Gaming
The future of the gaming industry: brand loyalty and retention, Exclusive Q&A w/ Achille Traore, CEO of White Label Loyalty
The gaming industry is highly competitive. Game developers only have one chance at making a user’s experience memorable. If a gaming company fails to capture user attention, customers will likely move on to another game or platform. Achille Traore, CEO of White Label Loyalty, discusses the opportunities awaiting gaming brands to create more loyal customers.
What are the main goals and objectives of brands in the gaming industry?
Most brands in the gaming industry are striving for the same thing: customer retention. The industry is well known for high engagement rates, but it’s also well known for low retention rates.
Player retention is important for gaming brands because existing customers are very valuable in the long run. It’s much easier to upsell and cross-sell to loyal users. Plus, the cost of acquiring new customers is becoming more and more expensive.
The gaming industry faces a number of challenges. What are they?
The first challenge is about engaging casual players and persuading them to play more frequently. And while there are many factors that contribute to this, including the quality of a game and the ability to market it effectively, gaming brands ultimately need to have a deep understanding of their customers.
The second challenge is knowing how to add value to a customer’s gaming experience. Not all users will find value in the same things. For one user, the value of a game may lie in the ability to customize characters with exclusive skins. For others, the value may lie in joining a community to meet other gamers.
Finally, gaming brands need to know how to break the barriers for people who haven’t gamed in a long time, or have never tried gaming before.
When it comes to gaming, how would you define loyalty and engagement?
A user that is truly engaged will spend a significant amount on in-game purchases.
Another way gamers show their loyalty is by engaging with communities via social media or forums like Reddit.
Loyal players can also become ambassadors for gaming brands. These players are more likely to engage with a brand outside of the game – they’ll spend money on equipment (such as a new console or PC), merchandise, and event tickets.
How does a gamer become loyal?
Loyalty often forms as a result of rewards. Players want to be rewarded. Whether it’s for completing a time-bound challenge, or unlocking different levels in a game, rewards add to a feeling of competition and accomplishment.
Gaming companies that reward customers for engagement can build real, long-term loyalty.
In order for gaming companies to better understand and engage their customers, what can they do?
Gaming companies must collect detailed data about their users to understand what drives them. Brands can use this data to build specific audience segments, which allows them to personalise and tailor marketing strategies to each customer profile.
Loyalty programs are an effective way to gather detailed information about user behaviour, needs, and preferences. When a gaming brand understands its customers, they can create customised rewards for each player segment, resulting in higher engagement and retention rates.
What are the best ways to reward players in the gaming industry?
With the right software, gaming brands can reward any kind of activity. For example, rewards could be given to streamers who refer games to others. Rewards could incentivise new customers to pick up their controllers again. Or, rewards can simply be used to show appreciation for those who dedicate their time and attention to a game.
Playstation Stars, a new loyalty program in the industry, rewards players for engaging with specific campaigns. Campaigns range from simply playing a game, to earning specific trophies or getting first place in a league table in your local area. Sony announced that the program uses a new type of reward – digital collectibles: “digital representations of things that Playstation fans enjoy, including figurines of beloved and iconic characters from games”.
What other opportunities await gaming brands?
With rewards, gaming companies can drive whatever specific behaviours they would like to see more of. For example, if a gaming brand wants to focus on new customer acquisition, they can build referrals into a rewards program. A fully-rounded loyalty program boosts acquisition as well as retention. While customers can do this on their own via social media or word of mouth, loyalty technology makes it as easy as possible for them to refer a game to family and friends.
There are so many different ways rewards can be used. From early access to a game, to free in-game currency, rewards help make a user’s experience more memorable and keep them engaged long-term. But rewards won’t be effective if gaming companies don’t understand what their customers actually want. That’s why it’s vital to start with data. Then, build a loyalty program that is based on what gamers find truly valuable.
Gaming
New SuperScale eBook Launched to Help Mobile Game Developers Maximise Organic Success
SuperScale has released its latest ebook “From organic success to long-term revenue,” which addresses the concerns and opportunities identified in SuperScale’s landmark study, “Good Games Don’t Die”. The new SuperScale ebook builds on the signature whitepaper, providing mobile game developers with actionable insights and strategies to implement when a game gains organic traction.
Organic strategies such as celebrity endorsement, streamer coverage and TikTok virality can quickly catapult a game to the top of the charts, but it can be a challenge to maintain popularity. As discovered in the Good Games Don’t Die Report, 76% of launched games hit peak revenue and 47% of games die in year 1. The ebook provides developers with advice to further maximize the long-term revenue of games that have generated organic successes to date.
