Sebastian talks analytics, specifically how indie game developers and small studios should look at analytics in different phases. For instance, when is it the right time to reach out to a publisher? Expect examples of retention rate from top indie game developers and explanations of the importance of the relationship with Apple and Google for small devs.

1. Indie Analytics
Sebastian Lindén, Simpl Analytics
PG Connects London
January 17, 2017

2. Why listen to me?
Sebastian Lindén
Co-Founder Simpl Analytics
@sebastianlinden

3. Agenda
1. How indie game developers and small studios should look at analytics in
different phases.
2. When is the right time to reach out to a publisher?
3. Retention rate from top indie game developers and explanations of the
importance of the relationship with Apple and Google for small devs.
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

4. How To Look At Analytics
Data vs Actionable Insights
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

5. @simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

6. How To Look At Analytics
1. Pre-Launch Phase - Core Gameplay, only focus on Retention D1/D7
2. Launch Phase - Identify Players & Markets
3. My Game Is Still Alive Phase - $$$ - Improve DAU and MAU
4. Phase Tweak, Develop & Keep Players - Repeat three Monetization
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

7. 1. Great Retention - Do players come back?
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

8. 1. Great Retention - Monetization
Ads IAP
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

9. How to Improve Retention?
- It’s hard to improve D1 retention with tweaking
- Make a fun game, for real - implement analytics on early prototypes
- Do not fall in love with your game, let others do it.
- King (Candy Crush) kill games with <25% retention D1 soft-launch
- King D1 50%, D7 30%
- Ketchapp D1 50%, D7 35%, D30 10%
- Index Ventures D1 50%, D7 25%, D30 18%
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

10. @simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

11. Building A “Featured-Worthy” Game
1. Retention Rate (For your players, your publisher and $$$)
2. Consistency (Self-Publishing, for Apple)
3. Design/User Experience
4. Unique Gameplay
Example of Consistency (Colin Lane Games) Twitter @ColinWLane
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

12. When To Reach Out To A Publisher
And with what?
So now you’ve built a featured worthy game.
Questions to consider:
1. Have you done your research?
2. What do they usually publish?
3. Why will they love your game? Why will Apple love your game? And be honest to yourself.
4. Why will they hate your game? Fix it.
5. Do you have a featured-worthy game?
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

13. Appsolute Games
The best way to reach out to us would be to keep the email short.
- 1-2 sentences about the game
- Why the developers/studios think the game will be well received.
- It's great to include a trailer of the gameplay in the email so that we
can quickly check out how the game looks and plays.
After that, we'll usually reach out and request an invite to TestFlight or for
an APK to be sent.
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

14. Example Email
Subject: Flappy Cow <-> Appsolute Games
Hi Firstname,
My name is Sebastian. I make games at Qaos Games, an indie studio in Stockholm.
We’ve created a new game that I think you guys might find interesting. Flappy Cow is a
side-scrolling one tap arcade game. When BETA-testing the game on 200 people we’ve
had to force them stop playing, it’s almost too addictive.
You can find trailer and screenshots below:
Youtube Link (Unlisted)
The design and color palettes are inspired by similar games of yours that have been
doing great.
Thanks,
Sebastian
1-2 sentences about game
Why it will be well
received.
Trailer of gameplay
Something to show that
you know what you’re
talking about.
One intro sentence
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

15. Base your ideas on data
Base your ideas on data, not random stuff.
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

16. We all know this, but...
There are now 6,000 games launched each week on iOS
Apple features around 15 games per week on the US
“New Games We Love”-section.
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

17. featuredgames.io - A Friday Experiment
@simplanalyticsSubscribe and get weekly updates of Best New Games via featuredgames.io

18. featuredgames.io - Pricing
Based on 114 featured “New Games We Love” (Nov 6-Jan 6 2017)
67.5%
13.2%
7%
Free 67.54%
$2.99 13.16%
$1.99 7.02%
$4.99 3.51%
Free
$2.99
$1.99
$4.99
$3.99
$0.99
$6.99
$5.99
$8.99
$9.99
@simplanalyticsSign up for updates every Friday on featuredgames.io

19. featuredgames.io - Genre
Apple US “New Games We Love” Nov 5-Jan 6 2017
@simplanalyticsSign up for updates every Friday on featuredgames.io

20. featuredgames.io - Most Loved Devs
Apple US “New Games We Love” Nov 5-Jan 6 2017
Appsolute Games LLC 5
NaturalMotion Games Limited 4
Warner Bros. Entertainment 4
FISHLABS 4
Pine Entertainment Company Limited 4
Nintendo Co., Ltd. 4
@simplanalyticsSign up for updates every Friday on featuredgames.io

21. Another Interesting Trend
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

22. featuredgames.io - To Summarize
- Free Games stand for 70% of “New Games We Love”
- Of paid games, Apple prefer to feature $2.99 Games (13.2%), followed by $1.99 Games (7%)
- 50% of the games are featured on “New Games We Love” more than once
- Action was the most featured genre (22.2%), followed by Arcade (17.6%), Puzzle (15.7%) and
Adventure on (13.9%)
- Games priced $5.99, $8.99 and $9.99 together account for only 3% of “New Games We Love”
@simplanalyticsIf I say something cool, tweet @sebastianlinden #PGCLondon

