Skip to main content

MONETIZING MOBILE GAMING

The mobile gaming industry made $29 billion in 2015 — and it is only set to continue growing (with estimates as high as $49 billion by 2018).

But the mobile gaming industry is in the “wild west” phase of its history right now, with the constant improvement of mobile devices and so many variables to successful monetization. Though it’s difficult to know exactly what mobile will be like in a few years, here’s what I see influencing the mobile gaming space in 2016.

Increased focus on mobile branding — maximizing each user

Nintendo’s move into the mobile space by bringing their iconic characters and IPs to smartphones, such as Pokemon GO, is going to have a major impact on the increased focus on brand recognition for mobile gaming companies moving forward.

User acquisition costs are already skyrocketing per person; as a result, marketing budgets will continue to rise. To sustain the rising costs of this method across the board, and the congestion of new mobile games hitting the app store every day, we’ll see fewer games come out per publisher; instead, the focus will be on expandable and upgradable mobile games.

This will allow game developers to leverage the most ROI from their user acquisition efforts and help build the brand in a more traditional sense (as console developer studios have done in the past).

To expedite this tumultuous process of acquiring users, we’ll also see an increase in celebrity endorsements similar to what Glu Mobile pioneered with the “celebrity simulator” games like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and the recently announced partnership they have with Taylor Swift.

These games not only bring powerful existing brands to the table, but have an easy initial target for advertising through social media channels where fans of these celebrities reach the multi-millions. Celebrity advertising for mobile games will continue to rise, as well, for this same reason.

More connectivity

According to Cornell University, they found in 2015 that a highly effective form of improving monetization was through multiplayer gaming design. Enhancing the competitive and social nature of the industry by adding features such as in-game chats became the industry standard in 2015; 2016 will see this trend continue, with more emphasis on single-server environments and more advanced live translation software. In-game “live-ops” events will be more heavily promoted, with higher reward value to promote this level of engagement.

As mobile devices become more powerful, developers will be pressured to invest more money into each mobile game.
Clan engagement will be another large investment for any type of non-casual game on mobile. Companies will begin to allocate more resources to create a comprehensive clan ecosystem within the game to promote discussion.

We found that many of our players take to forums and dedicated Skype channels to increase the immersiveness of their experience within the games. We’re already seeing clans in our games overcoming built-in friend and clan membership limits by developing their own website solutions, complete with back-end support and advanced organizational tools.

Players are no longer content with Dunbar’s number of 150 friends or so, and are developing tightly coordinated hierarchies numbering thousands of players across different time zones. We expect this trend to continue.

F2P will remain the dominant monetization tactic — with more immersion

If you glance at the top mobile gaming charts for every month in 2015, what do you see? Nearly all are based on the free-to-play (F2P) model, with the exception of Minecraft. Minecraft also had the unique advantage of being explosive on other platforms before making its way to mobile.

While other forms of monetization can be effective in rare examples, it is far more likely that 2016 will be the year developers find new ways to leverage F2P monetization around their games. As a shining example of what happens when even great games veer away from the F2P

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

POSSIBLE SPECS OF THE TECNO PHANTOM 6&6+

If you think you have a smartphone, then permit me to stylishly run you down because you are yet to have a device. Tecno is set again to unleash another hammer head of horror called Tecno Phantom 6 and 6+. They are not just monster devices but horrible monster devices. See the break down. Warning! The content you are about to read is for the matured geeks only. Rumor (What to Expect From Tecno Phatom 6 and Phantom 6+) 1. Phantom 6+ will have dual rotating auto-focus camera at the back with an iris scanner while phantom 6 will have just one 21MP unit at the back. However, both will have front and back cameras. 2. Both phones, according to insiders, will boast of a battery capacity of 4000mAh inside a slim body measuring between 6-7mm, 3. The Phantom 6 Plus will also have a fingerprint sensor at the back which will not be available on the standard Phantom 6 4. Both devices will come with  X20 Deca-core processor,  a 3GB RAM, supported by an internal micro SD card storage w...

UCWEB Launches New App UCSHARE

UC browser is one of the fastest browsers out there when it comes to downloading, and now the Alibaba owned UCweb has launched a file transferring app dubbed UC share. The app is said to be to take as little as 0.2 seconds to transfer an image, one second to transfer a song, and up to 22 seconds to transfer a complete movie. It is also claimed to come with an average file transfer speed of 5MB per second. Just like other file transferring app like  Xender , Share it etc… the UCshare allow you to share not just music, video, or image files but also apps and other files.   The app doesn’t require a high-speed data connection to transfer files and includes a Bluetooth sharing option to provide file transfer support for a wide range of devices. You can use the  UC share app  as a file manager; view the files that exist on your devices. Not just that but it also comes with an option to generate a QR code to offer an easy sharing between two devices. Wh...

AIRTEL MORE DATA 4.5GB NOW N2, 000

The battle line has been drawn, and it is the survival of the fittest. Airtel has proven to be one of the fastest networks in Nigeria even though rumors have it that they are working on implementing 4G LTE in Nigeria. Just updating my information bank as usual when I stumbled on this information and I know surfers like you reading this will love it. Airtel NG seems to have readjusted their data plan 4.5GB for N2, 000 which looks tempting. But if you have been following these data trends, especially from Airtel, you’ll notice that 2GB plan used to go for N2, 000; but now it gives you whooping 4.5GB for N2, 000. How can I get this plan? It’s simple, just load your SIM with N2,000 airtime and dial *437*1# Airtel is fast and I can attest to that… Etisalat is fast and I Can attest to that, but Baba glow slowly that I can’t vouch for. Only go for this plan if you have a strong etisalat network in your location. Note that this is not a blackberry plan… this is...