indie analytics - pg connects london

Indie AnalyticsSebastian Lindén, Simpl AnalyticsPG Connects LondonJanuary 17, 2017

Why listen to me?

Sebastian LindénCo-Founder Simpl Analytics@sebastianlinden

Agenda1. How indie game developers and small studios should look at analytics in different phases. 2. When is the right time to reach out to a publisher?3. Retention rate from top indie game developers and explanations of the importance of the relationship with Apple and Google for small devs.

@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

How To Look At AnalyticsData vs Actionable Insights


How To Look At Analytics1. Pre-Launch Phase - Core Gameplay, only focus on Retention D1/D72. Launch Phase - Identify Players & Markets3. My Game Is Still Alive Phase - $$$ - Improve DAU and MAU4. Phase Tweak, Develop & Keep Players - Repeat three Monetization


1. Great Retention - Do players come back?


1. Great Retention - Monetization

Ads IAP


How to Improve Retention?- It’s hard to improve D1 retention with tweaking- Make a fun game, for real - implement analytics on early prototypes- Do not fall in love with your game, let others do it.- King (Candy Crush) kill games with <25% retention D1 soft-launch- King D1 50%, D7 30%- Ketchapp D1 50%, D7 35%, D30 10%- Index Ventures D1 50%, D7 25%, D30 18%


Building A “Featured-Worthy” Game

1. Retention Rate (For your players, your publisher and $$$)2. Consistency (Self-Publishing, for Apple)3. Design/User Experience4. Unique Gameplay

Example of Consistency (Colin Lane Games) Twitter @ColinWLane


When To Reach Out To A PublisherAnd with what?

So now you’ve built a featured worthy game.

Questions to consider:1. Have you done your research?2. What do they usually publish?3. Why will they love your game? Why will Apple love your game? And be honest to yourself.4. Why will they hate your game? Fix it.5. Do you have a featured-worthy game?


Appsolute GamesThe best way to reach out to us would be to keep the email short. - 1-2 sentences about the game- Why the developers/studios think the game will be well received. - It's great to include a trailer of the gameplay in the email so that we can quickly check out how the game looks and plays.

After that, we'll usually reach out and request an invite to TestFlight or for an APK to be sent.


Example EmailSubject: Flappy Cow <-> Appsolute Games

Hi Firstname,

My name is Sebastian. I make games at Qaos Games, an indie studio in Stockholm.

We’ve created a new game that I think you guys might find interesting. Flappy Cow is a side-scrolling one tap arcade game. When BETA-testing the game on 200 people we’ve had to force them stop playing, it’s almost too addictive.

You can find trailer and screenshots below:Youtube Link (Unlisted)

The design and color palettes are inspired by similar games of yours that have been doing great.

Thanks,Sebastian

1-2 sentences about game

Why it will be well received.

Trailer of gameplay

Something to show that you know what you’re talking about.

One intro sentence


Base your ideas on dataBase your ideas on data, not random stuff.


We all know this, but...There are now 6,000 games launched each week on iOSApple features around 15 games per week on the US “New Games We Love”-section.

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store


http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/

featuredgames.io - A Friday Experiment

@simplanalyticsSubscribe and get weekly updates of Best New Games via featuredgames.io

featuredgames.io - PricingBased on 114 featured “New Games We Love” (Nov 6-Jan 6 2017)

67.5%

13.2%

7%

Free 67.54%$2.99 13.16%$1.99 7.02%$4.99 3.51%

Free

$2.99

$1.99

$4.99

$3.99

$0.99

$6.99

$5.99

$8.99

$9.99

@simplanalyticsSign up for updates every Friday on featuredgames.io

featuredgames.io - GenreApple US “New Games We Love” Nov 5-Jan 6 2017


featuredgames.io - Most Loved DevsApple US “New Games We Love” Nov 5-Jan 6 2017

Appsolute Games LLC 5NaturalMotion Games Limited 4Warner Bros. Entertainment 4FISHLABS 4Pine Entertainment Company Limited 4Nintendo Co., Ltd. 4


Another Interesting Trend


featuredgames.io - To Summarize

- Free Games stand for 70% of “New Games We Love”

- Of paid games, Apple prefer to feature $2.99 Games (13.2%), followed by $1.99 Games (7%)

