket Gems, Funzio and CrowdStar. And almost all of them have been heavily invested by outside investors.
True, not all and not all were so well. Part of the offices went to the bottom.
There were several reasons for this.
First, companies were squandering money too quickly, and the cost of attracting users also grew very quickly.
Secondly, these companies have flooded the market with clones.
Thirdly, many simply did not have enough experience.
In addition, the situation on the market was strongly aggravated by the arrival of such social monsters as Zynga, GREE and DeNA. Because of this, competition between companies has greatly increased. This, in turn, increased the cost of specialists, and, as a result, the cost of the development itself.
At this time, the consolers at GDC 2012 kept silent: they took care of the announcements to E3. So all attention was directed to the mobile industry. Next year, the situation will change radically. All will take up the discussion of new consoles and super-graphics.
Console engine development companies are entering the mobile market. Moreover, they regard it as one of the main.
For example, developers from Geomerics are now preparing to release a demo of their Enlighten technology (used in Battlefield 3) for release on iOS as a separate application. Something similar was released a year and a half ago by Epic, demonstrating the capabilities of the mobile version of the Unreal Engine.
Another example: the company Crytek recently released its first mobile game, developed on its own popular engine (Crysis 2 was developed on it).
Apple's refusal to use UDID is still one of the main events of 2012. And it is still not entirely clear whether the company is going to abandon the identifier or not.
Details about the possible reasons for the introduction of UDID and that it will not be entered yet - can be read on the links.
More recently, the word "madness" - in the context of "insanely profitable" - had the right to use only Peter Vesterbaka (Peter Vesterbacka) from Rovio.
However, the mobile industry is growing at a tremendous pace, and this word - along with the related “hyperstroke” - is now mentioned more and more often: many players - even very large ones like Zynga - claim that they expect a doubling of profits this year.
It's simple. Now games need to be published in at least eight languages, and preferably at ten. Most players do this.
What are these languages?
Five major European plus Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Polish and Russian.
How to attract users is what all developers are now thinking about. Hourly, puzzling, looking for inspiration. After all, there have passed the times when a user, especially without straining, could find a good application in the App Store during a simple surf: now there are too many things.
As for the feature, you shouldn’t hope for it: no one will ever guarantee that Apple will promote your project. And this, as marketers say, is the only thing you can be 100% sure of.
For this reason, all developers and publishers are engaged in attracting users in another way. Namely, they spend money so that their project could see as many people as possible out of the corner of their eyes. True, they use different tools for this. Someone FreeAppADay, someone standard mobile advertising, and someone and bots.
So the market of small independent developments turns into an arena of struggle between large companies that have the means to attract attention. So it is quite possible that very soon, small and independent will have to either rely on the company or go under the banners of large companies. In any other case, their chances of survival will tend to zero.
This and other materials about the development and promotion of applications on mobile platforms read on our portal http://app2top.ru
1. Money is not important
Now many developers are testing their games without monetization. They release beta versions, grind gameplay and carefully watch how users behave. And they pay special attention to the training mode (as we already wrote in our blog, the training mode in the game is extremely important for the success of the game).
')
In their opinion, if the project shows good metrics, if it is played, it will not be difficult to implement monetization, which means to make money on it. By the way, the soundness of this approach was proven by NimbleBit (the authors of Tiny Tower) and Imangi (the creators of Temple Run), by releasing free, but extremely profitable projects.
2. Long-term investments
Free-2-Play projects are present on the mobile market for two years. So it is already clear to many that such games should be developed with the expectation of more than one year: they do not start earning decently right away.
For clarity, a couple of wonderful examples: one of the highest-grossing games of 2011 in the USA was Tap Zoo (Pocket Gems), which was released in September 2010; The peak of earnings at Diner Dash (PlayFirst), released in March 2009, came only in January 2012.
From this we conclude: LTV - the player's Lifetime Value Value (the total amount that a player spends on a particular game over the entire period of its existence) becomes an increasingly important indicator.
3. Gold Rush
Gambling (poker, casino, roulette) may well explode the mobile market in 2012.
At least, the leading market players are sure of this and are buying up developers who understand these kinds of fun: Playtika, responsible for the development of Slotomania, bought Caesars for the 2011 final; Big Fish Games acquired Self Aware Games, famous for Card Ace Casino; giant Zynga recently announced its intention to cooperate with Wynn Resorts, a company that makes money at a real casino.
