One of the interesting graphs to come out of DeNA's recent financials is its view on user acquisition.
The whole point of having a social network like Mobage is to consolidate a large number of players within some sort of platform, which while expensive to operate, should enable better discovery, retention and monetisation for all the games using the platform.
We don't know how aggressively DeNA has been spending in terms of pure user acquisition.
It didn't seem to have operated at the same level as GREE and Zynga during 2012, but it would have been spending millions of dollars, especially to push Mobage-enabled games such as Rage of Bahamut.
Proof of the pudding
As the graph below shows, taking October 2012 as a base, DeNA has seen its cost of acquiring a user drop by 50 percent.
Presumably this is number calculated by combining all its user acquisition campaigns and dividing by total users acquired.
More significant, however, is the increase in new daily users the network has been generating.
Of course, DeNA could have kept its user acquisition spend at the same level since October, which giving the drop in per user cost, would have increased the number of new users anyhow.
More likely, it's seeing cross promotion between similar games such as Rage of Bahamut and Blood Brothers.
Still, the simple conclusion is a good one: drive your cost per new user down while increasing your intake. Maybe try using a platform like Mobage?
Chart of the Week
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Related Articles
as
Chart of the Week
Aug 18th, 2016
How changing one screen led Games2Win to increase Parking Frenzy 2.0's retention by 5%
Chart of the Week
Jul 22nd, 2016
20% of the 106 million US mobile gamers account for 62% of time spent playing
Top Stories
News
Apr 17th, 2024
Scopely is celebrating Monopoly GO!'s first birthday with in-game events and rewards
News
Apr 17th, 2024
Learn about the state of play in MENA and the changing payments landscape at the Dubai GameExpo Summit
News
Apr 17th, 2024
Monopoly GO! celebrates its first birthday and shares its behind-the-scenes story
Feature
Apr 15th, 2024
46 top mobile games in soft launch: CSR 3, Plants vs. Zombies 3, LEGO Hill Climb Adventures, Candy Crush Blast, and more
Feature
Apr 15th, 2024
Hot Five: XCOM Legends’ rumoured shutdown, Squad Busters verges on soft launch, and Royal Match reaches $3 billion
Events
HIT Games Conference Istanbul 2024 | Apr 18th | |
Game Job Fair – Spring Edition 2024 | Nordic | Apr 18th |
Arts DAO Fest 2.0 | Middle East | Apr 20th |
App Promotion Summit London | Europe | Apr 25th |
Esports Future Summit | Middle East | Apr 27th |
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
The MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 | Middle East | May 2nd |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |