Category: Mobile Gaming

Developers have been waging war throughout the Christmas season, and now they wait to see the results.

When it comes to the holiday season, mobile gaming is just as competitive an industry as everything else, as developers do everything they can to make sure that their games will top the list of downloads that gift recipients make when they unwrap their new smartphones and tablets, this year.

It is believed that this year’s user acquisition and marketing costs will have been the highest ones yet.

Moreover, it is also believed that these expenditures could likely surpass any revenue that mobile gaming will bring in throughout the festive season. The cost associated with obtaining new users by way of smartphone apps and on social networks with pay per click ads is rapidly heading skyward.

This year, mobile gaming has more competition than ever before in the hopes of becoming the next big thing.

Developers are spending a lot of money in the hopes that their games will be the next “Clash of Cans”, “Angry Birds” or “Candy Crush Saga”. This also presents those developers with a massive challenge, particularly to smaller independent studios that are hoping for the best but don’t have the marketing budget of some of their much larger competitors.

Throughout the holidays, spending from consumers around the world hits a peak, making it one of the most important times for developers to do everything in their power to be able to try to draw the largest possible number of Android and Apple device users, particularly on Christmas morning, when the number of those users suddenly spikes.

This year, the typical revenue gains of up to 200 percent for mobile gaming developers on Christmas will likely be greatly wiped out as a result of the massive competition that led the amount spent on marketing and CPI (cost per install) to double or even triple. After these massively expensive campaigns have been put into place, and now that the presents have been unwrapped, all the developers can do is to hope for the best and watch their figures to see how effective their strategies have been, this year.

Firm highlights potential of mobile gaming

Mediabrix, a mobile and social gaming advertising firm, has been heralding the potential of mobile games for some time. These games have become resoundingly popular among consumers around the world and, as such, have also become very attractive advertising platforms. The marketing potential of mobile gaming has yet to be fully actualized, but Medibrix has been showing the revenue generation capability of gaming advertisements and how effective in-game ads can actually be.

In-game ads reach $200 CPM

Mediabrix has reported that its in-game advertisements are generating $200 CPM across multiple platforms, 180 times greater than that produced by traditional advertisements. CPM denotes the rate that marketers will pay to have their ads hosted on a particular platform. The higher the CPM, the more valuable the platform is to marketers. According to data provided by Mediabrix, mobile games may be one of the most valuable marketing platforms there is.

Popularity of mobile games proves successful for advertisers

The value of mobile games is linked to their popularity among consumers. These games are both easy to obtain, as most of them are free, and easy to play. Because of their mobility, these games can be played anywhere and at any time. Moreover, consumers tend to jump from game to game relatively quickly, exposing themselves to a wide variety of games as well as the advertisements that these games host.

Fickleness of consumers may be bad for developers

Despite the apparent potential of mobile games, monetization of these games has been a difficult issue for many startups. New and independent development firms often fail in their monetization efforts because their mobile games are not able to find traction with consumers. Notably, the way consumers move from one game to another in quick succession has created a turbulent environment wherein developers have a difficult time holding the attention of a particular gamer long enough to generate any significant revenue.