Retention, engagement, monetization. As video games become more difficult to successfully launch, and even more difficult to grow into a hit, these growth metrics that have been top of mind for this industry for quite some time are becoming harder than ever to achieve. Video games aren’t like other digital products; they aren’t just there …

To say player personas have become an important game development tool is an understatement. In the past you might have used personas to gain an advantage over your competition. Now, you use personas to increase the likelihood of your game being released. Video game studios started to experiment with personas over 20 years ago. They …

“How do I acquire new users?” We get asked this question on a daily basis. It’s an important question, and especially for live-service games. Every video game needs new users, whether it’s a sandbox, RTS, or match 3. Without new users, games won’t reach revenue targets, new features won’t be generated, and ideas won’t reach …

As video games move to prioritize predictable growth over time, longevity continues to become a key marker of success. For a game to remain relevant and popular for years, it must continually innovate and offer new experiences to its players. This is particularly true for massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, which rely on player engagement …

It’s not an easy time to be a gaming company. In fact, they currently face some of the strongest headwinds in recent history. It’s not news to them. Game developers know all too well that one successful title doesn’t guarantee continued success. Borrowing components from other successful games is no longer cutting it as a …

Audience-first game dev: from leading edge to center stage. Releasing thousands of new titles every year, game designers are, most certainly, creative thinkers who constantly rethink norms and models. Which is why we aren’t surprised that a new trend toward “audience-first” game development is the new secret weapon top game developers are adding to their …

It’s a problem as old as gaming itself: you have a great idea for a game and you believe in it — but you can’t be sure it’ll be a hit until it’s actually tested by its audience. Now, the second problem: development costs are high, and those budgets are too often abused by doubling …

And it requires a lot more than behavior analytics to navigate the waters. It’s hard to believe we’ve already passed the 60-year anniversary of the first video game — from computers, to arcades, to consoles, to mobile phones, and now to augmented and virtual reality — video games have seen impressive technological advancements within their …

Deconstructor of Fun and Solsten team up for a discussion on player analytics. Co-founder of Solsten, Joe Schaeppi, joined Michail Katkoff of the Deconstructor of Fun podcast to discuss how traditional player analytics in gaming are falling short and how psychographically-based insights can help your team build maximum resonance with your player base. Katkoff outlines …

The current state of the relationship between technology and human beings looks an awful lot like two people dating that aren’t really in love: they’re a happy couple from the outside, but under the hood there’s a lot of stuff that’s just not working out. At Solsten, we’re on a mission to change that. The …