Why is everyone so eager for this still free market?
It's simple - it's about money. You can earn up to $ 150 on average at a gambler. As for the LTV player in a mobile farm, then there it fluctuates around $ 20. Feel the difference?
4. Problems with the apple
The iTunes App Store is the most promising market. Especially for those who want to make big money. True, in recent times, developers have increasingly criticized the Cupertini. The fact is that the guys from Apple are too slow: they solve problems for a long time, requiring quick, immediate intervention.
Examples?
Please: "Yablochniki" for a long time did not respond to bots; at the moment they are slow in matters relating to the protection of rights. As for their Game Center, they still complain about it because of its modest functionality.
5. New iPad - a blow to the industry?
Beat - yes, but, funny, exactly in the iOS segment. Because of the new device in this market, there is now no place for outsiders, and there is a place for fragmentation.
So, in order. New features of the tablet will be easily learned by developers of the Epic level (as well as Fishlabs, MadFinger, NaturalMotion, Revo Solutions, and many others). But for smaller companies that do not have such budgets, and therefore opportunities, a new device with a Retina screen is not a step forward, it is a new chain: it did not optimize the application — the textures stretched four times — the graphics are bad — low sales.
Go ahead: many new games on the old iPad will not go (some no longer go on the first generation of gadgets or go, but with huge brakes). And this, in fact, is already fragmentation. Let it not be the same as in the case of Android, but still ...
Total: the emergence of a powerful gadget may well remove small developers from the market.
6. Cross-advertising
Everybody dreams about attracting users to their projects. The question is how this can be done without great expense.
The answer in the title is through cross-advertising.
Many developers and publishers have been using it for a long time, promoting new items in their successful projects or simply less popular games. So it comes as no surprise that the number of cross-ad networks is growing rapidly.
7. Analytical boom
Together with the number of cross-ad networks, the number of companies engaged in market research, evaluation and analysis is growing. Already there are a lot of them, however, in the first place, Flurry Analytics, App Annie and Distimo always remember. Perhaps, one more asterisk will ascend among the analytical companies soon - and this is great, because there can not be much information about applications and sites.
8. Sleeping leader
Now often talk about the opposition platforms. Developers argue who will win - iOS or Android, maybe someone else? Share their thoughts about the future of BlackBerry (foggy), Microsoft (controversial) and Amazon (promising). But, in fact, the impact of all these companies on the market is much less than is commonly believed, more precisely, than the one they can actually have.
For example, only 20% of Bejeweled Blitz players on iOS use Facebook Connect to compare their results with friends. This is despite the fact that the game is social.
The thing is that so far none of the major players have decided for themselves whether the games are their priority development vector or not. And until that happens, the giants will remain asleep, and the real struggle for leadership will be a matter of an unpredictable future.
9. Platform
The keyword of the March GDC - platform.
Her definition is: a network of applications with an integrated service.
It is, let's say, very common. But the problem is that recently there are more and more of them. Each more or less large publisher tries to open its network (in which, as mentioned above, he is happy to cross-advertising).
For example, so did GREE and DeNA. But this is a drop in the ocean, because there is a Game Center on iOS, Scoreloop from RIM, as well as a sea of ​​Chinese platforms, among which Papaya plays a big role. In addition, let's not forget about The9, which opened Game Zone and iDreamSky, which launched Skynet. In general, the list can go on for a long time, because Zynga is still remembered with its Platform and Sulake with Habbo Hotel.
Ideally, the best platform picks up all the offers, but this is ideal. In fact, it turns out that any avid mobile player is registered on at least six platforms.
Which ones? Well, it depends on his gender, age, geographical location and the type of games he likes.
And this is only the user side of the business.
Indeed, at a time when publishers are trying to keep the user in their own gaming networks, companies like Tapjoy, Fiksu and GetJar create common marketplaces covering several other platforms at once.
Do not forget that the application stores are also platforms.
So it turns out that the mobile applications industry is a kind of pyramid, formed from various platforms that form among themselves platforms, which, in turn, form large platform formations. In other words, our industry is not a couple of large companies competing with each other, but a huge number of networks dependent on each other.
10. Everything is simple
With the release of more and more powerful gadgets, games are becoming more and more complex. Yes, and more money is spent on their marketing. On the other hand, games like Tiny Wings and Temple Run show that it is not always necessary to complicate things. Sometimes it works just a good and sensibly implemented idea.
