Lessons from Lockdown: Making Casual Games in a Covid-19 World

On 23rd September between 2:00pm to 3:15pm (BST), GameAnalytics is running a webinar: making casual games in a Covid-19 world. Joined by friends at Adjust and TopOn, we’ll cover what we’ve spotted, how to grow your casual game and how to advertise during the pandemic. This webinar is the first of a series, where we’ll be working with leading industry partners to bring you the latest insights and trends, on all things #gamedev.

It’s been an odd few months. Over that time, we’ve noticed a dramatic shift in the gaming industry: we’ve never seen so much playtime, traffic is at an all-time high and some countries have really surprised us. So we thought it’d be worth sharing the key metrics and banding together with Adjust and TopOn to give you some advice on how to make sure it’s your game beneath those idle thumbs.

The webinar will have three main sessions:

• an update on the state of the gaming industry.
• a talk on how to use your data to grow your game.
• a lesson about developing your advertising strategy.

Casual gaming in 2020: What’s the data saying?

Our CEO, Ioana Hreninciuc, will kick things off by going over the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for casual games, including retention, session length and Cost Per Install (CPI). She’s also going to dive into hyper-casual games, and explain how this differs across regions. (For example, how does Asia compare to Europe?)

Ultimately, this should help you figure out how your game is performing compared to others in your genre. And you can expect to learn which genres are winning the war for those thumbs.

A quarantined world: reaching the at-home mobile gamer

Next on the agenda is Stephanie Pilon, the global director of product and field marketing at Adjust. She’s going to look at how monetization models, mechanics and player’s behavior have changed. And how you can keep up with the pace.

She’s going to share the successful marketing techniques that hyper-casual games have been using, which business models work and three strategies you can use for yourself.

Monetization for different markets

Last – but not least – we have Harry Yang, the chief marketing officer from TopOn. He’s going to explain how countries overseas have been advertising their games and what we can learn from them, as well as how you should develop a strategy and how ad mediation might help.

Every market is different. And the more you understand about the culture and trends, the more effectively you can advertise your game. So by the end of Harry’s talk, you’ll have a much better understanding of how to plan your advertising strategy.

Save your seat

It’s all online, but we’ve only got so much bandwidth, so make sure you’ve got a spot. If you’d like to come along to the webinar, sign up and register.