23. Indie Game Developers Featured by Apple (Nov 5-Jan 6)
Dec 2 - Dec 8
Downloads 4270
Avg/day 601
D1 23%
D7 4%
D30 1%
JEX by Ogma
Huecker
Dec 8 - Dec 14
Downloads 59704
Avg/day 8529
D1 22%
D7 2%
N/A
Dec 28 - Jan 03
Downloads 10809
Avg/day 1544
D1 26%
D7 4.5%
N/A
Dec 15 - Dec 21
Downloads 3084
Avg/day 440
D1 58%
D7 7%
N/A
Nov 18 - Nov 24
Downloads 190
Avg/day 27
D1 30%
D7 4%
D30 0%
Frantic Ball by
Alan Thomas
Asymmetric by
Klemens
Strasser
LVL by Ertan
Unver
Battle Golf by
Colin Lane
Dec 25 - Dec 31
Downloads 304
Avg/day 43
D1 41%
D7 5%
N/A
Le Parker by
Play Pretend
Dec 8 - Dec 14
Downloads 52919
Avg/day 7559
D1 40%
D7 12%
N/A
Smart Numbers
by Chris Gibbs
@simplanalyticsPlease note that this data is accepted to be shared and sent from each developer via email.

24. Smart Numbers by Chris Gibbs
Dec 8 - Dec 14
Downloads 52919
Avg/day 7559
D1 40%
D7 12%
N/A
Smart Numbers
by Chris Gibbs
@simplanalytics
Soft-Launch (Oct 13-Dec 7)
- Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, Philippines, New Zealand.
- D1 Average - 45%, D7 Average - 25%, D30 Average - 12%. My
targets for these are 50, 25 and 18, so the values I was getting
supported going to WW launch
- Game soft-launched Oct 13th till Dec 7th, in 5 territories: Canada,
Ireland, Netherlands, Philippines
- Apple featured the game in each of these territories, to lesser /
greater extent, for some of the soft-launch period
- The Canadian features were in the New Board Game and New
Puzzle Game categories, and were the longest 99% installs were
Canadian (1,100 CA, 22 non-CA)
WW Launch (Dec 8)
- D1 avg 40% but trending up, D7 avg 12% but trending up - Too
early for D30 data
- All 155 App Stores
- Featured in every country at some point during first 3 weeks of
launch
- Notably: China #1 New Game We Love, US #3 New Game We
Love, CA #2 New Game We Love
- First 7 days of launch, between 900 and 1400 feature placements
on app stores
- App Banner used in CA, Turkey and several other territories
- Has appeared in New Games We Love in every App Store at
some point

25. Smart Numbers by Chris Gibbs
Dec 8 - Dec 14
Downloads 52919
Avg/day 7559
D1 40%
D7 12%
N/A
Smart Numbers
by Chris Gibbs
@simplanalytics
Observations Soft-Launch
Retention data spiked due to the low
volume of installs. Very high and very
low percentages were statistically less
relevant.
- D1, D7 and D30 retention trended
gently downwards throughout soft
launch. I believe this was due to the
effect of ‘Golden Cohorts’ at the start
(friends / beta testers / ex-work
colleagues etc) all having an overly
positive effect on the numbers.
Over time, the mix of new users that
were totally unbiased towards the game
increased, and the retention figures
slowly declined as a result
- D1 Average - 45%, D7 Average - 25%,
D30 Average - 12%. My targets for
these are 50, 25 and 18, so the values I
was getting supported going to WW
launch
Observations WW
- More stable, less spiky data, due to
more players.
Retention significantly lower than soft
launch, esp D7. Possible reasons:
1. No localisation (only in English), but
50% of installs from APAC countries,
mostly CHINA (I broke out retention for
CHINA and it was tracking 7-8% below
US/CA numbers, so some merit in this
argument)
2. No Golden Cohort effect
3. Players came via ‘Board Games’ or
‘Puzzle Games’ during soft launch, so
were more likely to enjoy Smart
Numbers
4. Players via ‘New Games We Love’
(all genres) WW launch less likely to
enjoy a board/puzzle game
Retention trending upwards likely due to:
- Constant tweaks to level difficulty, via the
cloud, (Clear from win/loss data that levels
1-15 were being lost too often)
- Update on the 22nd Dec with major
improvements to difficulty curve &
improvements to tutorial
- Hoping that number of viral installs based
on referrals is increasing, so increasing the
quality of install

26. That’s it.
Simpl Analytics - simplanalytics.com
Subscribe to Featuredgamesio - featuredgames.io
Indiehelp - indiehelp.co
Let’s stay connected
@sebastianlinden
linkedin.com/in/sebastianlinden
@simplanalytics@sebastianlinden #PGCLondon