Previous findings also revealed that over a quarter (26%) of developers do not measure the lifetime value (LTV) and return on ad spend (ROAS) for their games. The ebook offers insights for developers exploring LTV and ROAS for the first time, alongside the significance of factors such as seasonality and marketing to seasoned game-makers. As discovered in the Good Games Don’t Die report, only 41% of developers use Ad mediation platforms. Inside the ebook, SuperScale specialists explain this process, offering advice about picking the right network, and the bidding and waterfall optimisation processes.
Ivan Trancik, CEO and Founder of SuperScale, said: “The findings from the Good Games Don’t Die white paper have been read far and wide by the industry. We’ve delved into the data to deliver an ebook that addresses the opportunities some developers are not currently exploring. In today’s mobile gaming landscape, every revenue-making opportunity counts, so we’re giving developers the insights to take their organic success to the next level.”
Gaming
Gaming Corps boosts Smash4Cash™ offering with release of RAMPAGE!
Gaming Corps – a publicly-listed game development company based in Sweden – is giving players the chance to swing wildly and bring the riches home in new game RAMPAGE!
Players can put their luck to the test and crack open ball after ball, revealing marvellous prizes hidden within.
RAMPAGE! is the second game in Gaming Corps’ Smash4Cash™ series, following the release of Piggy Smash in January. The Smah4Cash™ mechanic is designed to make the game experience even more unique and bring an even greater chance for players to make the most of bonus rounds.
Each time a player wagers on RAMPAGE! they make an attempt to smash a single active ball laid out in the middle of the game screen. There are two racks, with one on each side of the active ball, each holding four balls.
If the ball is smashed, the player will be rewarded with an instant prize, and one of several features may also be awarded. After a ball is smashed, it will be replaced with a new ball that drops from the rack, becoming active.
A ball being smashed may activate the MULTIPLIER feature, which will apply to the payout of the next ball that will be smashed. The next ball is automatically made active and is a guaranteed smash.
What’s more for players is the RAMPAGE feature could also be activated. The game will enter RAMPAGE MODE, where the Hammer automatically attempts to smash balls until it fails. A minimum of two balls will be smashed in this feature.
Even more winnings can be claimed if the MULTIPLIER RAMPAGE feature is triggered, combining both the MULTIPLIER and RAMPAGE features. During this feature, all smashed balls will have their payouts multiplied by the awarded multiplier at the start of the feature.
That’s not all, as players can also win a random prize if the INSTANT WIN feature is triggered. The game will award a random prize of 10x, 25x, 100x or 1000x the bet.
Connor Blinman, Head of Games at Gaming Corps said: “Our Smash4Cash™ mechanic is giving players even more opportunities to make the most of our thrilling games, and following the successful release of Piggy Smash, I’m very thankful to our team for smashing it out the park with our latest game to use the mechanic, RAMPAGE!
“This won’t be the last you will be hearing from us with releases like this, and I really look forward to seeing how we can make our games even stronger through the use of this mechanic in the coming months.”
Gaming
THE BATTLE OF POLYTOPIA ARRIVES ON APPLE ARCADE
The award-winning 4x strategy game The Battle of Polytopia has joined Apple Arcade as a ‘plus’ version with all tribes and skins unlocked.
In The Battle of Polytopia, tribes offer new units, technology, and buildings for players to enjoy as they seek to gain the highest score or defeat their opponent in the turn-based game. Apple Arcade users can have instant access to all 16 Polytopia tribes without needing to buy them separately as DLC.
The game has already been enjoyed by more than 20 million users on mobile, Steam and Switch and has a string of high-profile fans including Deepmind´s CEO Demis Hassabis and MrBeast. The standard version of the game will remain available on the App Store.
Christian Lövstedt, General Manager for The Battle of Polytopia, commented:
“The Apple Arcade release of The Battle of Polytopia will make the game available for even more players to enjoy. Whether it’s the unique insect abilities of the Cymanti, or the icy powers of the Polaris, the special tribes of Polytopia each offer a new spin on gameplay. By making all 16 tribes available, players can enjoy everything Polytopia has to offer from the very start.”
As initially announced by Apple Arcade, The Battle of Polytopia joins Bloons TD Battles 2+ and Crayola Adventures as new additions to the subscription service.
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