This is probably the most insightful & holistic talk about mobile games marketing I have ever came across. That fact that he just give all that away, for free is just blowing my mind. Mad respect to this man
Some of these tips were incredibly eye-opening, but instead of a 4-7:1 Paid to Organic ratio on Apple, we've been seeing a 1:1 to 1:2 ratio consistently (non-US). It's still better on Android, from 1:2 to 1:3 (general), even 1:5 (launch month).
I love this US mythical numbers of credits and ads cost. 😂 I'm from EU and absolute no one spends 25k on google ads. It's approx 4 years full time salary in my place 😂😂😂😂
This man develops and runs this game himself. Probably has a family to feed and bills to pay. His small company profits pale in comparison to bigger devs applications.
This is scary to look at from a user point of view. More and more shit (and ok products) is churned out every day. Everyone is aiming for spotlight, paying advertisements for fake views and installs along the way. In the end it's like user is paying for this app to the advertiser, and developer is getiing only a partial cut. You cannot find anything genuine these days. It's all marketed, produced, published on a conveyor. Games, music, printed media. Even food places and art exhibitions. Advertising is not even a middleman. It's something more. And it's bad. Growing up in soviet union we were almost spared this whole concept. Then it crept along. Local craigslist analogs are now run by e-commerce and real estate brokers. Cities are plastered with colorful clothing ads. I dream of a day where ads are illegal.
Damalycus The notion that ads should be illegal is patently absurd. If you wish to live in an oppressive dystopian soviet nightmare, North Korea is taking applications.
@@DarkMatterVisible The notion that unfettered advertising is what keeps us from being a communist dictatorship is absurd. Companies being able to indiscriminately target whoever they please and shove more and more predatory content down your gullet isn't necessarily freedom. Heck it's not even freedom of choice when your only choice is between the companies with the most resources to block OUT the competition rather than have to provide an alternative or superior product. The strength of capitalism is in competition... but when the objective becomes to obstruct competition and falsify value of a product we lose the value of capitalism.
@Milktank ™ Most consumers don't have the same awareness. If your average consumer gets burned by a company that can't maintain support they won't be as likely to take a risk on a smaller company that by all means has every intention and means(with lower overhead) of supporting their possibly superior product. So everybody loses. It's not a market, it's an ecosystem in which the only option is to pillage and salt the earth.
Just because it's effective doesn't make it right. I just threw up in my mouth. I know the guy means well but this is not the direction we need to move in as devs. I'll never go back to mobile dev unless there starts to be some serious quality control. It's a shame because the input offers a lot for the player and developer. Edit: I've got nothing against mike but if this is what he has to do to feed himself there are 500+ people doing the exact same thing with extremely similar products. It's an arms race to the bottom that vastly favors quantity of releases. As we placate and accept it as "just the way it is." we only increase the need to shotgun release clones when the actual content is completely pushed aside.
@Milktank ™ Correct but nobody has to throw their morals out the window. These behaviors are very appealing short term but hurt the industry and consumer. Your argument is exactly why Loot Boxes are the standard in AAA and "freemium" mobile games simply try to keep you playing regularly enough to increase your chance of "breaking" and buying more energy .
@@pogo575 It's the way it works on the store.. Don't hate the player, hate the game. If you don't do what's needed to be visible, you're screwed. A sad reality, but I don't think it will change anytime soon.
@@dann5295 I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. My very first sentence was "Just because it's effective doesn't make it right." If it didn't work people wouldn't exploit it now would they? Just because the status quo is feasible economically in the short term doesn't mean it's good or viable for the longterm growth of an institution or entity. Fitness of economic utility is a real thing. If capitalism worked out of the box the US wouldn't need the Fed, economists wouldn't have to exist. And the world economy wouldn't have had to get thrown into free fall because some real-estate bros thought they found an easy way to make a quick buck.
@@pogo575 Fact is, that's how people use it to market their game... it's like you're telling him not to do it because its unethical, even tho its the only way to stay competitive... Of course it's fucked up. But it's no use blaming the people. You should complain to google, should they ever bother with you or anyone else.
@@1famekouby Godwin's law reached after only 5 comments ! Well done. I though we could have meaningful discussion about GDC video but youtube comments remains youtube comments.
This is probably the most insightful & holistic talk about mobile games marketing I have ever came across. That fact that he just give all that away, for free is just blowing my mind. Mad respect to this man
I'm 10 minutes in and I'm surprised to see how accurate this is. I work at a gaming company that does all of this so far
Very detailed, pragmatic and honest look into the mobile scene. Seems like an insane amount of work and money to succeed in the mobile sphere
Amazing talk! Thorough and insightful, thank you very much!