- 50% of the games are featured on “New Games We Love” more than once

- Action was the most featured genre (22.2%), followed by Arcade (17.6%), Puzzle (15.7%) and

Adventure on (13.9%)

- Games priced $5.99, $8.99 and $9.99 together account for only 3% of “New Games We Love”


Indie Game Developers Featured by Apple (Nov 5-Jan 6)

Dec 2 - Dec 8 Downloads 4270Avg/day 601

D1 23%D7 4%D30 1%

JEX by Ogma Huecker

Dec 8 - Dec 14Downloads 59704Avg/day 8529

D1 22%D7 2%N/A

Dec 28 - Jan 03Downloads 10809Avg/day 1544

D1 26%D7 4.5%N/A


D1 58%D7 7%N/A

Nov 18 - Nov 24Downloads 190Avg/day 27

D1 30%D7 4%D30 0%

Frantic Ball by Alan Thomas

Asymmetric by Klemens Strasser

LVL by Ertan Unver

Battle Golf by Colin Lane


D1 41%D7 5%N/A

Le Parker by Play Pretend


D1 40%D7 12%N/A

Smart Numbers by Chris Gibbs

@simplanalyticsPlease note that this data is accepted to be shared and sent from each developer via email.



D1 40%D7 12%N/A


@simplanalytics

Soft-Launch (Oct 13-Dec 7)

- Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, Philippines, New Zealand.

- D1 Average - 45%, D7 Average - 25%, D30 Average - 12%. My targets for these are 50, 25 and 18, so the values I was getting supported going to WW launch

- Game soft-launched Oct 13th till Dec 7th, in 5 territories: Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, Philippines

- Apple featured the game in each of these territories, to lesser / greater extent, for some of the soft-launch period

- The Canadian features were in the New Board Game and New Puzzle Game categories, and were the longest 99% installs were Canadian (1,100 CA, 22 non-CA)

WW Launch (Dec 8)

- D1 avg 40% but trending up, D7 avg 12% but trending up - Too early for D30 data

- All 155 App Stores

- Featured in every country at some point during first 3 weeks of launch

- Notably: China #1 New Game We Love, US #3 New Game We Love, CA #2 New Game We Love

- First 7 days of launch, between 900 and 1400 feature placements on app stores

- App Banner used in CA, Turkey and several other territories

- Has appeared in New Games We Love in every App Store at some point



D1 40%D7 12%N/A


@simplanalytics

Observations Soft-Launch

Retention data spiked due to the low volume of installs. Very high and very low percentages were statistically less relevant.

- D1, D7 and D30 retention trended gently downwards throughout soft launch. I believe this was due to the effect of ‘Golden Cohorts’ at the start (friends / beta testers / ex-work colleagues etc) all having an overly positive effect on the numbers.

Over time, the mix of new users that were totally unbiased towards the game increased, and the retention figures slowly declined as a result

- D1 Average - 45%, D7 Average - 25%, D30 Average - 12%. My targets for these are 50, 25 and 18, so the values I was getting supported going to WW launch

Observations WW

- More stable, less spiky data, due to more players.

Retention significantly lower than soft launch, esp D7. Possible reasons:

1. No localisation (only in English), but 50% of installs from APAC countries, mostly CHINA (I broke out retention for CHINA and it was tracking 7-8% below US/CA numbers, so some merit in this argument)2. No Golden Cohort effect3. Players came via ‘Board Games’ or ‘Puzzle Games’ during soft launch, so were more likely to enjoy Smart Numbers4. Players via ‘New Games We Love’ (all genres) WW launch less likely to enjoy a board/puzzle game

Retention trending upwards likely due to:- Constant tweaks to level difficulty, via the cloud, (Clear from win/loss data that levels 1-15 were being lost too often)- Update on the 22nd Dec with major improvements to difficulty curve & improvements to tutorial- Hoping that number of viral installs based on referrals is increasing, so increasing the quality of install

That’s it.Simpl Analytics - simplanalytics.comSubscribe to Featuredgamesio - featuredgames.ioIndiehelp - indiehelp.co

Let’s stay [email protected]/in/sebastianlinden

@simplanalytics@sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

indie analytics - pg connects london

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