What types of SDK will still have to be integrated into the game?

There are a lot of tools, third-party services and companies that help with product support that you need to keep in mind during game development. Briefly about what these services are and what tasks they solve – read a little below. Yes, unfortunately, most of them have their own SDKs (Software Development Kits) that will have to be integrated, but there is no escape from this today..

Let’s start with the platform SDKs.

iOS, Android, Windows, Steam and other platforms, of course, have their own chips and different approaches to implementing common points, special tools (like Game Center in iOS) for working with social functionality, their own billing systems for in-game purchases, as well as unique platform features, like 3D Touch on iPhone. For the most part, the integration of such functionality is mandatory, the part that is optional is necessary if, suddenly, you want to demonstrate your loyalty to one or another platform.

Next on the list are advertising networks. The number of them is quite large, and they can be used not only to advertise your game, but also to advertise other products inside your game. In other words, you need to integrate advertising networks both if you want to spend money on advertising and if you want to make money on it. In both cases, it is better for you to integrate several competing advertising networks.

The presence of several advertising networks leads us to two more necessary SDKs. If you spend money on advertising, you need to keep track of how much traffic you get through each advertising network, as well as the behavior of consumers after the game starts. To do this, you will need SDKs for tracking, such as SDKs like Fiksu, AppsFlyer or Adjust.

If, on the contrary, you want to make money from advertising, you face another question: which advertising network will pay you the most and will be able to satisfy all the advertising requests of your game? To determine this, you should use the so-called “cascade” method through a mediator. The first thing you do is request an ad from the person who offers the highest bid. If he doesn’t have an ad, you make a request from the second, third, etc. on the list. The highest bidder is constantly changing and depends on which country the player is in. Hiring someone who optimizes this process for you will pay off with a vengeance. Some advertising networks, such as Heyzap and Google, will offer you mediator services in addition to their advertising capabilities.

Next, you will need to find out how your players behave in the game. There are a lot of analytical solutions for this, such as Game Analytics, Omniata and DeltaDNA. You can find a general overview of them here.

Some testing tools, such as the wonderful PlayTestCloud, also have their own SDKs.

Next, you will need to integrate social networks so that players invite their friends and thereby help your game gain popularity quickly. Instagram Facebook, Twitter, etc. are included here. Some services also allow their players to record video of the gameplay and post it for other users to view. One of these services is Unity Ads. And finally, if it turns out that you need to integrate too many social networks, you can use GetSocial to integrate them all at once in one set.

Recently, various innovative ways of making money, other than direct in-game purchases and advertising, have appeared in the world of services (and, accordingly, their SDK). There are services that allow children to ask their family for gifts in the form of in-game currency. There are services that allow players to earn real prizes for in-game achievements. There is a Creel linking your in-game currency with real loyalty bonuses (airlines, etc.). And there are services that allow people to bet real money on who is better at playing mobile games (Gumbler, Skillz, CashPlay, etc.)

Finally, I recommend considering using the publisher’s resources to market your game. They also often provide their own SDKs. Publishers can use them to jointly promote games from their portfolio or for some multiplayer features.

I’m sure I haven’t listed some extremely significant SDKs here. Moreover, you can be sure that many startups are inventing new ones while you are reading these lines. Just try to think through completely which SDKs are really necessary for you, and which ones you can safely neglect. If you integrate them all, your game will swell from all these third-party SDKs. You will have to constantly update the game only due to changes in the SDK, and the size of your game may exceed the limit set by the App Store for downloading without a WiFi connection. If you don’t integrate enough SDKs, then you risk losing important tools that can make your game successful and profitable.

A source: http://pocketphilosopher.net