Growth hacking tips, how Color Switch found success with ads, and Wooga talks mid-core
Spinning off seems to be what our readers were interested in last week, as the stories taking the top 2 spots on our Hot Five both involve new studios and divisions being created by developers to work on other things.
First up is Wooga's mid-core spin-off, which we asked CEO Jens Begemann all about at GDC, as well as why he thinks wearables still have life left in them as a platform.
New plans
Secondly, Machine Zone announced that it was spinning off a new division, RTplatform, which will develop and license out its own cloud infrastructure.
Third, we asked Fortafy Games co-founder Zeb Jaffer about the runaway success of Color Switch, and how it managed to improve its ARPDAU with rewarded video ads.
And finally, London-based, female-focused developer TrulySocial received investment from Nazara Games and others, and we shared some growth hacking tips for 2016.
Have a click through to find out more about what caught our reader's eye last week.
#1: Wooga on its tactical separation of core and casual development, and why wearables will trump VR
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Wooga on its tactical separation of core and casual development, and why wearables will trump VR »Given that, until recently, Wooga had been a casual-focused developer, it is slightly surprising that it would spin-off a new studio to start working on mid-core titles.
But, as we discovered when we sat down with its CEO, Jens Begemann, at GDC 2016, they had actually been working on mid-core titles internally for quite some time.
"“If you run it as one unit and one company culture, it's very difficult to become the best in both at the same time because they have different requirements," said Begemann.
We also spoke to him about the pros and cons of auto-play, and why exactly he thinks that wearables are likely to trump VR.
#2: Updated: Machine Zone spins out big data tech RTplatform as separate division
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Updated: Machine Zone spins out big data tech RTplatform as separate division »Not content with being one of the biggest mobile developers in the world, even taking the number one spot on our top 50 developers list for 2016, Machine Zone has also decided to spin out a new division.
The new RTplatform is a cloud infrastructure that Machine Zone will now license out to other developers, with development taking place in both its US HQ and Russian studios.
"We hope to do many-to-many applications. This is an infrastructure that allows you to do some extremely large things in real time at scale," said CEO Gabe Leydon.
Machine Zone itself will also now be rebranding as MZ, although the reasoning behind this is slightly less clear.
#3: How Color Switch found financial success with rewarded video ads
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How Color Switch found financial success with rewarded video ads »Color Switch is one of the big indie success stories of recent years, shooting to the top of the free charts on iOS after being developed by one man with a "codeless" development tool.
And while we've already talked about its success in terms of downloads, it was only recently that we asked more about the monetisation of the game.
On the receiving end of our questions was Fortafy Games' co-founder Zeb Jaffer, who spoke about why the game is so popular, and how it benefited from rewarded video ads.
While he couldn't share in-depth revenue statistics, Jaffer did tell us that "monetising with rewarded video drove a 40 percent lift in ARPDAU."
#4: TrulySocial raises investment from Nazara Games, London Venture Partners and Supercell game lead
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TrulySocial raises investment from Nazara Games, London Venture Partners and Supercell game lead »Nazara Games has mostly been focused on development in India lately, so it's interesting that it's now choosing to invest in London-based developer TrulySocial.
Nazara has co-invested along with investors like London Venture Partners and Supercell Game Lead Drussila Hollanda-Grönberg in the developer, which is currently working on a female-focused lifestyle game.
“With TrulySocial we are delighted to have an opportunity to see ourselves along with key international players," said Nazara Games CEO Manish Agarwal.
"We plan to bring new, innovative and delightful content for the Indian gaming audience."
#5: Top growth tips to boost your mobile game - 2016 Edition
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Top growth tips to boost your mobile game - 2016 Edition »Back in 2015, we published 9 growth hacking tips to boost your mobile game, and it went down pretty well with our readers.
So now Pascal Clarysse is back again to give some updated growth tips for 2016, so you can keep up with the ever-changing mobile market.
He offers up advice about YouTube and influence marketing, emerging markets, social hooks, and pre-registration campaigns among other things.
On the first topic, Clarysse says that "the minimum budget to hope hooking up with a YouTube star is $50,000 nowadays and prices are rising fast," and suggests other routes to potential influencers.
