Despite being billed as the 'next-big-thing in mobile' for some time now, location-based play is yet to take off in the way that many expected.

Now, European start up Geosophic is placing a bet on location-based analytics, delivering a platform that tracks when and where people are playing to provide developers and advertisers with detailed player behaviour profiles.

Also included are location-based leaderboards, which allow gamers to compete to be the highest-scorer in their town or neighbourhood.

The company has plans to introduce achievements, location based items and more, too, but to find out how developers can make use of Geosophic right now, we spoke to CMO and co-founder Jennifer Vela-Valido.

Pocket Gamer: What is Geosophic, and how does it help developers?

Jennifer Vela-Valido: Every single day, mobile gamers are generating massive amounts of information, not only about what they're playing, but about where and when they do it.

Using geolocation, Geosophic is able to tap into that massive amount of information and turn it into highly accurate profiles of their lifestyles and routines.

There are plenty of analytics platforms out there used by mobile games, but Geosophic is the only one that's really focused in the 'mobile' aspect.

Mobile gamers left home a long time ago, and if we're able to follow them in their daily routines and journeys we will learn all kinds of fascinating things about their environment, behaviour and context – about who they really are in their offline lives.

Ultimately, Geosophic's goal is help developers to get more downloads, and better return in their advertising inventory.

Could you give an example of the information Geosophic might have on one player or group of players, and how this might be used by the developer?

After obtaining a user's consent, Geosophic starts collecting data from their activity and location, anonymises and aggregates it. Then this information is served to the developers, not only as the usual activity metrics, but also, as behavioural segmentation and profiles.

With Geosophic, developers can discover where their most active users are, not only on a country level, but even at a city level.

With our latest release it will also be possible to track in-game purchases, so that developers know who are exactly their most valuable segments (MVS).

Having that data, it's easy to run campaigns that allow developers to attract not only more players, but the right kind of players.

But it doesn't end there. Our engine can detect behavioural patterns such as user engagement, user segment - worker, student, and so on, and user activity per place, date and time, creating a very accurate profile of the gamers' lifestyle.

This data allows us to build profiles that help developers to improve user acquisition, optimise in-game advertising and do sniper targeting.

The higher accuracy and relevancy not only mean higher CPMs, but also less disruptive advertising experiences. This is very useful not only for developers, but also for mobile marketing agencies and ad networks interested in increasing the ROI of their campaigns and improve their targeting methods.

You offer an API for location-based leaderboards. What advantages do these offer to normal, global leaderboards?

Leaderboards are a proven way of increasing player engagement, but with global leaderboards, only the most hardcore players stand a chance of appearing in them.

This also means that global leaderboards can't be tailored according to geographical or temporal parameters.

In the end, since leaderboards are all about relevancy and visibility, it makes sense to offer everyone a shot at becoming local heroes, being the best of their neighbourhood, their city, or even of an specific event or place.

As an extra, we're always willing to lend a hand to the developers to customise their look and feel, so that they really fit with their game's UI. We know how difficult is to come up with a good visual environment, so why should the leaderboards - or any external service - spoil it?

How easy is it to implement Geosophic?

Very easy. Any developer can get Geosophic working out of the box in just one afternoon. We know how important a good user experience is, and we understand developers' needs and pains.

So, if you are a developer, you sign up at Geosophic web site, download the SDK, include it in your game project, add five lines of code - set up, send scores and get leaderboard - and you're done.

Of course if a developer wants to get more from our services he's welcome to do it - we offer a full API they can access, but we wanted to create something very easy to use.


Thanks to Jennifer for her time.