Spending For Free-To-Play Games Analyzed

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It’s a question that lingers on the minds of many a game developer — how long does it take for a free-to-play game to make a profit Well, the answer may not be simple, but a new report from eMarketer has provided some valuable insight.

A report turned in last month by deltaDNA took an overall look at usage data for more than 1,000 mobile games with 100 million players worldwide. Out of these findings, strategy and action free-to-play games seem to have the strongest retention rates, at 30 and 29 percent, respectively.

They didn’t stay there, however, as both numbers dropped after seven days into the report, while social casino games moved to the top, with a retention rate of 15 percent, followed by puzzles (11 percent). deltaDNA made it known that these games have better retention, mainly due to long-term playability. The chart below breaks this down a little more significantly, including dollar values based on these percentages.

Retention isn’t the only statistic to pay attention to, however. Average revenues also play a big part, with strategy and action games getting $1.80 and $1.40, respectively. Strategy games are more likely to see spenders convert for the long haul, mainly due to the “time blocking” system, where users have to wait to refill hearts or resources if they don’t wish to pay up front for them.

That said, puzzle and social casino gamers still play a big part. With a shorter window where players likely spend money, they have a slightly smaller value, although both types of these games have a long-term approach when it comes to monetization, across low-value transactions. That makes them just as profitable in the long run, compared to big purchases in strategy and action games.

As far as the number of monthly in-app purchases made by mobile gamers, the chart (taken from data early in the year) shows that most are pleased with one in-app purchase on a freemium release during the month. However, there’s a pretty healthy amount making multiple purchases, with 20.3 percent clocking in with five or more.

Mobile gaming is big business, as eMarketer estimates that there will be nearly 165 million mobile phone gamers in the US this year, which makes up more than half of the population. 113 million of those consumers will play these games on tablets. In addition, US mobile game revenue is expected to skyrocket an additional 16.5 percent this year, reaching a whopping $3.04 billion. That makes up nearly 31 percent of overall mobile download and in-app revenues.

These are sure to be music to the ears of free-to-play game developers. But remember, big and small spending both play a part, as this report indicates.

Twitter Introduces Ad Campaigns That Revolve Around Events

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When it comes to massively popular events, social media just explodes. It could be an awards show, a sporting event like the Super Bowl, or even the airing of a popular movie like this week’s Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (popular in some sense, at least). Now, Twitter has come up with a way to take advantage of these events, while opening the door for potential advertisers to join in the fun.

Re/Code has reported that Twitter intends to reach out to marketers that can target people based on these events. With it, they will be able to tie in ads to anyone who cares about such events, such as introducing a shark documentary while they talk about Sharknado 3, or talking up back-to-school deals as people prepare for the return of the school season.

Although the popular social site has seen a small drop in revenue over this last quarter, it still has quite a few users that jump online to talk about such events. With this targeting option, marketers can potentially jump in and spread the word without being obtrusive, although the effects of this campaign have yet to be seen.

Twitter has already put together a dashboard with a calendar featuring big events, along with demographic data that breaks down the people who showed interest in similar events over the previous year, in the hopes of giving advertisers an idea of what’s popular.

Ameet Ranadive, senior director of revenue products for Twitter, stated that the site uses a handful of signals to determine whether or not users may care about a particular event. Through it, she explains, it takes a look at people that are followed, as well as specific tweets and engagement with other tweets. It works in a similar manner to the company’s TV targeting, but looking at trends with events rather than programming.

Again, though, its effects have yet to be seen. Twitter has already been toying around with several ideas in advertising, even taking the drastic step of removing users’ custom backgrounds on home pages with the possibility of replacing them with advertising (although this hasn’t been confirmed just yet – but many users have already complained about the “plain white background” approach). Maybe this will turn it around – even with the help of a Sharknado.

‘Cookie Jam’ Publisher SGN Gets Huge Investment

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Sometimes all it takes to shake up the mobile landscape is the right investment – and it appears that’s just what South Korea-based Netmarble Games has done with SGN.

Variety has reported that Netmarble, considered to be the top mobile games publisher for its region, has invested a whopping $130 million into SGN, the creators of such games as The Book of Life (based on the film of the same name) and the free-to-play hit Cookie Jam. That makes the Korea-based team the largest shareholder in the company, even with the $28 million share held by co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe, formerly of MySpace.

