In the blog of KamaGames Studio on habrahabr.ru there is a curious material about what awaits our industry this year. With the kind permission of our colleagues from KamaGames Studio, we publish this material on App 2 Top.ru .
It is always interesting to predict what will happen in the future. The year 2014 for the mobile games industry, which is at the peak of its development, will definitely be rich in events that can make serious changes in the balance of power in the market. The producers from KamaGames Studio decided to share their expectations for the coming year, supporting the forecasts with weighty, in our opinion, arguments.
Even the superheroes of the market will not get the right to a break in 2014 …
1. The time of the original games
Last year was definitely the year of the clones. Companies cloned successful titles – both third-party and their own, squeezing the maximum out of a loyal audience. The current year has kept this trend in force, but its position has been sharply shaken after a sharp surge of negative feedback from players.
The release of new original titles will shake up the market, which has fallen into a kind of stagnation, if we talk about product diversity. In our opinion, innovation will manifest itself both in completely new mechanics and in rethinking old gameplay. And then we’ll see dozens of clones of these new games again. That’s the way this market works.
What to do: Review old, long-forgotten toys. Analyze the mechanics that are very popular now. Try to come up with a game from this that will potentially be interesting to the mass player.
2. Real sociality
Let’s make it clear right away that by “sociality” we mean not just integration with Facebook to use its viral channels. The games will be social in their own right. Interaction between users will be increasingly close and active. Exchanging gifts and helping each other, which have become almost the norm in games, will become overgrown with a new layer of “transactions” between players. Coop mechanics, joint raids and events, clan PvP and much more will increasingly appear in games. Players want to play together with others.
What to do: Initially lay social interaction in the gameplay, think it over more carefully. Stop thinking in terms of single toys.
3. Local markets will become “global”
Sorry for the pun, but the importance of the markets of individual countries will only grow. Individual countries will attract more and more attention from developers. Previously, all were aimed mainly at the United States. To enter the mass market of this country, millions of dollars of marketing investments are needed. In conditions of fierce competition, you have to fight for the player with the “all-consuming” in terms of traffic King, Supercell and Kabam. Complicating the situation is the fact that the number of daily app downloads in the US on the iPhone has not been growing for more than 9 months! We are confident that developers will start focusing on local markets. They will “go” to individual countries at least in the form of localizations (the average number of available locales for games from the TOP 100 will grow), as a maximum – with the help of aggressive user engagement.
It is important to clarify that local markets will no longer be determined only by geography. First of all, we mean messengers.
What to do: Study the research results. Find the markets of the third (or second – although it is already crowded there) wave with good dynamics of audience and money growth. Look for ways to get there.
4. Asian Dominance
Not only will Asian markets continue to grow at a huge pace (we mean both the number of players and income), so Asian games will move massively to Western stores! There are enough successful examples now, but there will be even more of them in the future! The myth of genre specifics will be finally dispelled!
It is expensive to launch games in the USA, and in Asia it is often not clear how. The mechanisms for attracting users differ significantly, there are subtleties and rules. It takes a lot of time and money to figure it out. Therefore, bundles of large Western and eastern companies will appear, which will exchange users and promote each other’s games where they are good at it.
What to do: Study Asian stores, look for contact with local developers and publishers.
5. The USA will become the third country by revenue by the end of the year
Last year, Japan already overtook the United States in terms of mobile app revenue. In one year, Japanese gamers began to pay more than 3 times more. If South Korea shows the same growth this year, then it is likely that the United States will take third place in the chart of countries with the highest level of player spending on purchases in mobile stores.
What to do: Learn to work with the Korean market!
6. Hard times for indie developers
No, don’t show us the bird that flies through the pipes. There have always been and will always be similar examples. But in general, the trend of independent publishing of games is already rattling obliquely. The feature gives an incomprehensible one-time traffic, the cost of attracting a user continues to grow. In the current conditions, indie developers simply cannot survive. If earlier “homegrown” games could shoot due to low competition in the niche, organic in stores or features from Apple, now this will not happen. It will be impossible to succeed without a good team (1), real, not theoretical experience (2), money to develop and polish the game (3), considerable marketing budgets (4). It’s time to understand and accept this.
What to do: The obvious way is to go to the publisher. And negotiate. The edition itself will have so many variations that my head will spin. But keep in mind that publishers need serious quality games, not another puzzle of 40 levels that can be completed in a few days.
7. Successful companies will strengthen their positions
The market has passed the point of no return, when the successful become even more successful, and the weak die. Monsters whose top games are in the grossing of the most earned countries will only increase their influence. They have millions (tens of millions!) every month. free installations only due to their status, grossing tops and incessant conversations about their products. All these companies do not stop buying new players for any money and are ready to pay $ 7-10 per installation. At the same time, they try not to give away their users. Their goal is to gather as many players as possible. Launching new titles allows you to monetize and keep the audience at home.
What to do: Alternatively, look for a way to be absorbed. Look carefully at the new publishing programs – traffic, like blood, needs a system for circulation. And the newer the vessels (games) in it will be, the healthier the body will be.
8. Amazon will make another attempt to conquer the market
The American company is already informally contacting the developers of the most successful games on Google Play, the benefit of “Android one”. Amazon does not hide much that they will be glad to see strong players who are offered new tools for developing (analytics and testing in one package) and promoting (what is advertising on the wake up screen) applications. Bezos has everything for the ecosystem, and 2014 may be the last year when there is a chance to become “another” major platform. It will be interesting to observe this trend in light of the fact that from the new CEO of Microsoft (have everyone already learned his name?) they are also waiting for movement towards mobile. The capabilities of companies are incommensurable, and, nevertheless, Amazon’s chances of success, in our subjective opinion, are much higher.
What to do: Look for Amazon bizdev contacts on LinkedIn, they can be found even at specialized conferences in Russia. The company is open to dialogue and is very loyal to developers and their problems – at least, it declares it.
9. All-in-one tools
Analytics services will massively launch (possibly absorb) testing services (such as Testflight). Read the szada in advance – the meaning will not change: useful tools for developers will increasingly come in a “single package”. That’s what Amazon does, that’s what Testflight does. One SDK – all services.
What to do: Choose! A lot of money will be “buried” in the market of such services in 2014. You will only have to choose the best solution. But be careful: bet on the wrong horse – and you will have a painful migration process after the “death” of the next startup. And one more piece of advice: look carefully with whom you share your data – sometimes such a cute startup may have shareholders (investors, founders) associated with your competitors.
10. Unity will be bought by someone very big
Just leave it here :-) There must be one crazy forecast!
Share and you your forecasts – crazy and balanced. Speak out in the comments. It will be interesting to hear your opinion. We’ll check it out in a year.