Judging by the latest GDC, many understand this.
11. And again about platforms
As we have already mentioned above: a rare publisher does not create his own platform. And this, in principle, is not so bad. Especially for the developer, clearly interested in the markets for its products as much as possible.
The problem is that each platform has its own rules for placement and promotion. So the lion's share of time and effort is not devoted directly to development, but to trying to sell the application immediately on a huge number of markets.
For this, in turn, the developer has to step on the rake more than once or twice. Given that they are different on each platform, the developer often has only to regret.
12. Dragon and bear
In the global mobile market, Russian and Chinese companies are increasing their presence. And ours, mainly, are guided by the markets of North America and Europe.
13. BlackBerry Believe
Despite the numerous problems of the Canadian “Blackberry” company, lately other developers have pinned great hopes on it.
On the sidelines of GDC 2012, many were actively discussing the platform. By the way, without any irony.
Moreover, there were those who claimed that in 2012 they would collect more money from BlackBerry than from Android. And you know, there are sources of such optimism: the company compensates for a small number of users with high prices for their applications.
In addition, it became known that at the moment with the BlackBerry App World for all its existence, applications downloaded more than 2 billion times.
So the company can still manage to conquer the market.
14. Hot year?
Last year was the heyday of the studios, which were engaged in not just mobile, but mobile social games. I was told about myself Storm8, TinyCo, Pocket Gems, Funzio and CrowdStar. And almost all of them have been heavily invested by outside investors.
True, not all and not all were so well. Part of the offices went to the bottom.
There were several reasons for this.
First, companies were squandering money too quickly, and the cost of attracting users also grew very quickly.
Secondly, these companies have flooded the market with clones.
Thirdly, many simply did not have enough experience.
In addition, the situation on the market was strongly aggravated by the arrival of such social monsters as Zynga, GREE and DeNA. Because of this, competition between companies has greatly increased. This, in turn, increased the cost of specialists, and, as a result, the cost of the development itself.
15. More of this will not be
At this time, the consolers at GDC 2012 kept silent: they took care of the announcements to E3. So all attention was directed to the mobile industry. Next year, the situation will change radically. All will take up the discussion of new consoles and super-graphics.
16. Mobile engines
Console engine development companies are entering the mobile market. Moreover, they regard it as one of the main.
For example, developers from Geomerics are now preparing to release a demo of their Enlighten technology (used in Battlefield 3) for release on iOS as a separate application. Something similar was released a year and a half ago by Epic, demonstrating the capabilities of the mobile version of the Unreal Engine.
Another example: the company Crytek recently released its first mobile game, developed on its own popular engine (Crysis 2 was developed on it).
17. UDID in question
Apple's refusal to use UDID is still one of the main events of 2012. And it is still not entirely clear whether the company is going to abandon the identifier or not.
Details about the possible reasons for the introduction of UDID and that it will not be entered yet - can be read on the links.
18. This crazy, crazy, crazy world
More recently, the word "madness" - in the context of "insanely profitable" - had the right to use only Peter Vesterbaka (Peter Vesterbacka) from Rovio.
However, the mobile industry is growing at a tremendous pace, and this word - along with the related “hyperstroke” - is now mentioned more and more often: many players - even very large ones like Zynga - claim that they expect a doubling of profits this year.
19. How to think about the world locally?
It's simple. Now games need to be published in at least eight languages, and preferably at ten. Most players do this.
What are these languages?
Five major European plus Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Polish and Russian.
20. A little about attracting users
How to attract users is what all developers are now thinking about. Hourly, puzzling, looking for inspiration. After all, there have passed the times when a user, especially without straining, could find a good application in the App Store during a simple surf: now there are too many things.
As for the feature, you shouldn’t hope for it: no one will ever guarantee that Apple will promote your project. And this, as marketers say, is the only thing you can be 100% sure of.
For this reason, all developers and publishers are engaged in attracting users in another way. Namely, they spend money so that their project could see as many people as possible out of the corner of their eyes. True, they use different tools for this. Someone FreeAppADay, someone standard mobile advertising, and someone and bots.
So the market of small independent developments turns into an arena of struggle between large companies that have the means to attract attention. So it is quite possible that very soon, small and independent will have to either rely on the company or go under the banners of large companies. In any other case, their chances of survival will tend to zero.
This and other materials about the development and promotion of applications on mobile platforms read on our portal http://app2top.ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/141497/
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