It’s easy to feel instinctively optimistic about in-game advertising. In recent years there’s been a powerful sense that in-game ads aren’t simply an increasingly valuable means of income for developers and publishers; perhaps they’re now understood and embraced by more consumers and industry figures than ever before. Furthermore, there is an ever more diverse spread of games, markets and consumers where ads are fitting. And now it feels like there are a greater number of platforms, approaches and tools through which [...]

In this guest post by the CEO of the mobile game insights and market data specialist GameRefinery, Markus Ramark considers a new way to build your targeting, and looks at why understanding player ‘affinity’ with given games might unlock new levels of success.   At its heart, the mobile games industry is a multi-billion dollar battle to find the highest spending, frequently playing, most loyal new players. Top-performing games are supported with marketing spend in the tens of millions, and app stores [...]

TheGamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the trending business stories in gaming. In today’s edition: THQ Nordic expands into Japan; MadBox raises USD$16.5m (£12.7m); and former Zynga CMO Doug Scott joins Twitch. THQ Nordic expands into Japan THQ Nordic has formally incorporated THQ Nordic Japan KK, a new international distribution outlet which will be responsible for the distribution and marketing of the publisher’s titles in the market. The division is only the second international distributor for the company, following the formation of THQ [...]

In this special contributed piece, Erick Fang, CEO of AI-driven ad platform Mintegral, considers the need for the programmatic sector to make the case for its responsibility, or risk imprecise regulation becoming the dominant governing force.   From time to time, I hear about a revolution in the online advertising business. Occasionally, I’ll listen in to conversations talking about how programmatic is up-ending the industry – changing ad buying habits, how consumers interact with adverts and transforming the industry with it. I do, [...]

Mobile app advertising, monetisation and mediation outfit ironSource recently expanded its platform to offer a cross-platform mobile cross promotion solution. The distinct tech promises to offer a previously unseen approach not yet offered to mobile app developers and publishers by existing solutions. But just what does the new platform provide that is quite so different? And why has cross promotion historically been a tricky entity to perfect? We caught up with ironSource’s VP of product developer solutions, Nimrod Zuta, to find [...]

Liz Waldeck-Pinckert is director of publisher monetization and strategy at mobile advertising and marketing platform AdColony. In this contributed piece, she shares valuable insights into embracing in-app advertising, while busting some myths about how users – and content creators – perceive in-game ads. If you’re just beginning to think about how to monetise your new app, or are thinking about working with ads for the first time, consider the following essential reading. Great work! You’ve just put the finishing touches on your [...]

Tencent, Qualcomm, and Vivo recently announced a new partnership, with a view to refining game experiences by harnessing the potential of on-device mobile AI. We’ve all heard so much about AI in recent months that it’s easy to assume any reference to it is simply over-enthusiastic marketing speak. But what this collection of tech giants have underway is pretty fascinating. It’s also somewhat confusing, as it’s a little complicated on the technical side of things. So let’s take a look at [...]

In this contributed piece written exclusively for TheGamingEconomy, Mark Robinson, CEO of global game analytics and real-time marketing powerhouse deltaDNA, considers a shift in the balance of power in the mobile space that is seeing success democratised as investors return… The Free-to-Play (F2P) mobile games market has always been dominated by a handful of juggernaut publishers generating the lion’s share of revenue. However, with the market beginning to reach maturity, this long-established status quo is now giving way to a model [...]

Google has made its move on gaming with the announcement of streaming platform Stadia.  The news came on the second day of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco; and it surely stands as one of the most significant gaming reveals in the industry’s history. Such a major player moving in with such an ambitious platform could radically impact the broad ecosystem of the industry, the makeup of audiences playing games, and the way the medium is consumed and designed. However, Stadia’s [...]

A new report from the House of Lords has proposed the formation of a new ‘Digital Authority’ to monitor and even regulate technology companies, and make sure that UK law evolves in tandem with technology. As reported by the BBC, the document looks at tech firms’ management of data and privacy breaches, and their handling of problematic social behaviour over online platforms. The reports’ authors have branded responses to such issues as ‘inadequate’, and stress a belief that self-regulation on some [...]