As part of Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2015, Jim Ying, Vice President of Game Publishing at Tango, gave a talk on the importance of chat apps in mobile gaming and user acquisition.

Chat apps are particularly popular in Asia, and they're often used as publishing platforms. Ying stated that in Japan "five out of the top ten or fifteen games are distributed through LINE", the biggest chat app in the country.

A lot of flow

The reason for this, he said, is that "you get a lot of flow of users", largely because the developers of the app will also promote games within the app itself, as well as keeping them in a specific area of the app.

Ying went on to talk about which games work well with these apps, saying that while casual games with gifting aspects are often helped by chat app integration, "the advantage of a chat app is limited" for more mid-core games.

You can see all our videos from Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2015 in this YouTube Playlist.