Analysis of music games

imagecourtesyofRendell1234https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piano_tiles_2_Level_Little_Star.jpg

2HTTPS://WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/MARCODECESARIS
Objective of this presentation
This presentation is an independent work completely carried out by Marco De Cesaris, and has
the objective of showing the approach used in order to address the main points highlighted in
the title and in the below brief.
Insights, conclusions, recommendations, thoughts included in this work are all based on
publicly available information.
The data and info used within this presentation are either illustrative, based on personal direct
experience, or coming from publicly available sources.
Feel free to get in touch for any doubts, requests you may have or clarifications you need.
Best regards,
Marco De Cesaris

Brief
Comparing “Game of Songs” (LINK) with “potential” competitors.
Some recommendation for improving its weaknesses.
How to differentiate the game from its competitors.

Disclosure
I am not part of Amanotes (the publisher of this game) and I obviously lack a lot
of internal information, including (but not limited to):
- knowledge of the historical approach
- definition of competitors adopted by the company
- key markets focus
So when going through this work, please bear in mind the above.
If you have any questions feel free to reach out.

Expected outcomes
This work will show a practical and logical approach to adopt in order to:
• Identify the weaknesses of the current game.
• Show how the current game compare with the competitors’ games.
• Provide solutions to improve its own weaknesses and differentiate from competitors.
This work should not be considered and taken as a complete actionable solution for any
businesses at this stage, as that will require additional work and a paid for consultancy and it is
not the scope of this work. Despite of it, in order address a couple of identified weaknesses,
real examples are included. There are much more findings that can be discussed and are not
included in this presentation. Feel free to reach out if you are interested in finding out more.

Summary
1. A key question
2. What to compare
3. Who the competitors are
4. Logical approach
5. Weaknesses analysis
6. Comparison analysis
7. Conclusions
8. Some additional thoughts

8
Why the need of a game aggregator?
image:screenshotofthepubliclyavailableimageonGooglePlay

Risk of backfiring
There must be good reasons for going with this decision as there are many existing games
from Amanotes all very successful and the decision to create an aggregator (that I believe
is much lighter and with less features compared to the original standalone games) could be
counter productive and could play against the existing success of the company.
It all depends on the strategic decisions behind it and I can’t be aware of as a person
external to the company.
If not well and properly defined, advertised, and differentiated this could also create
massive confusion for the users/players as they could not see the benefits of having a
game aggregator.
There are also good sides of it, such as differentiation from competitors etc…

VS.
Standalone
music
games
Music
games
aggregator
11

Music games aggregator
In the given brief we want to compare “Game of Songs (LINK) with its competitors”.
This obviously requires a proper definition of competitors (I am sure Amanotes identifies
competitors in its own way).
Considering I am currently an independent external person, I made my own assumption,
that means comparing the “music games aggregator” with the ones from competitors, but
exception made for one publisher (Joy Journey Music Games) I couldn’t find any other
“music games” aggregators.
So I could only find a single publisher who is producing a single music app containing
several music games (hence an aggregator).
Piano Games Mini : Music Rhythm Challenge (by Joy Journey Music Games) is the most
similar one, even though seems targeting younger audience compared to Game of Songs.

Standalone music games
So I did a brief analysis of that music games aggregator (the competitor - see following
slides), but for the sake of completeness I also did a comparison with some of the single
standalone music games.
More info in the Logical approach section.

Many criteria to define competitors
Once established WHAT to compare, we need to understand WHO the competitors are.
There are many criteria to define and identify competitors. As an independent external
person I need to make assumptions.
First of all let’s restrict it to the GAME/MUSIC category (for the purpose of this work I only
analyzed Google Play – more in the Logical approach section).
But in order to identify competitors, many criteria could be followed: mechanic of the game,
targeted audience, clustering by # downloads, clustering by grossing, competitor as a
publisher, competitor as a single individual game, competitor by geo location, etc. Details in
the Logical approach section.

Competitors
Considering the points highlighted in the previous slides, and bearing in mind that the
approach in this work is the key objective of this presentation, below is a detailed
description.
• Competitors were identified in two different ways:
1. for the aggregator, it was an easy task as only one music game aggregator was identified:
Piano Games Mini: Music Rhythm Challenge by Joy Journey Music Games.
2. for the standalone games, considering Amanotes dominates pretty much everywhere in the
Games/Music category, the main competitors were selected according to the free rank in App
Annie according to each market. Specifically:
1. UK -> Piano Free by Gismart and Tap Music 3D by Eyu (as an add on I also included Piano Play & Learn
Music by Gismart as the top gross ranking in the UK)
2. USA -> Dot n Beat by Badsnowball and Beat Fire by Adaric Music
3. SG -> Beat Fire by Adaric Music and AU2 Mobile by AU Dance (but removed this last one because
download issues and apparently not that much a real competitor from what I could see online)

Direct experience, reviews, rating, markets, etc…
• Both categories “music games aggregators” and “standalone music games” were
considered in the analysis.
• The analysis is based on publicly available information (mainly from App Annie):
reviews, ratings, ranking are the key metrics used.
• Considering the global exposure of Amanotes, 3 key markets have been selected and
analyzed: UK for Europe, Singapore for Asia, and USA for America.
• Direct downloads of the different games and personal direct experience with the games
is also massively involved in order to better understand weaknesses of the current
game and also for comparison with competitors (I downloaded and played all the games
mentioned in this presentation).
• Google Play was selected as the platform to be analyzed.
• Data Source: App Annie free account.