Through this deal, SGN expects its games to have a bigger outreach overseas, namely in Asia. Meanwhile, Netmarble benefits as well, reaching out more to a U.S.-based audience, as well as other territories, according to the report.

“The industry is consolidating,” said DeWolfe regarding the deal. “There are increasing barriers to entry to new players, and to be a leader requires lots of capital and lots of infrastructure.”

SGN plans to use its new investment to create an “aggressive” M&A strategy for its games, with acquisitions of other game studios in the worlds, as well as better expansion into television and online marketing. Growth of international distribution is in the works as well, according to DeWolfe.

The popularity of games like Book of Life has done quite well for the team, as it “continues to grow even though the film is out-of-window basically,” said DeWolfe. That kind of strength is a good sign for Netmarble, especially when it comes to expansion in new markets.

“SGN is a rapidly growing company with proven experience in developing and servicing top grossing casual games in the West,” Netmarble CEO Youngsig Kwon said in a statement. “With SGN’s many years of experience in global marketing, I am confident that SGN will make a perfect partner for Netmarble to enter the Western market.”

SGN is expected to generate over $280 million in revenue for this year alone – although, with its expansion into new markets, that number could easily rise.

Blizzard’s New ‘Hearthstone’ Expansion Nears

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As it’s proven in the past, Activision Blizzard is doing very well with Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, its hit PC/mobile game where players use cards from decks to battle other players online. And now, with the announcement of a Grand Tournament expansion, business is likely to pick up even more.

Per a report from PC Mag, Blizzard announced the expansion yesterday, with Grand Tournament set to arrive for both the mobile and PC versions next month. It will feature 1332 new cards that can be won through Hearthstone‘s Arena mode, although players will also have the option to purchase them direct, using either real money or in-game currency.

The expansion will enable players to visit the cold confines of Northrend, where the argent Crusade once held a tournament to get together the greatest fighters in Azeroth and prepare them for a forthcoming battle. “The competitive atmosphere’s just a lot more playful (and a bit warmer) than it used to be,” said Blizzard on the official blog page.

Hearthstone has become a global success for the company in a short amount of time, effectively providing a way to impact the global market while keeping its highly popular Warcraft theme in mind. It’s also gained popularity on the Twitch front, with hundreds of gamers, professional and casual, broadcasting their sessions on a daily basis to a growing audience.

With that, Blizzard will more than likely begin a promotional campaign to get the word out about Grand Tournament. The company didn’t go into details, but a new TV trailer – similar to the one it aired earlier this summer for Heroes of the Storm, viewable below – and plenty of online ads are to be expected. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Blizzard teamed up with bigger partners, such as Twitch, to feature a glimpse of what’s to come with the expansion.

Crackle’s Streaming Success With ‘Joe Dirt 2’

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While Netflix and Hulu aren’t exactly spilling the beans about specifically how many people watch their original programs, Crackle has no problem spilling the beans about how well David Spade’s Joe Dirt is performing for it.

The Sony-owned streaming network recently added the exclusive film Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser to its line-up this past week, continuing the adventures of Spade’s hillbilly-ish character as he attempts to make right in his life. Crackle has indicated that the movie’s addition to the channel has been an imminent success, garnering more than one million views in its past five days, according to Adweek. In its first day along, it was viewed over 278,000 times, the largest for a streaming program to date (in terms of what numbers were revealed, anyway – Netflix still isn’t talking.

“Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser has garnered record-breaking viewership that we’re excited to share,” said Eric Berger, general manager of Crackle and executive vice president of digital for Sony Pictures Television, in a statement. “The reception we are seeing from viewers in such early stages of the film’s release bodes very well for our original movie efforts—we are looking forward to continuing to develop and produce quality content on Crackle.”

The company has also said it will continue to report ratings for its original content in the months ahead, though nothing was specified just yet.

18 million people use the service on a monthly basis, watching shows like Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee and others. It’s preparing to launch a new drama this fall called The Art of More, featuring Dennis Quaid and Kate Bosworth among others in its cast. Those could mean big numbers down the road as well…and we won’t have to play a guessing game in terms of how popular they are.

As Joe Dirt might say, “Daaaaaaaaang!” The trailer for the movie can be found below.

YouTube Doesn’t Fear Online Competition

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With Facebook Video managing to get record results in just a short amount of time – as well as growing audiences for Snapchat and Spotify – one would think that Google’s YouTube execs would be concerned with hefty competition. However, that’s not entirely the case – despite its continuing success.

