Resources
This page gathers resources on game monetization, revenue optimization, trends, history, regulation, and compliance. It began as a way to group related blog articles but then became something more. To learn more about any of these topics, contact us.
(Media Mix Models (mMM), Marketing Mix Models (MMM), and Observational Causal Inference (OCI)
- 9 Overlapping Predictions That, Collectively, Explain Why Open Source Will Mostly Replace Commercial MMM Implementations Sometime in the Next Five Years (see also: Sometimes, Everyone Agrees)
- Integrating Experimentation into Marketing Measurement
- From Theory To Practice: How Organizations Can Embrace Experimentation In Marketing Measurement (Ad Exchanger)
- The Uncomfortable Truth About Advertising Effectiveness: Why Marketers Avoid True Experimentation (Ad Exchanger)
- Combating Misinformation in Business Analytics: Experiment, Calibrate, Validate
- Community Perspectives on Our Article About Observational Causal Inference
- Marketers Underuse Ad Experiments. That’s a Big Mistake (Harvard Business Review).
- A New Gold Standard for Digital Ad Measurement (Harvard Business Review).
- Incrementality in Game Analytics: Beyond AB Tests, on to Bandits and Marketing Mix Models
- Dear Digital-First Advertisers, Are You Media or Marketing Mix Modeling?
- Packaging Up Media Mix Modeling: An Introduction to Robyn’s Open-Source Approach
Podcasts
Sometimes we talk: this section highlights podcasts featuring insightful discussions with members of the Game Data Pros team, sharing their expertise on game analytics, monetization, and industry trends.
- Bill Grosso appeared on Marketing Measurement Matters to talk about the importance of Marketing Measurement in Gaming.
- Bill Grosso appeared on Recast’s Marketing Measurement Coffee Break to talk about Why Most MMMs Fail Validation Tests.
- Bill Grosso and Julian Runge appeared on Meta’s You’re Better Off Knowing podcast to discuss building a culture of experimentation.
- Julian Runge appears on the Ad Exchanger podcast to talk about marketing measurement.
- Julian Runge appears on the Game Economist Podcast to talk about experimentation in gaming.
- Julian Runge talks with Eric Seufert and Koen Pauwels about marketing experiments and probabilistic measurement.
- Bill Grosso joins Eric Seufert on the Mobile Dev Memo podcast to talk about experimentation as part of a larger optimization effort in consumer products.
- Julian Runge talks with Game Economist Cast’s Phillip Black about switchback testing, supply/demand theory as applied to monopoly economies, and other racy topics.
- Bill Grosso joins Christopher Kaczmarczyk-Smith, Eric Guan, and Phillip Black on the Game Economist Cast to discuss Bill’s efforts to build price personalization at scale, community pushback, the pricing power of brands, and the best things about game economists.
- Julian Runge talks with Eric Seufert and Maor Sadra, CEO of INCRMNTAL, about the future of digital advertising measurement on the MDM Podcast.
- Julian Runge joins the Game Economist Cast team to discuss retention, sales versus personalization, and the best theories of difficulty.
Revenue Optimization in Games
Game Data Pros takes a holistic approach to revenue optimization in games and digital entertainment. In this series of articles, we start with a broad primer on the origins of modern revenue optimization techniques in the airline, hotel, and related travel industries, then explore the unique revenue optimization obstacles faced by the video gaming industry through a detailed examination of console game and mobile game publishing.
GDC Game Revenue Optimization Mini Summit
Every year, at the game Developer Conference, we host an off-site summit. The idea is simple: have a few expert-level talks loosely centered around the idea of revenue optimization, and try to create a place where the community can gather.
Here are our two blog posts about the 2025 Mini-Summit:
- (Announcement) The Game Revenue Optimization Mini-Summit Rides Again
- (After the Event, with links to slides) Reporting from the 2025 Game Revenue Optimization Mini-Summit
Here are our two blog posts about the 2024 Mini-Summit:
- (Announcement) Why I’m Excited by Our GDC Event
- (After the event, with links to slides) Reporting from the Game Revenue Optimization Mini-Summit – David Nixon (VP Data Services, Game Data Pros)
Academic Papers
Game Data Pros is actively involved in academic research in fields related to game revenue optimization. Here are some published papers from members of the team.
(Older) Scientific Revenue
Scientific Revenue was a machine learning startup that provided automated dynamic pricing to mobile games. Here are some resources we still find useful from that effort.
- What makes a price a good price – The very basics of price design. Intended for a game-design audience and intended to introduce core ideas in pricing.
- The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data – Presentation from Pocket Gamer Connects, London, 2018. Invest in high-quality and highly granular data collection. If you do so, there are a lot of ways to use the data to optimize your game.
- The Strange Case of the Noob Who Didn’t Buy: Big Data and Pricing (video) – 5th Annual Wolfram Data Summit 2014. Using examples from gaming to briefly outline some of the challenges involved in rethinking pricing theory and practice to reflect the new realities of digital commerce. Slides are available here (PDF).
- Five Lessons I Learned from Scientific Revenue (blog post)
- All Scientific Revenue presentations: Scientificrevenue, Scientific revenue | SlideShare
Industry Resources
The following resources highlight contributions from industry professionals and teams whose work on game design and optimization we hold in high regard.
- Mobile Dev Memo – Eric Seufert
- SuperJoost – Joost van Dreunen
- Deconstructor of Fun – a newsletter, blog, podcast, and community run by games professionals for the benefit of games professionals.
- Liquid & Grit – Brett Nowak