Last question of the talk was everything
Some of these tips were incredibly eye-opening, but instead of a 4-7:1 Paid to Organic ratio on Apple, we've been seeing a 1:1 to 1:2 ratio consistently (non-US). It's still better on Android, from 1:2 to 1:3 (general), even 1:5 (launch month).
Very informative and clean talk.
I loved this talk, unfortunately I have seen today in 2022, hope big part of spoken was valid for todays mobile scene.
Great talk. Iron Horse has a nice catalog of idle games.
This is two years old. Is it outdated in any ways? Anybody?
Nope, still very relevant
owesome talk!
I love this US mythical numbers of credits and ads cost. 😂 I'm from EU and absolute no one spends 25k on google ads. It's approx 4 years full time salary in my place 😂😂😂😂
This man develops and runs this game himself. Probably has a family to feed and bills to pay. His small company profits pale in comparison to bigger devs applications.
This is scary to look at from a user point of view. More and more shit (and ok products) is churned out every day. Everyone is aiming for spotlight, paying advertisements for fake views and installs along the way. In the end it's like user is paying for this app to the advertiser, and developer is getiing only a partial cut. You cannot find anything genuine these days. It's all marketed, produced, published on a conveyor. Games, music, printed media. Even food places and art exhibitions. Advertising is not even a middleman. It's something more. And it's bad.
Growing up in soviet union we were almost spared this whole concept. Then it crept along. Local craigslist analogs are now run by e-commerce and real estate brokers. Cities are plastered with colorful clothing ads. I dream of a day where ads are illegal.
Damalycus The notion that ads should be illegal is patently absurd. If you wish to live in an oppressive dystopian soviet nightmare, North Korea is taking applications.
@@DarkMatterVisible The notion that unfettered advertising is what keeps us from being a communist dictatorship is absurd. Companies being able to indiscriminately target whoever they please and shove more and more predatory content down your gullet isn't necessarily freedom. Heck it's not even freedom of choice when your only choice is between the companies with the most resources to block OUT the competition rather than have to provide an alternative or superior product. The strength of capitalism is in competition... but when the objective becomes to obstruct competition and falsify value of a product we lose the value of capitalism.
@Milktank ™ Most consumers don't have the same awareness. If your average consumer gets burned by a company that can't maintain support they won't be as likely to take a risk on a smaller company that by all means has every intention and means(with lower overhead) of supporting their possibly superior product. So everybody loses.
It's not a market, it's an ecosystem in which the only option is to pillage and salt the earth.
I've watched the whole talk, but it was downright depressing.
This reminds me of the end monologue from Black Mirror’s 50M merits and it’s not wrong
Just because it's effective doesn't make it right. I just threw up in my mouth. I know the guy means well but this is not the direction we need to move in as devs. I'll never go back to mobile dev unless there starts to be some serious quality control. It's a shame because the input offers a lot for the player and developer. Edit: I've got nothing against mike but if this is what he has to do to feed himself there are 500+ people doing the exact same thing with extremely similar products. It's an arms race to the bottom that vastly favors quantity of releases. As we placate and accept it as "just the way it is." we only increase the need to shotgun release clones when the actual content is completely pushed aside.
@Milktank ™ Correct but nobody has to throw their morals out the window. These behaviors are very appealing short term but hurt the industry and consumer. Your argument is exactly why Loot Boxes are the standard in AAA and "freemium" mobile games simply try to keep you playing regularly enough to increase your chance of "breaking" and buying more energy .
@@pogo575 It's the way it works on the store.. Don't hate the player, hate the game. If you don't do what's needed to be visible, you're screwed.
A sad reality, but I don't think it will change anytime soon.
@@dann5295 I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. My very first sentence was "Just because it's effective doesn't make it right." If it didn't work people wouldn't exploit it now would they?
Just because the status quo is feasible economically in the short term doesn't mean it's good or viable for the longterm growth of an institution or entity.
Fitness of economic utility is a real thing.
If capitalism worked out of the box the US wouldn't need the Fed, economists wouldn't have to exist. And the world economy wouldn't have had to get thrown into free fall because some real-estate bros thought they found an easy way to make a quick buck.
@@pogo575 Fact is, that's how people use it to market their game... it's like you're telling him not to do it because its unethical, even tho its the only way to stay competitive...
Of course it's fucked up. But it's no use blaming the people. You should complain to google, should they ever bother with you or anyone else.
@@1famekouby Godwin's law
reached after only 5 comments ! Well done. I though we could have meaningful discussion about GDC video but youtube comments remains youtube comments.
This is insanly boring and informative :D