In a story reported by Fortune, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki stated that the company isn’t concerned when it comes to the competition in the online video market, recently speaking about the matter at the Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen.

Despite Facebook’s growing numbers, video views on YouTube are different than those on the social site, according to Wojcicki. Users tend to visit to watch clips, while on Facebook, they play automatically. “We want our users to engage,” she said. “We want them to not be channel surfing. We want them to say, ‘I saw a video, I cared about that video, I commented on that video, and I continued watching it.'”

But she also believes that all the competition can thrive from online video’s overall success. “Facebook, Twitter and everyone has recognized it as a big opportunity and they’re coming into the market,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a surprise because of the size of the opportunity.”

With a big number of projects – including “mobile, mobile, mobile,” as Wojcicki puts it, there’s no concern for this competition. “Overall, I feel pretty encouraged,” she said regarding its growth.

But when it comes to mobile ads, there may be a slight cause for concern over at Google. A report from Adweek indicates this, with a research report done by Adobe Digital Index. It highlighted various key shifts in the industry, including Periscope dominating Meerkat in live streaming (for the time being) and increased support for retailers on Reddit, despite recent CEO fallout.

However, the biggest story is Facebook’s display-ad success, which is sticking closer to users than anyone Google is currently offering up, according to Adobe’s principal analyst Tamara Gaffney. “There have been radical changes that Facebook has done and less radical changes Google has done,” she said. “And consumers in the marketplace are feeling ads on Facebook are more relevant.”

Although ad impressions were down 50 percent, clickthrough rates have doubled for these ads, with more valuable ad impressions, even though they’re lower in count. Meanwhile, Google’s clickthrough is up 24 percent on display ads, although it seems that more users prefer Facebook’s. 51 percent of users polled said the social site’s ads were more attuned to their interests, compared to 17 percent on YouTube.

Other findings on the report, including Periscope’s effectiveness and the power of Facebook retail referral, can be found here.

SuperAwesome Continues To Grow With Fundraising

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Emerging as one of the leaders for digital advertising platforms aimed at the younger set, SuperAwesome has managed to come a long way in the past year – and it’s aiming even better with a recent fundraising round.

TechCrunch has reported that the U.K. based company has managed to raise $7 million through a Series A funding, and will use the money to “grow faster and reach more territories,” according to founder Dylan Collins.

This expansion includes both more hirings in the United States, as well as Southeast Asia. Said Collins, “We’re hiring in the U.S., U.K., Asia and in several partnership conversations for specific regions.”

This funding was put together by IBIS MTM, Twenty Ten Capital and Sandbox and Co., along with participating partners like Hoxton Ventures.

It’s just the latest bit of good news for the company, which has managed to push its valuation 4.5 times since its previous seed round last year. “When we started SuperAwesome, the objective was always to become the global digital kids marketing platform,” says Collins. “Nobody has done this (most of the major media companies are concentrated in one or two territories) and the faster we build out this global kid-safe infrastructure to connect brands with content, the larger we grow this market.”

The company has more than a quarter of a billion young viewers for an audience, as well as a “compliance” platform that works considerably well, using cloud-based tools for Kids Web Services (KWS) to assure safety for parents, while at the same time producing content with the help of brands like Hasbro, Mattel and Lego.

Collins also discussed profit for the site, which will either exceed expectations or break even. “This year, we’ll drive tens of millions of advertising dollars into the kids digital content ecosystem with annual growth of 4-5x and we’ve got a clear route to revenues of $100 million + over the next couple of years,” he said. “By virtue of existing we’re materially increasing the size (and safety) of the digital kids market so by any analysis, our value comes from continuing to grow fast.”

SuperAwesome has made a number of acquisitions to continue its success, including Spain’s Ad4kids, and the sales and ad teams for kids’ virtual world Bin Weevils. But Collins insists it’s still a personal process. “All of our acquisitions have been for people, rather than technology (because of the very specific compliance needs, all of our products are built by our internal engineering team) so we continue to look at opportunities when they arise,” says Collins. “The kids market is extremely tough to scale up in so if any startup is interested in a strategic conversation, we’d be happy to have a chat.”

More information on this fund-raising can be found here.