Game of songs at a glance
USA UK SG
Ranking 7 7 11
Rating 3.2
+
Many options to choose from; no pop-up ads (?); variety of songs; many great
games; save amount of download needed
- Laggy; bad quality games like demo; unknown songs; “no wifi” alert; too many ads

21
UX
(6)
KEY FEATURES
MISSING
(1)
FUNCTIONAL
(9)
CUSTOMER
CARE
(2)
EXPECTATIONS
(1)
MARKETING
(2)
backgroundimage:pixabay

21 weaknesses classified into 6 classes
21 weaknesses were identified for Game of Songs.
Despite of it, this work will only touch a few of them.
More weaknesses and recommended solutions can be discussed, feel free to reach out if
interested.

Samples of weaknesses
UX
too many
unknown
songs, missing
latest hits
KEY FEATURES
MISSING
Social sharing
and challenges
FUNCTIONAL
searching for
songs returns
no results:
UPPER/lower
cases issue
CUSTOMER
CARE
License issues
is not a
player’s
business
EXPECTATIONS
Meeting
players
expectations:
could appear
as nothing new
MARKETING
the logo is too
TikTok like, this
can backfire
backgroundimage:pixabay

COMPARISONAggregator: Piano Games Mini
USA UK SG
Ranking
37 31 29
7 7 11
Rating
4.3
3.2
+
Bunch of games and music; can choose the instrument; for music lovers and
game lovers
Many options to choose from; no pop-up ads (?); variety of songs; many great
games; save amount of download needed
-
Can’t search for songs (no functionality available); too many ads
Laggy; bad quality games like demo; unknown songs; no wifi alert; too many
ads
images:screenshotsofthepubliclyavailableimagesonGooglePlay

COMPARISONMost popular games in Games/Music*
Beat Fire
Adaric Music
Superstar
Dalcomsoft
Love Live!
Klab
Piano Kids
Orange Studios Games
Dot n Beat
Badsnowball
Real Guitar Free
Gismart
Piano Free
Gismart
Piano – Play & Learn…
Gismart
AU2 Mobile
Au Dance
Dream Piano
Eyu
Cytus
Rayark
Music Tiles 4
AppRover
Real Piano
Bilkon
Just Dance Now
Ubisoft
Tap Music 3D
Eyu
* Across three Countries: UK, USA, SG. This is a mix of publishers and games being most consistently on the top
positions in terms of free ranking (and partially grossing – e.g. Gismart).

COMPARISONSelected standalone games competitors
Title Rating
Ranking
Country Notes
Free Gross
Beat Fire
Adaric Music
4.6
#7
#5
#500+
USA
SG
Shoot and tiles. Smooth experience. Simple
controls. Gun shot sounds could be
unpleasant. Gun target not responding well
Dot n Beat
Badsnowball
3.8 #6 #29 USA
Sometime if freezes otherwise smooth
experience. No tutorial. No that intuitive.
Social challenges. Laggy, no synchronized.
Piano Free
Gismart
4.2 #9 #2 UK
See ads to unlock, but good quality ads and
latest hits available. Slow loading, freezes &
troubles for audio of the device
Tap Music 3D
Eyu
4.1 #6 #14 UK
Similar mechanic as Magic Tiles. Too many
ads, too often, too long and most of the time
irrelevant. Do not respond to touch
Piano – Play & Learn…
Gismart
3.7 #1 UK
No many ads, no pushy, can enjoy the
experience. Very pleasant. Ads only for
claiming rewards or if you want to continue

A sample of potential recommendations
In the next few slides I will provide some thoughts and examples of potential issues that
should be addressed in order to make the game a better experience, more competitive and
differentiate from competitor(s). All the insights gathered here are coming from four main
activities that I carried out for the purpose of this work, and specifically:
- weaknesses analysis of Game of Songs
- comparison analysis with music games aggregator
- comparison analysis with standalone music games.
- personal direct experience by playing the different games.
THIS IS JUST A SAMPLE OF A FEW ACTIONS THAT COULD BE TAKEN. FOR A MUCH
DEEPER, MORE EXTENSIVE AND PROPER INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION, OR AD HOC
CONSULTANCY FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT.

