Tag: mobile game developers

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.

Developers becoming increasingly enthralled by mobile games

The game industry is currently on the verge of reaching its next generation; an era of powerful consoles equipped with cutting edge hardware. The companies behind this next generation of gaming, primarily Sony and Microsoft, are putting emphasis on the capabilities of new consoles, suggesting that they will be able to power games that provide a new level of entertainment and engagement was not possible until now. This new generation of consoles has, however, failed to hype consumers, many of whom are enthralled in the world of mobile games.

Developers are breaking away from publishers

In the past, a new generation of consoles typically meant a great deal of enthusiasm from developers. Developers have, traditionally, been focused primarily on these consoles, which served as the platform for the games they created. Over the past few years, however, smartphones and tablets have begun to replace consoles among consumers. These mobile devices have enabled a wider range of people to participate in mobile games, which have come to dominate the game industry itself. The popularity of mobile games has also lead to developers embracing mobile platforms over consoles.

Indie developers enjoy immaculate position among consumers

Today, many developers consider themselves “independent,” a term that suggests they have no ties with game publishers. The label of “indie” developer has earned several studios high praise among consumers, largely due to the concept that publishers are an inappropriate evil that is ruining the game industry as a whole. The advent of mobile games has shown that developers of all sized can find success in the industry without the backing of a large publisher. Indie ventures are often considered, among consumers, to be the purest form of game development. For developers, mobile games symbolize a way to present new ideas, but also a way to generate a great deal of profit.

Financial prospects of mobile games is not ignore by indie developers

As more developers break away from publishers and begin to focus on mobile games, console makers, like Sony, are attempting to encourage these developers to bring their games to the next generation of consoles. Sony’s Playstation 4, for example, is opening its proverbial doors to these developers, offering them tools and incentives to ensure that their games can run on this console. Many developers, however, have become irreversibly enthralled in the prospects of mobile games, and not just because of the creative opportunities that can be found therein. In-app purchases and advertising have made these games a lucrative venture that has turned a few innovative studios into multi-million dollar enterprises. Developers, large or small, are not blind to the financial implications of successful mobile games.