Miracle Animation Studios Inc.

         It was a casual atmosphere at A Space in Makati City where the Mobile Game Publishing Meetup was held. We (Top Peg Mobile Team: Grace, Alstaire, Catherine and Rafael) arrived at exactly 6pm, and there already lots of people inside. The event was free, which included food and drinks. The talk started about 7pm, and everyone was excited to know more about publishing their own games.

1) Keith Morales – Going With a Publisher vs Publishing Your Own Game

Keith Morales – Publishing Manager of Altitude Games

      Altitude Games is a mobile games studio composed of veterans in the South East Asian game industry. Keith’s topic was “Going with a Publisher vs Publishing Your Game”. He pointed out the Pros and Cons of going with each one. With publishing your own game, you get 100% share on earnings and the game belongs to you so you can do whatever you want with it. Marketing your own game though can cost you more than the game itself. 

     If you go with a publisher, you can make more money, you tap a pool of advertising experts, and they will do the marketing for you. But they will get a big percentage of your profits. Keith says the percentage can be 60% to 70% for the publisher and 40% to 30% for the developer respectively. Publisher seldom help with with development costs and you probably have to share ownership of your game. Then you will be pressured with milestones, revision requests and other contract matters.

     He readily gave some pointers before publishing your own game. Research your market, doing a soft launch of your game, building your base, listen to your players and monetisation. He also gave some tools that can help you with these, like Apps Flyer and App Annie.

2) Neil Dagondon – Mobile Metrics 101

Neil Dagondon – General Manager at Anino Playlab (formerly Anino Games)

     Playlab is a leading game developer and publisher that has grown from a handful of passionate gamers to a group of 80 and more enthusiasts striving to create the best games for iOS and android devices along with Facebook. Neil has been in the game development business for 12 years now. He expanded his company Anino games by selling it to Thailand’s Playlab. 

     The top free games = free to play success. Their game “Lost Cubes” which is similar to the game “Candy Crush” got $25,000 in revenues but they spent $40,000 in advertisements. The keys to free to play success. The first was Retention, which is keeping your players play your game, even after finishing. An example was a game that went viral featuring a bird. This game had early success but immediately died down. Players got tired of the repetitive game play and the game lost following. Then he cited other games like Casino games that only cater to specific market. It is better to design your game with your players in mind. Building your game, starting slow but getting players and retaining them over time. 

     Metric is very important, because through it you get to know how people quickly spend in a game and how they spend over time. By doing a soft launch of your game, you can test the retention of your players, like how many players are still playing after a day, after a week and after a month. Industry standards says that you have to keep 40% of your players after a day, 20% after a week and 10% after a month to be successful. If your game can beat these numbers, you have a good game.

     Another key is Monetization. How do we make money off the game. The facts, according to Swrve, only 2.3% of players spend for a game (which is up from last years 1.5%), and 0.23% of players make up 60% of the revenues. We also got to learn that one of the popular games in the market earns money from only 10% of their players, but his game already earned $3 million in revenues. Wow!

     Neil also gave some tools that can help us with the metrics such as Apps Flyers, App Annie and Flurry. He then talked about the structure, he showed the importance of connecting with your players through social media, you need to show that they matter to gain following. And to keep that following, Facebook is your biggest tool in helping you market your game.

3) Ronen Mense – Optimizing Your Game Retention With Data Driven Analytics

Ronen Mense – AppsFlyer

    AppsFlyer is the leading Mobile Advertising Analytics App. They are located in China and is now expanding to other countries. Why do we need this App? First we would know the Top Gaming Overall Retention, charts showing what was In, and how much percentage of the market they get. An example was that Video is number 1 in retention of users for both android and iOS. Meaning video is the number 1 marketing tool for any product in mobile. Another chart illustrates that iOS (iPhones and iPads) dominates the market over Android phones. From the data gathered they have Key Takeaways to remember. Big Data is King, Video is Perfect for Mobile and Facebook has Power. 

     Ronen then gave tips for developing your game. Tip 1, players comes and goes quickly. Their standard differentiates from Neils chart saying that the player’s retention rate is at 30% at day 1, 15% after a week and 7% after a month. So you really need to strategies on keeping your player’s retention of your game. Tip 2, you need to use Notifications.You need to know what type of players do you have. He cited 3 types, Newbies (first time players), Hardcore (followers of your game who spend little) or Champions (heavy spenders and long time players). You have to treat each type differently, by giving different incentives for each type. Tip 3, is Building a community. Users retain longer and spend more when they have a social login. Tip 4, Release Updates, you should show your players that you care for them by upgrading your game, so they can play your game even after they have finished it. You should know your market and customers. Tip 5, Read feedback. You can improve your game because of these, and your players will feel that they have contributed to your game.

4) Hal Bame – Match Me

Hal Bame – Director/CEO of Match Me

     Their app allows game developers to integrate their game into the MatchMe “Nemesis” client, where users can play that game in a choice of various tournament formats with different payouts and prizes. So basically, their software can have 2 people play a game from different countries, and then after can compare each others scores. They can also communicate through chat, and they can have payouts and prizes whoever wins. They are offering game developers who have games that is perfect for multiplayer gaming, their app is for free. But if you start will start earning big revenue, that is where they will ask for a fee. They can help in marketing and monetising your game. 

     After the talk we had a chance to talk with the speakers and other game developers as well. We showed beta versions of 2 of our games – Checkmate and Maze Rider. They gave good feedback and that the games have good potential. Neil Dagondon said that they can publish the games if we wanted to. Also one game developer was surprised that we were able to do 2 games even at beta stage, which was hard to do. Overall, we learned a lot from this event, the importance of metrics, retention and monetisation. It was a great experience and we are looking for the next event.

Top Peg Mobile Team

Article by Alstaire A. Sarthou