Newzoo: Consumers Becoming Producers With Games

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Video games have come a long way over the past few years, between the immense growth of eSports-based competitions and video popularity on both YouTube and Twitch. A lot of this has to do with the players behind these games — and their content is slowly but surely taking over the landscape.

Newzoo provided further proof of this with a new whitepaper report, sponsored by Limelight Networks, titled The Consumer As Producer: How Games & Video Converge To Drive Growth. The report examines the trend of consumers becoming the world’s producers, while at the same time delving into the origins of video in games and how pre-recorded video and live streaming are pushing games to new heights, with the players calling the shots.

“There was a brief moment where we collectively thought the fast pace of change in our industry would slow down following the mobile games revolution,” said Newzoo CEO Peter Warman. “However, the opposite has occurred as a unique alchemy of forces and trends continue to relentlessly drive innovative change. Games are now branching out in all directions, with consumers at the helm and the industry taking a facilitating role.”

The report breaks down a number of key trends for the future of the games market for this year, across Future, Consumer, Industry and World. A lot of factors figure into this process, such as creativity, the games themselves, connectivity and growth, with the creator, facilitator, accelerator and convergence all taking part to keep the ball rolling.

Video streaming and machinima (a process where game engines are used to make cinematic experiences) have grown over the last 20 years, becoming a driving force in this industry. Starting way back in 1996 with the short Diary of a Camper, but quickly moving into the mainstream with the likes of Red vs. Blue and other programming, gamers have been motivated to create content for new platforms, sharing and editing so that they find the right niche with it.

Newzoo’s data indicates that 41 percent of gamers who stream to Twitch regularly are males aged between 21-35, while 30 percent of those who stream are female. Of these frequent streamers, the company reports that nearly half are playing Candy Crush Saga, while a third prefer soccer. That’s not even counting the many players who engage in more serious competitive-based games like League of Legends and DOTA 2.

While the PC platform was the initial place for game content to take off, other platforms, like game consoles (such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4, which have built-in streaming capability) and mobile have taken off. Last year, Twitch announced that 30 percent of their viewers watched streams from mobile devices, and with new apps like Meerkat and Periscope on the market, more mobile games can be streamed as well – like the incredibly popular Hearthstone from Blizzard.

“Publishers will want to take a strategic look at their video sharing infrastructure based on the convergence of games and video,” said Anne Blanchard, Gaming Solutions for Limelight Networks. “The business opportunities are just beginning to emerge, but clearly this new surge in gaming creativity will demand tremendous scalability and innovative solutions.”

Two additional charts from the report, posted below, break down what devices gamers use for watching their sessions, as well as more specific Twitch numbers.

In this chart, video on demand is highly appreciated amongst gamers, by 73 percent, while 54 percent of those polled prefer live streaming video. Out of all devices accounted for, PC/laptop are the most popular in both categories, but mobile phones, tablets and TV’s have their fair share of appreciation as well.

As for Twitch’s numbers, while a majority of them are male, female gamers are on the rise, and in varying age groups, from 10-20 all the way to 51-65 (even though they’re at two percent). Only a small handful watch other Twitch sessions (16 percent) or stream to Twitch regularly (13 percent), but these numbers are on the rise as well, as more people catch on to its streaming services.

The full whitepaper can be found here.

Nielsen Expands Ad Ratings to 7 New Global Markets

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by Evan DeSimone

Rating organization Nielsen is expanding the reach of its digital advertising ratings service to seven new markets in Asia and Latin America.

The product, which tracks the performance of digital advertising across platforms and devices, is commercially available now in Singapore, Japan and Indonesia, and is expected to reach the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Mexico by the end of the third quarter. The move will bring the total number of global markets where digital advertising ratings are available to 16 by the end of the year.

Keep reading…

This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.

With Emojis, Marketers Will Be Taking Great Care

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Emojis have been around for quite some time. Originating in Japan as a method for sending pictographs between phone users, the tiny images were extremely popular inside the country for a number of years. Emojis made their western debut after Apple included the first official emoji keyboard in iOS 5. The Unicode consortium standardized Emojis in 2011, as part of Unicode 6.0.

