Useful resources and links to finally get down to business with your game (ENG/RU)

Ekaterina Prikhodko
4 min readNov 27, 2018

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Before reading: Unfortunately, I’ve lost some links about the materials used in this post. If you know the author, please contact me and I’ll add credits.

You have an idea of a perfect game that will change the gaming industry once and for all.

============ LET’S SAY, YOU ARE HERE =============

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWy2jFg6S1s

BEFORE LAUNCHING

Answering the questions below will help you to formulate and then articulate your vision.

The decision about Target Audience — Who is going to use your app and why are they going to use it?

The decision about the uniqueness of the idea/game — What is the USP of your app? What makes it unique compared to others?

The decision about the overall appearance and emotions it will convey — What is the look of your app? What is the main message it transfers with its visual symbols like a logo, colours, illustrations, mascots, etc.?

The decision about communication channelsWhere can be the audience you search for? How will users get information about your app? What are the channels of communication between the app and the user?

The decision about the features that will make users stay — How you plan to add content to the game? What will keep a loyal audience entertained?

The decision about the ‘perfect look’ — What ideally will you create in the end? Do you have a plan of features’ implication to achieve that plan?

Свежая подборка ресурсов для маркетолога мобильных приложений: книги и блоги (02/01/2017)

LAUNCH STEPS:

  • Development: development stages — from prototype to beta and release, plan it accordingly, be aware of technical issues.
  • Costs: funding for the game development process and maintenance costs.
  • Planning: creating a product strategy around the project, as well as how it can grow and develop over time.
  • Distribution: which platform, why.
  • Monetization: Monetizing your game or choosing the best models, strategies, and ad networks for it.
  • Publicity: handling the marketing, advertising, public relations, and even social media efforts.
  • Promotion instruments: features on the app store, traffic purchase, ASO, influencers, community building and management (if needed).
  • Localization: Translating your game into multiple languages to appeal to different audiences and global markets.
  • Porting: Helping expand your game’s support to other platforms. Most publishers require that your game is initially at least available on iOS — if not, your chances drastically decline.
  • Other: Quality assurance, data analytics, customer support, etc

WHILE IN DEVELOPMENT

Choosing a monetization model and pricing:

Ценообразование в условно-бесплатных играх (01.04.2018)

Ценообразование в F2P-играх и SaaS: как выставить оптимальную цену (26.04.2018)

Why freemium and premium aren’t the same when it comes to marketing + инструменты продвижения для каждого типа (14.12.2017)

Психология ценообразования: 30 тактик по формированию цены продукта (09.07.2015)

59 способов монетизировать игру (17.04.2018)

Bounds, Bottlenecks, and Digital Marketing (20.06.2016)

How to choose the best pricing strategy for your mobile app (13.03.2017)

Monetization with Behavioral Economics (13.09.2017)

Player’s segmentation:

Психотипы игроков: за что игроки готовы платить? (02.03.2017)

Психотипы Бартла и балансировка аудитории (30.07.2015)

Bartle’s Player Types for Gamification (23.11.2018)

BEFORE THE LAUNCH

Creating a marketing plan:

A huge step-by-step guide, a bit old, but not outdated — Building Buzz for Indie Games (26.08.2009)

The Marketing Guide for Game Developers (30.08.2014)

Продвижение мобильных приложений (08.06.2018)

Продвижение мобильного приложения: инструменты и пример маркетингового плана (16.03.2016)

Продвижение — жизнь: правила маркетинга инди-игр (4.04.2017)

Тренды продвижения приложений в Google Play и App Store 2018 (09.02.2018)

Zero Budget Indie Marketing Guide (16.06.2009)

Videogame PR and Marketing 101 (15.10.2013)

Five PR tips indies really need (15.07.2013)

Words and Feelings: The New Indie PR (27.05.2013)

9 Useful Marketing Techniques for Promoting Mobile Games

BENCHMARKING: exploring the market before soft launch (13.09.2017)

LAUNCH

Submission to the store:

70 Points Apple App Store Submissions Checklist [2018 Edition]

Publishing Checklist for Google Play (2018)

Публикация приложения: контрольный список (25.04.2018)

Теория скриншота: как правильно выбрать снимки экрана для маркетинга игры (19.03.2018)

Promo instruments:

Пошаговый алгоритм работы с ASO (28.10.2016)

The Ultimate Guide to App Store Optimization 2018

Playrix: как правильно покупать трафик? (22.08.2017)

Apple Search Ads (11.2017)

How to Do ASO for Android Apps on Google Play Store — Ultimate Guide for 2018 (02.08.2017)

The 7 Deadly Sins of Mobile User Acquisition (20.08.2015)

How To Do Instagram Influencer Marketing Right: A Six-Point Checklist (21.05.2018)

2 Simple-to-Implement Checklists to Use in Your Influencer Marketing Planning (27.03.2018)

ANALYTICS

100 Лучших ссылок для игровых аналитиков (03.10.2018)

Аналитика для мобильного приложения (27.08.2018)

And the ultimate and definitive information about that you’ll find at devtodev.com

This is not 100% complete process of game development, neither the only instruments on the market. In the post, I tried to sum up all this, that is more or less essential, that will allow you to formulate more specific questions further. That’s my goal and I hope I achieved it.

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Ekaterina Prikhodko
Ekaterina Prikhodko

Written by Ekaterina Prikhodko

Marketing/communication strategist in a gaming industry @ Riga, Latvia (from Moscow, Russia)