Kiloo opens a publishing arm, how to monetise, retain, and acquire users, and why did Ubisoft buy Ketchapp?

The hottest articles of last week

• 5 Mobile native ads: Should we believe the hype?

  

  Trying to find the monetisation model for your game can be almost as tough as the rest of the development process, particularly if you're choosing which ads to show.

  There's plenty of ads to pick from, but Leadbolt founder and CEO Dale Carr decided to talk us through mobile native ads, and ask, should we believe the hype?

  Studies have found that mobile native ads performed as much as 10X better compared to mobile display advertising at similar frequency.

  But there is the issue that the blending of an in-app native ad into the mobile environment has the potential to be bypassed or ignored by a mobile user who isn’t keenly interested in the ad offering.

  
  

• 4 Why the team behind hit mobile game Subway Surfers is opening a new publishing arm

  

  Subway Surfers is one of the few mobile games to have surpassed one billion downloads, an impressive feat in its own right.

  But now its developer Kiloo has decided to expand its business, and it's making moves into the publishing world, starting with Voony Games' Tesla Tubes.

  We managed to get the exclusive scoop on the announcement, and chatted to Kiloo's new Director of Publishing Jeppe Bisbjerg to find out more about the shift in focus.

  "Our strongest argument is our track record as a developer," says Bisbjerg.

  "We have been a company since 2000, are independently run, have worked on a number of close collaborations with other studios and offer a very strong platform with the games we have released over the last five to six years."

  
  

• 3 Push notifications sent on a Monday lunchtime that say "get your" are the most likely to be opened

  

  If you've ever wondered when the best time to send out a push notification for your game is, then wonder no more.

  As explained in the beautifully succinct headline, Tapjoy found that its a Monday lunchtime, and that the text used has the words "get your" in there somewhere.

  Notifications on a weekend are essentially wasted effort, and you should never, ever use the word "win" - no one likes to think they won't get anything in return.

  Sending out notifications that have a noise attached to them are also a terrible idea - silent push notifications are opened twice as often as noisy ones.

  
  

• 2 14 videos that teach you how to monetise, retain and acquire users for your mobile games

  

  If you didn't know, we hold Pocket Gamer Connects events around the world throughout the year, with our most recent taking place in Helsinki.

  If you did know, but weren't able to attend, we have good news! Our videos of the talks are going up, and you can now watch 14 videos from our Monetise, Retain, Acquire track right here.

  You'll find talks from from Rovio Head of Production Reginaldo Valadares on the 10 commandments of free-to-play, Heracles partner Eric Seufert on mobile user acquisition on a budget, and Tamalaki owner Martine Spaans on the best practices for mobile game ad monetisation.

  And that's only three of the 14 available to watch. So why aren't you getting started right now?

  
  

• 1 Why did Ubisoft buy Ketchapp?

  

  Ubisoft's purchase of prolific developer Ketchapp is big news, if only because really, it came from absolutely nowhere at a time of tension of the French publisher.

  It's such big news in fact, that to fully comprehend Ubisoft's motives, we decided to ask our Mobile Mavens what they thought about the whole thing.

  Rovio's Wilhelm Taht thinks its "an acquisition of big data capabilities and cross promotion network (tech and users, with emphasis on tech)."

  While John Ozimek puts it more succinctly: "Seems to have all gone a bit Game of Thrones over the channel!"