Interview

PlayHaven's Andy Yang on providing 'Zynga in a box' tools for the rest of the industry

It's all about actionable data

PlayHaven's Andy Yang on providing 'Zynga in a box' tools for the rest of the industry
When we last spoke to PlayHaven CEO Andy Yang in September 2011, he'd just launched the real-time mobile marketing and engagement platform.

It went live on iOS with high profile clients such as Glu Mobile (Gun Bros.), Halfbrick (Fruit Ninja), and JoyBits (Doodle God) as launch partners.

And the past couple of months have seen plenty of activity.

The platform's now available for Android (in closed beta) and usage figures are through the roof: the 1,200 titles now running the SDK have been played 520 million times, and monthly impressions are growing six-fold.

New clients include Disney Mobile, Digital Chocolate, NaturalMotion, Breaktime and Mobcrete.

Tweaking the experience

The learning experience has also resulted in a subtle shift in the company's direction.

Yang now calls the product a Mobile Game LifeTime Value (LTV) Maximization Platform. It's a bit of a mouthful so the shortened version is 'Zynga in a box'.

"The secret sauce of the big social companies is their metrics and analytics; the granularity with which they analyse their data," he says.

"They're excellent at segmenting their players into different groups and then managing them to make the most money."



The point is that if someone is spending a lot on IAP, you don't spoil their experience by showing them ads, but if someone's playing daily and never spending any cash, in-game ads are the only way you're likely to generate any revenue.

PlayHaven offers the full range of monetisation options, ranging from virtual currency promotions, to cross-promotional banners, rewards for connecting via Facebook, entering your email address, or rewards for regular activity.

Making changes

"Talking to studios, the most crucial thing we've found is they need to generate actionable data from their games," Yang says.

"It's surprising how many companies don't deal with segmentation."

The point is data, or even knowledge culled from that data, isn't useful unless someone can quickly tweak a virtual currency promotion to retain players who are about to leave, or reward players who can be encouraged to spend.

This is where PlayHaven's HTML5 platform provide the foundation.

Developers can tweak ads and discount offers in real-time via the web dashboard, while the suite of analytic tools enables flexible levels of segmentation, across device, OS, country or behaviour.

Foundational tech

Rather than offer a closed system, PlayHaven is also keen to enable other service providers to integrate into its SDK.

"We can't provide everything developers want so we're happy to partner with other companies." Yang explains.

Vendors such as Tap.Me, TeleSocial and PressOK's PlacePlay have already been added, while in a reverse move, PlayHaven is integrated into the GameSalad development framework; something Yang says is resulting in 25 games a day being added to its portfolio.



And, in a similar way, although PlayHaven already runs its own mobile game advertising, he hopes to start announcing support from third party mobile ad networks within the platform soon too.

Moving at speed

The result is that - as a company - PlayHaven is expanding fast; at least as fast as it can find engineers in San Francisco.

It hopes to almost double its headcount to around 45 by the end of 2012, and it became cashflow positive in November.

"There's a huge opportunity in this space to capture as much growth as possible as quickly as possible," Yang says.

"There are a lot of social game companies jumping into mobile very aggressively and everyone is learning so fast.

"Companies need to step up their performance to keep on track, and that's why we're adding more and deeper real-time tools to ensure our clients remain ahead of the curve."
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.