Todd Marks started growing Mindgrub in 2007 from his basement when the iPhone was first released. Since that time Mindgrub has grown to 50+ employees, made over 75 apps, and has learned a tremendous amount along the way. Last year, Mindgrub officially launched their Games division, and now has five titles available in the AppStore and Google Play.
In the early years, putting a cool game in the store was all you needed to do. Today, with millions of apps and games available for download, Mindgrub has found that there are six key ingredients to rising above the noise and creating a successful mobile game. In this presentation Todd Marks will discuss the steps taken when releasing a game in order to drive downloads, increase popularity, and get a ROI.
6. 6
Trends in Console Gaming
• Graphics, Graphics Graphics
• Deep Rich Storylines
• Connectivity MMO Massive
Multiplayer Online Games
• Life Beyond the Story:
Unlocks, Replayability, Network Game play
• Appeal to Hardcore Gamers
7. 7
Trends in Console Gaming
• Graphics
• Deep, Rich Storylines
• Connectivity MMO
Massive Multiplayer
Online Games
• Life Beyond the Story:
Unlocks, Replayability, Network
Game play
• Appeal to Hardcore
Gamers
11. 11
Mobile Gaming Explosion
Low Barriers
• Cheap- $1.07 and decreasing with
freemium model
• Freemium Model- roughly 3%
spending on in-app purchases
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Addicting Game Components
• Make the game easy and fun
• Lots of short levels
• More content they can unlock
• Depth- building up from a simple to difficult game play
25. 25
Where’s My Water
Where’s My Water
• Simple controls
• Physics based interactions
• Many short levels- increasing
difficulty makes more interesting
over time
• Fantastic Character and level
design
26. 26
Words with Friends
Where’s My Water
• 3G connectivity
• Socialization
• Human Connection- Drives Competition, Emotional Investment
27. 27
Temple Run
• Continuous level-stats
• Very easy controls that use
smartphones well-swipe/touch
accelerometer
• Easy, Simple & Fast!
30. 30
Game Engines
Corona SDK
• Fast development time
• Affordable when compared with a
tool such as Game Salad
• No Objective-C
• Good support
• No access to native API
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Game Engines
Cocos2d
• Ease of use
• Speed through the use
of OpenGL ES
• Flexibility and simple
integrations such
as Box2D- and Chipmunk-
based physics
• Support from a
large, friendly community
32. 32
Game Engines
Unity for 3D
• Open Source
• Supports nearly all
console and mobile
platforms
• Deferred Rendering-
Creates rich 3D
environments while
saving maximum
space
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Why Pay? – Clickz Stats
• Expanded features and capabilities
(77 percent)
• Remove ads (44 percent)
• Trial expired (35 percent)
• To support the developer (22 percent)
• Curiosity (16 percent)
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Mobile Ad Frameworks
Google AdSense
Millennial Media
iAd
AdMob
Brightroll
Greystripe
InMobi
Jumptap
MdotMSAY Media
ZestADZ
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“Freemium”
• Free To Play. Costs to unlock additional
content
• Apple, Android and Amazon all Keep 30%
• Barnes and Noble most likely will do the same
41. 41
Distribution
• iOS Apps Must go into the App store
• Amazon and Kindle Apps must go into
their respective stores
• Google Apps can be distributed a number of
different ways including Email, posting on
website and several 3rd Party distribution
channels.
• 3rd Party Distribution Channels include:
Amazon, GetJar, AppBrain, Appsfire
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User Acquisition
• Can no longer just stick it in the store
• Good SEO practice with
Social Media Marketing
• Dark Art of “App Store Optimization.”
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Mobile Marketing Steps to Measure ROI
1) Establish - a Baseline to measure results
2) Create an Activity Timeline
Activites, Social Data, Web Data, Transactions
3) Monitor – Sales Revenue
How often customers make transactions.
How many customers you are reaching.
How much customers are spending.
ROI =
Cost of Investment
(Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment)
48. 48
How Do They Find It – Clickz Stats
• Categories (57 percent)
• Search (57 percent)
• Featured - new (52 percent)
• Top 25 overall (52 percent)
• Features - what's hot (48 percent)
• Featured - personalized recommendations
(e.g., Apple's Genius) (18 percent)
• Ads in other apps (12 percent)
Mid 70’s to Mid 80’s: Golden Age of Arcade games1980’s: Genre Action adventure, fighting games, interactive movies, Role playing games, scrolling platformers, scrolling shooters, light gun shooters, maze etc.1983 Nintendo1990- 4th generation consoles 16 bit1990- handhelds come of age1993 Fifth Generation consoles 64 bit1998-2000- 6th generation consoles2004-2011- 7th gen consoles2007 Nintendo Wii Capitalizes on casual gaming + iPhone comes out2011- present 8th gen consoles- Nintendo 3DS playstation vitaMobile handhelds like the PSP and DS were highly anticipated and then crushed by the low barriers and popularity of smartphone gaming.
Cheap to play- profitable to make
Whale and scrooge are indicative of the mobile gaming audience- Mobile games are becoming better because they’re becoming smarter with how they make money. Depending on quality of game- gamers are 3-6% likely to spend make an in-app purchase in a game. Since the mobile gamer class tend to be affluent, tying in app purchases with game progress can yield higher returns among the whales- while recouping costs among the minnows.
While casualgames become better in general (graphics, competitiveness, overall fun) they are also getting simpler not just to play- but to pick up and play on the go- there’s a difference and we’ll try to tackle that when talking about game design cues.
3G connectivity makes it easier to start games with others, share games with others, or even play games with others in real time.
Similar to the early 80’s and 90’s with 8-bit and 16-bit games, we’re seeing genre innovation in Casual gaming. Due to new control mechanics and the democratization of game development (they’ve gotten easier to publish and program- iTunes) so there’s a constant evolution of new game ideas and concepts to advance upon.
Todd wanted me to talk a little about mobile game engines- I’m the wrong person to do it but can give some feedback on integrating designs talk to our developers in the audience.