Mobile Game Developers Guide for Holiday Surge | 5 CRITICAL Tips for your survival this Christmas
Mobile Game Developers Guide for Holiday Surge |
5 CRITICAL Tips for your survival this Christmas
Having just returned from visiting my family for Thanksgiving, I can say without a doubt that as a Mobile Game Developer – you need to prepare.
Prepare for what?
TRAFFIC.
And LOTS of IT.
I’m going to give you an example that happened just within my family over this Thanksgiving.
My brother just ordered a Nexus 10 (The new google tablet, very nice by the way) last sat, he got it the day before we left (Wednesday, the 21st) so from what he told me, and what I understood he mainly just spent time setting up the tablet to his liking, downloading some games here and there (which by the way, when I asked if he had played them he replied, “No, I just downloaded them” (angry birds – star wars was one) which is also really fun!) So any way.
To sum up the last few days in a nutshell.. AFTER we had finished visiting my family, he had over 80 HOURS of time logged on his new tablet, he JUST got.
Mind you, the people that were primarly using it were (in this order): my niece, my cousin, me, my sister, and him.
But keep in mind, even with all of us using it – 80 hours is the equiavalent to TWO work weeks.
That’s a pay period for most people.
So, the point I’m really trying to make here is..
You need to PREPARE. And these 5 items below will help with just that.
1) Plan ahead.
When contemplating which direct-deal partners to use for monetization and user acquisition you need to realize you’re not the only one. So you at the very least, you want to make sure that the technology you plan on using is integrated early enough to give you some time to test. When testing make sure to include everything from: your new releases to in app content but also your partners integration. You don’t want to think everything’s “good to go” then have the App Store Lockdown happen (on the 22nd) and realize there is a MAJOR issue inside your app.
2) Target appropriately.
During the Holiday season when it comes down to your ad spend you want to make suer that you plan your spend allocations with partners that you know can deliver not only high conversions while simultaneously aligning your promotions with games targeting similar demographics and overall play style to your game.
This will increase your chance of attracting new users and making money if they see something that’s similar to what they’re already playing and enjoying. As always, the best way to know what they like is to TEST then increase the budget on what’s working.
3) Art direction matters.
One thing I’ve noticed after quite some time observing the behavior of users and consumers of apps is that, art-direction is vital. When you look at the most popular games in the app store do you notice a pattern?
The one’s that generally perform the best have a direction that is appealing to adults, but attractive to kids.
Why does this work?
Personally, I think it’s because we all still have an inner child within us, but at the same time if the graphics are sufficient, then they’re generally ‘good enough’ because after all.
Game-play>Graphics
Remember pong?
How about PacMan?
During this Holiday season, you could also try to create holiday themes for your games. If you notice, the game ‘Clash of Clans’ the avatar has a Santa Hat.
That’s brilliant.
Try stuff like that.
4) Prepare for the worst.
No, not a zombie apocalypse, but rather being able to deliver a quality user experience for those who don’t have their new devices set up on Wi-Fi yet or aren’t connected to a server due to a possible outage.
I.e. When I was out of town, I had like Zero Bars. And the Wi-fi, was horrible. You can expect similar experiences outside of cities.
5) Prepare for the Lockdown.
Each year apple gives their employees some time off, and tries to stabalize things so they lockdown the App Store, and the charts.
This means that whoever’s at the top stays at the top while all those shiny gadgets are being opened.
Luckily for you, if you’ve read this article – then you know how to make the most of that.
So, that’s what I have for you.
It’s still not too late to get on-board with getting all this taken care of.
Let me know how it goes.
-Kevin
Kevin is an Online and Mobile Marketing Strategist who has worked with companies of all sizes over the last 6 years. You can follow Kevin on any of the social platforms below.
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