Flexibility and education: give more than a game
• Games such as Piano Free by Gismart is really well made, educational and pleasant.
There are still some glitches but it ranks #2 in the gross rank in the UK. Easy to
understand why as whenever you finish to play a game a subscription page pops up.
Sooner or later users will subscribe as the game is very flexible and allow you to “free
play piano” (not just play for free, it is different), additionally it allows to play piano and
tiles (through piano) even for the latest hits.
• Players would love to be able to add their own songs.
• The idea of Beat Fire of having to slide to hit the tiles, is quite nice. Even though
Amanotes has a couple of sliding games in Game of Songs, an option could be to
evaluate the feasibility of adding a slide option directly in Magic Tiles. This is a
completely different game experience for one of the most loved, successful and popular
music games.

Use relevant ads. Synch music, touch and graphic
• Ads should be more related to the game. Game is about Music, ads should be “in
context”. Grab Food ads (as an example) even though is about food… and people eat
at anytime… are pretty much irrelevant when someone is playing a game music, while
ads such other instruments, songs, players, education, art/music/artists related are way
more relevant and much less annoying for the players (see Gismart). Ads should be
relevant, inspirational and above all entertaining.
• In almost all the music games there are reviews criticizing the game for being laggy and
not synchronized. So apparently this is a very common issue. If able to perfectly tackle
it, this could give a great competitive advantage hence differentiation. Players will
highlight it. Nothing better than WOM.

Don’t give excuses about your business
Players want to play the latest hits, recent popular songs… most of the times good reviews
and high rating are given because of this. The opposite unfortunately is also true. And this
is something that is happening to Game of Songs. License issues (for example) shouldn’t
be used as an excuse with players (this happened in a public reply written by Amanotes to
a review on Google Play). It is not the users business to get a license. Players only care
about playing a cool game with cool songs. Even though it is apparently free to play,
actually players pay for the game in many ways including (but not limited to) subscriptions,
or watching ads (many ads, long ads, and sometime very annoying and unrelated ads). So
they do not care and rightly should not care about license issues. This is definitely
something that can easily be addressed and fixed.

ABOUT THE GAMERegarding Piano Games Mini
The most similar concept I could find. The only proper competitor of Game of Songs.
1. it includes many more games (even though built from the same base)
2. it seems to target much younger audience
3. games are much simpler than Game of Songs
4. some inspiration could still be taken from it (e.g. Fun Stair)
5. some games seems absolutely not connected with the music (e.g. Pyramid)
6. the mechanic of “Classic” game could be used as an example for further games
developments (learning piano, speed challenge, etc…); same applies to “Hidden” and
“Lightning” game (could be used as a progress in an educational game); and also
“Candle” game (it could be leveraged as an intro to the game and learning / experience
it without too much troubles). Also “Timed” is very inspiring for “speed” challenges.

ABOUT ADSRegarding Piano Games Mini
7. This game has great Ads integration as those are not intrusive at all and completely
tolerable (ads are mainly at the bottom of the screen in any games and still there).
There are additional ads between the different stages of the game but the feeling is
that it is much less and much more pleasant compared to Game of Songs.

Many similar issues across different games
A very interesting thing is that almost all the music games have exactly the same issues /
complaints by the users. So what could be seen as a weakness (in some cases) actually
could just be a very common issue. That doesn’t mean that shouldn’t be taken care of,
instead if able to fix it could give a massive competitive advantage.

RANKWhat happened on 2nd of Feb?
According to App Annie historical ranking,
in Nov/Dec Game of Songs reached
Rank 1 in many Countries under the
category Games/Music. Even though Feb
is still midway through, in Jan/Feb there
have been very few instances of Rank 1.
It seems the ranking decrease started on
Feb 2nd.

RATING & REVIEWSA key date: the 27th of Dec?
1 star reviews in January increased up to
42% from 37% in December.
Opposite trend for the 5 stars reviews:
down to 36% in January from 43% in
December.
On 27th there was a release of an
upgrade, was that release the main
reasons of this huge decrease? Was the
lack of popular songs the main reason?
Was there any changes with the ads?
Anything else?

Don’t miss out the current results of ASO
Game of Songs ranks in first positions for
many relevant keywords hence this
should be leveraged immediately
otherwise will create more damages than
benefits.
Organic discoverability is key. Why?
- 70% of App Store visitors use search
to find apps.
- 65% Downloads occur directly after a
search on the App Store.
Source: https://searchads.apple.com/

All in all…
• There is much much more to be discussed as this work includes only a minimal part of
my insights, findings, and conclusions.
• 21 weaknesses to be addressed and discussed in details (cannot be done on a PPT
presentation), ideas inspired by competitive analysis and above all additional ideas for
improving and differentiate the game.
• Data / info / analytics / knowledge available exclusively to the publisher can inspire
further suggested studies (e.g. how many users download, play for a few seconds and
then leave and/or uninstall the game?)
If you are a publisher / indie feel free to reach out for more
info or for ad hoc consultancy.

Get in touch
Marco De Cesaris
Innovation-driven approach to business through
data, tech, marketing, and science.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcodecesaris

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