In the four years since Apple released its emoji keyboard, these pictures have changed the way consumers communicate online. Still, the biggest problem facing emojis is that, while they can be used to express an assortment of things, they (surprise!) still can’t, and don’t communicate certain things as accurately as words can. However, as of 2015 the use of emojis has proliferated tenfold, with marketers feverishly trying to (1) devise ways to interpret and analyze the impact of these emotive icons commonly used in text messages, and more frequently, social media platforms including Instagram and Twitter; and (2) attempting to integrate them into innovative marketing campaigns.

The goal, essentially, is to apply some of the same techniques for quantifying value and measuring brand sentiment based on words in social media to metrics for imagery. Social-media agencies are eager to learn the differences in meaning and sentiment between a red heart and a blue one, for instance.

Going off this idea, some services have recently incorporated emojis directly into its user interfaces in an attempt communicate something complex with a single character. Snapchat is a perfect example of this – a channel that, with its most recent update, is trying to harness this newfound infatuation by adding emojis that indicate and describe the type of relationship multiple users have with each other.

Another emoji advocate is Instagram who claims that almost half of all text on its service contains at least one emoji.

“The vocabulary of Instagram is shifting similarly across many different cohorts with a decline in internet slang corresponding to rise in the usage of emoji,” wrote Thomas Dimson, a software engineer on the company’s data team, via Ad Age.

This all might seem rather obvious to some – the idea that kids enjoy communication via pictures instead of plain English sounds conspicuous. However, it’s no longer enough to just include a smiley face after your tweet – you have to build a campaign with emojis at its core.

But just how can marketers take advantage of, and implement this generational phenomenon into a successful and effective campaign that will simultaneously add value And more importantly, how can they do so without overindulging in emojis so far as to drive the popular emoticon statement icons to their death, like we saw with the onslaught of other media fads such as gifs and memes, etc.

It is important to remember why people started using emojis in the first place. Considering the whole shtick of emojis is that they express a user’s agglomeration of emotions, brands and marketers should be cognizant of their user’s emotions and do their best to try and tap into them. According to B2B Marketing Insider, emotion is almost twice as effective as paid promotion.

While an elemental and prevalent way to use emojis is to spread joy, marketers can also use them to tell a story or paint a larger picture. For example, several brands are fortunate enough to have intimate connections to certain, already popular emojis. Beer brands, for instance, frequently take advantage of the various beer emojis for their marketing efforts. An example of this would be Bud Light’s 2014, 4th of July campaign. Bud Light created an emoji-filled tweet that utilized felicitous (i.e. American flag and clinking beers) emojis to illustrate an American flag. The post was retweeted more than 150,000 times (via Marketo), leading to an even greater number of impressions.

Another example is General Electric, whose approach at an emoji-centered campaign included an attempt making science fun by constructing an “Emoji Table of Experiments.” This enabled kids to create kid-friendly scientific experiments using various, but fitting emojis – a showpiece for GE.

As The Guardian noted, in addition to tapping into emotion, brands should also strive to drive user engagement in a simple, but effective way. A consumer’s journey must be as easy as possible. The brands that win are the ones that will deliver amazingly simple customer experiences. If emojis and mobile marketing have taught us anything, it’s that users are looking for the most effective ways to communicate information faster.

What about brands that want to go even further with these cute caricatures I mean after all, the emojis that come with the iPhone are pretty cool, we can all agree about that. But why should marketers constrict themselves to a single keyboard

Companies are beginning to go the extra mile, bringing notoriety to their brand by enabling customers to download and use packages of custom, branded emojis. For example, Burger King created its own Chicken Fries emoji keyboard as part of a wider promotion for this beloved menu item. Doing this allows consumers to engage with a brand on a whole new level. Now consumers can communicate and engage with a brand all through a single application.

A number of platforms, like Swyft Media and Snaps, have emerged to streamline this process for brands. Another instance of a successful deployment of custom emojis can be found within the world of Electronic Dance Music (EDM), which Billboard estimates to be a $6.2 billion industry. Renowned EDM producer DJ Snake, for example, who is known for his unabashed sense of humor, recently released an emoji package that depicts his rendition of several other famous Djs as emojis, along with other iconic symbols or totems that are prevalent in the EDM universe.

Any way you look at it, smart marketers are beginning to grasp the power of these icons, and are tuning into consumers’ fascination with the trend – using it to their advantage. In a world that is consistently migrating more and more to the online space, a space that is exceedingly limited by word counts, emojis convey more information in less space, all while being visually engaging. They are versatile, friendly, and fun marketing tools that also help brands connect with their audiences.