December 16, 2019

Sips Happen #2: Top Games of 2019

Sips Happen #2: Top Games of 2019

With 2019 coming to a close in a couple weeks, we’re now seeing various « Top Games of the Year » lists popping up here and there. As with a lot of people, my unplayed backlog is steadily growing and I end up spending most my time in a few select ones, contrary to what I usually plan.

State of the Market

• Black Friday is getting bigger than ever, this year breaking another all-time Mobile Game revenue record.
• Gameloft is launching it own Cloud Gaming service, teaming up with France-based Blacknut.
• According to a Microsoft study, 65% of French family are playing together. Gaming is not a solo hobby anymore. (link in 🇫🇷)
• 70% of 13-64 US Americans play games. That’s 192 millions!
• Epic Games now allows devs to choose which payment processor to use for collecting IAPs in the Epic Game Store. That probably won’t help with their current beef with Google.
• Imgur launches a gaming meme app called Melee.
• Want to make a game in the League of Legends universe? You could now get it published by Riot’s new publishing label.

China

• NetEase is launching a cloud gaming platform. Now in Beta.
• Bad omen for traditional gaming corp. with emergence of cloud gaming? Abacus wonders if video streaming killed film studios in China.

Esport

• LONG READ OF THE WEEK: Former Gameloft colleague Tatiana Tacca takes a look at women in esport, and how you can market to them.
• Not-so-subtle examples: weaving fashion and esport, as Louis Vuitton did with LoL.

Marketing and User Acquisition

• Pollen.VC makes a good point: UA managers should focus on cash, not P&L, else you can go bankrupt acquiring users profitably.
• Simon Carless, curator of Video Games Deep Cuts analyses the impact of sales and store featuring on a premium game’s install velocity.
• It’s that time of the year: Eric Seufert rounds up the best and brightest in the mobile space to discuss their predictions for 2020.
• AdEspresso ran an experiment to find the best audiences: Broad or 1% Lookalike? The results won’t please your Facebook rep.

Product Management

• MUST-WATCH Wielding Freemium: 8 videos, around 4 hours of content to better understand the freemium model and avoid its pitfalls.
• Health tech company ro.co shares their « Metrics Explained » handbook.
• Should you be using a Growth Management Tool? And which one?
• Mobile gamers found more likely to subscribe than to buy a one-off IAP, according to a report by Liftoff (email-walled).

One last sip

• A new scandal hits the industry, this time in Japan.
• How hobbyist game devs can defeat crunch.
• The Playstation is already 25. Game Informer looks back on the 25 years that redefined the industry.
• AI is good at defeating you when playing. Now it’s also getting better at cooperation.
• Watch this guy’s quest to recycle his old boxed Prototype game.