Game Analytics & Revenue Optimization Articles — Page 3

Why I’m Excited to be a Co-Author on an Academic Paper Again

(aka “My Epic Journey Back to Doing Science”) In a little over three weeks, I’m scheduled to present “Exploratory Bandit Experiments with ‘Starter Packs’ in a Free-to-Play Mobile Game” at IEEE-COG. I’m the third author, along with Julian Runge and Anders Drachen. This is the first time in almost 20 years that I’ve worked on an academic paper. While I’m the author or co-author of over 50 academic papers, I haven’t been an author (or co-author) of one since 2005, when “Supporting Rule System Interoperability on the Semantic Web with SWRL” was published. That’s a long time. So why am I

Jul 19 2024 . 4 min read

The State of Generative AI in the Video Gaming Industry

Here at GDP we often get asked about Generative AI. Questions like “Will the new generations of tools like Chat GPT and Dall-E and their rapid rate of improvement completely change how games are made?”And our answer is usually a variation on “Yes. But not yet.” Our CEO, Bill Grosso, wrote a longer article with Yuying Chen-Wynn exploring this topic. We thought it was worth reprinting on our blog, below: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been making significant strides across various industries, and the video gaming industry is no exception. According to a survey by the Game Developers Conference (GDC) involving over 3,000

Jul 02 2024 . 6 min read

Reporting from the Game Revenue Optimization Mini-Summit

The combination of the incredible speakers and the amazing audience meant that the happy hour was more than just an excuse to have reuben croquettes and duck mole tacos while downing plastic glasses of red wine. The food was good, but the conversations were excellent and lasted until the museum closed.

Mar 26 2024 . 2 min read

Why I’m Excited by Our GDC Event

Want to learn more about revenue optimization in gaming? Join us for the Revenue Optimization in Games Mini-Summit and Happy Hour on March 20, 2 pm, in downtown San Francisco. We’re about a week away from our GDC event (signup) and I’m really excited. One of the reasons is, of course, the speakers. Here’s the schedule: That’s a pretty amazing set of speakers! Brett and Joost are two of the most insightful people around when it comes to the business of gaming (and Joost is just off an amazing 45-slide talk about “Games as a Platform” at SXSW. And

Mar 11 2024 . 2 min read

Five Lessons I Learned from Scientific Revenue

During GDC 2024 in San Francisco, we hosted the Revenue Optimization in Games Mini-Summit. Industry leaders gave four fascinating presentations about revenue optimization in gaming. See our Reporting from the Game Revenue Optimization Mini-Summit follow-up post to learn more! Recently, I went on the Game Economist Podcast (I’m on episode 19). It was a great conversation, but I was slightly surprised at how much it focused on my former company, Scientific Revenue, and the differences between Scientific Revenue and Game Data Pros (where I am the founding CEO). In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been. “How is Game Data Pros different from Scientific

Mar 07 2024 . 6 min read

Is Mobile App Revenue Moving Off-Platform? Industry Survey Indicates Landslide Changes in Web Store Adoption

During GDC 2024 in San Francisco, we hosted the Revenue Optimization in Games Mini-Summit. Industry leaders gave four fascinating presentations about revenue optimization in gaming, including an overview of the complete survey. See our Reporting from the Game Revenue Optimization Mini-Summit follow-up post to learn more! At Game Data Pros, a lot of our recent work on personalization has focused on what the Deconstructor of Fun podcast refers to as “Off-Platform Payments” and what Liquid & Grit calls “Web Stores”. We think it’s a big and important trend in the games industry. But how big? And how important? To find out,

Mar 01 2024 . 5 min read

Off-Platform Payments and Web Stores – Industry Survey

At Game Data Pros, a lot of our recent work on personalization has focused on what the Deconstructor of Fun podcast refers to as “Off-Platform Payments” and what Liquid & Grit calls “Web Stores“. We think it’s a big and important trend in the games industry. But how big? And how important? That’s what this survey wants to find out. We’ll report back on our blog in early March with what we’ve learned. And, as an extra incentive, we’ll be giving out $100 Amazon gift cards to two respondents. This survey is 12-15 questions long, depending on your answers, and

Jan 03 2024 . < 1 minute read

Build It or Buy It?

The beauty of creating your own tools is figuring out the significant pieces of information you need to make important decisions and bringing that to decision-makers as quickly and succinctly as possible. – Find out More! Introduction Over the past ten years, I have stated that good teams build products, and great teams build tools. Enough people have given me blank stares that this is not an obvious statement. The tools a team uses can make or break their ability to innovate, streamline processes, and ultimately achieve success. In the ever-evolving landscape of software, when given a choice between

Sep 26 2023 . 5 min read

What is Compliance in Games?

So many factors go into delivering a hit game that compliance seems like the least of worries. One might be forgiven for thinking, “What’s the point in being compliant if the game isn’t successful?”. And the answer is clear: if the game becomes a hit, it’s too late to become compliant. The next thought might be, “So what? We’ll just pay some fines, no big deal, right?”. The reality can be far from what’s imagined. And if the game is not a hit title but violates privacy or other laws, the monetary risk could easily add losses to a

Sep 07 2023 . 9 min read

Dear Digital-First Advertisers, Are You Media or Marketing Mix Modeling?

As the adoption of MMM among digitally native businesses increases and matures, awareness of the differences between the two can open up new pathways for excellence in marketing analytics. (Scroll to the end of the article for a TL;DR.) MMM, commonly used to abbreviate marketing mix modeling, is experiencing a surge in interest among digital-first advertisers. App publishers, game companies, direct-to-consumer businesses, and others are all embracing a new measurement standard as private and regulatory privacy initiatives are rocking the data infrastructure of digital advertising. In lieu of deterministic attribution and measurement based on user-level data and identity graphs,

Aug 25 2023 . 9 min read

Incrementality in Game Analytics: Beyond AB Tests, on to Bandits and Marketing Mix Models

(For a TL;DR scroll to the end of the article) Incrementality is a hot topic in marketing analytics, referring to “the measurement and analysis of the incremental impact of a marketing campaign or initiative. It aims to determine whether the marketing efforts are actually driving additional value or revenue beyond what would have occurred naturally without the campaign.” That’s the first paragraph of ChatGPT’s answer when prompted “What is incrementality in marketing analytics?” When asked the same thing, Google delivers a similar answer drawing on the website Marketing Evolution: “Incrementality refers to growth that can be directly attributed to specific

Jul 26 2023 . 10 min read

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