[HTML5]
What Are You Waiting For? New Alternatives for Mobile Game Discovery and Monetization
This HTML5 Happy Tree Friend launch game has received over 400,000 app store downloads with zero upfront marketing cost
Where is Sherlock Holmes when we need him? The years go by, the data and clues pile up, and yet no one—except maybe for a handful of studios with (give or take) a million dollars to spend each day on marketing—has solved the mystery of how to get users—many of them—to discover a brilliant new mobile game. There is no questioning the golden opportunity awaiting the studios that can succeed amongst all the discovery challenges and clutter. Representing one third of the time spent on mobile devices, gaming continues to dominate the mobile user experience and is the only medium through which users (at scale) have shown a propensity to reach into their wallets and buy stuff. Yet, despite mobile users’ continued addiction, game studios are
increasingly struggling to build audiences and, ultimately, capture the full value of their games. There are literally thousands of absolutely awesome games in the app stores today that nobody is playing. The app store dead pool is littered with quality content in search of an audience. Connecting that quality content with the right audience has only gotten harder and more expensive. While the challenge starts with discovery, it is intimately tied to monetization. Today, visibility in native app stores has more or less closed to all but a select few powerhouse studios, sending others on a frustrating hunt for ROI-positive user acquisition strategies. The math is pretty simple. The lifetime value of a new user to your game, typically driven by in-game purchases and advertising, needs to be greater than the cost of acquiring that user. As costper-installs rise and new restrictions are placed on tactics like incentivized downloads, the cost of marketing an app is cutting way too deeply into studio earnings; and in most cases, it is eclipsing it, forcing many studios to either shut down or watch their games languish in the app stores. What if you could get your game played by millions of users without burning dollars? I am going to let you in on a little secret—you can.
You Can Do This Alternative methods of distributing and monetizing mobile games are becoming more and more accessible. In particular, the mobile web has emerged as a powerful way for game studios to channel their games to users and leverage that audience to complement their app store strategy. The future of mobile game discovery lies in extending gaming content (not just an ad for the game) 52 Casual Connect Fall 2014