The Pursuit of Resonance

While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, cloning a hit game is a surefire path to mediocrity in 2024. Innovation through inspiration is where the magic happens. Games like Candy Crush, Saints Row, Palworld, and Stardew Valley took inspiration from giants but blazed their own trails to massive success.

As gaming continues to saturate, the titles that truly resonate are the ones that forge deep, personal connections with players. Understanding and nailing that elusive resonance factor is what separates the champions from the copycats. In this article, we’ll compare GameRefinery and their mobile game data against Solsten, the #1 on-demand consumer insights and resonance platform.

Why Relying on Past Data Alone Is a Losing Strategy

Looking backward is a dangerous game when your goal is to move forward. Player preferences are a constantly shifting landscape. Sure, studying past hits can spark ideas early on, but making design decisions based solely on vintage data is straight-up gambling with your budget. As your concept matures, you need a constant stream of current player insights to iterate effectively.

GameRefinery offers a wealth of historical feature-level data for mobile games, but their rear-view mirror approach lacks the agility to keep up with evolving player demands and trends. And more importantly, it does not tell you the why behind a feature’s success.

Both Solsten and GameRefinery offer insights based on player motivations, but our approaches are fundamentally different. While GameRefinery relies on mobile game data to assign players to pre-determined motivational models based on extrinsic, reward-driven motivations that are unstable over time, Solsten’s approach is rooted in scientific methodology and clinical-grade psychological assessments. Our sophisticated technology validly, accurately, and reliably measures the intrinsic motivations that predict behavioral outcomes, accounting for the incredible diversity and complexity of human beings. Solsten’s player-centered approach ensures that your game evolves alongside your audience, engaging and resonating throughout the player lifecycle.

The Solsten Difference: Future-Proofed Resonance

At Solsten, we’re laser-focused on one thing: Infusing resonance into every aspect of your development cycle through robust psychological intelligence.

Our unparalleled insights platform taps into the world’s largest database of player psychology data from millions of assessments. In an ever-changing market, we empower you to always keep a finger on the pulse of what truly engages your audience.

We don’t just rehash antiquated gaming motivations or lump players into oversimplified archetypes. Our approach drills down to the core psychological drivers behind behaviors through clinical-grade assessments. This allows us to pinpoint the intrinsic needs of diverse gaming personalities with incredible precision.

Solsten gives you a 360° view of your players, you can proactively identify untapped market opportunities, troubleshoot and increase retention, and optimize every aspect of your experience for maximum resonance and impact.

Your All-Access Pass to Resonance

Solsten is your comprehensive suite for player-centered development:

On-Demand Insights and Resonance Platform
Get instant access to deep psychological intelligence. Validate concepts, profile competitor audiences, and unlock the motivational pillars for captivating high-value players. Connect in-game data with our psychological insights for a complete view of your audience you won’t find anywhere else.

Integrated Games User Research
For studios without an internal research team or those seeking to enhance existing capabilities, Solsten’s games user research team offers a streamlined arsenal of offerings to optimize the player feedback loop from concept through beta. Our researchers are the only ones in the world capable of mapping playtest results back to your specific target player segments – a crucial capability for optimizing research budgets and understanding the market size represented by both positive and negative feedback. We collaborate closely with you to design an ideal research plan tailored to your unique uncertainties and roadmap, allowing us to iteratively evolve your understanding of players in lockstep with your game’s progression. From feature resonance studies to longitudinal playtests, our initiatives keep you seamlessly synced with your audience at every stage.

Enrich In-Game Data with Psychology
By connecting in-game data with Solsten’s deep insights into player psychology, affinities, and preferences, game teams gain the most comprehensive and robust understanding of their current audience and how to create resonant experiences. Our approach empowers you to identify underserved needs, get to the root causes of churn, and optimize marketing with predictably resonant creative direction tailored to your players’ motivations. Simply inserting past successful features is a risky strategy that fails to account for the “why” behind their appeal. With Solsten, you’ll understand the intrinsic psychology driving engagement so you can thoughtfully scale player-centric experiences that captivate your audience on a profound level.

Turn Solsten into your unfair advantage as you infuse game concepts, feature roadmaps, marketing campaigns and event calendars with resonance. Why settle for trend following or copycatting when you can craft experiences that you know will attract your target audience? With psychographic insights, you can predict and capitalize on what players truly need.