Ninel Gruner from Room 8, during her report “What a publisher won’t do for you”, talked about the intricacies of promoting and marketing mobile games.
If you think that after signing the publication contract you can breathe freely, you are deeply mistaken, says Ninel, noting that the contract should be read very, very carefully, rereading a couple dozen times, preferably by inviting a lawyer. In no case can the contract be perceived as something final. Why?
The publisher is an assistant, but he will not do many things for you.
Firstly, he will not be able to root for the project as much as you do. In addition, it will not promote you – the developer. At best, he will advertise the project. So don’t be afraid to communicate with the press yourself, invest in PR.
In addition, the publisher will not always strive to present your project on as many markets as possible and, accordingly, advertise you on each. So do not spare money at least to translate the press release into as many languages as possible. Also pay special attention to working with the press. According to Ninel, reviews work, including in the Russian market, where “there is money.”
But with CPA – this is a separate topic. For large players, for example, it does not work at all. That is, if you need traffic, then you should not invest in banners. This works for the image, but in terms of user growth, it is more effective to work with the press. The costs are much less, the effect is similar.
Accordingly, that is why publishers are so necessary: they have the most important thing that small developers lack – traffic.
Out of curiosity:
– it took Room 8 3 months to sign a contract with Chillingo;
– the company spent its money on promotion in some regions;
– most of the traffic came to the game through a feature from Apple (editor choice);
– Room 8 will no longer release premium games;
– Room 8 goes to midcore;
– space games don’t sell well;
– after changing the icon and lightening the screenshots, the CTR of the game jumped sharply.