Mobile marketing platform PlayHaven released new tools today to help app developers maximize the success of their mobile games. Oftentimes game developers will enter their games into an app store and see an initial spike of traffic only to see downloads and engagement flat line over time. PlayHaven believes it has the tools to help developers maintain traffic numbers for an extended period of time.
PlayHaven is also announcing that they have signed one of the biggest game development companies, Glu, to use the platform. Glu makes some of the most popular games for Android and iOS including Gun Bros and Eternity Warriors. PlayHaven’s new dynamic overlay tools and analytics could help games like that stay in the top of app store rankings.
“What happens is that you kind you get into this mode of peaks and valleys,” said Andy Yang, CEO of PlayHaven, to ReadWriteMobile. “So, we have developed a real-time mobile marketing platform to help developers maintain their spikes. We want to help you get up there and after you are up there, maintain your success. Really the goal here is to maintain the business aspects of your game.”
PlayHaven’s new tools are kind of like a content management system for the business aspects of games. For instance, say you have bonus material, such as game credits (coins, new guns etc.) that you want to offer at a certain time to a certain player segment. Instead of having to go back through the development cycle to integrate those new offers, PlayHaven has a dashboard that will allow managers to quickly go into the game and change offers.
The platform does this through what it calls “Dynamic Overlays,” customizable HTML5 windows that appear above the game and can help developers push content and announcements without having to actually change the game code. The Dynamic Overlays can be use to cross-promote other games, make announcements of new feature, capture email, increase virtual currency engagement and drive monetization.
Developers can now trim down the cycles and increase flexibility by automatically pushing updates from the dashboard. The idea is to increase developers’ relationship with players while avoiding using yet another software developer kit (SDK) from some outside source that is needed to make changes or work with platforms.
PlayHaven wants to be the business tool that developers use to help maintain app ranking while freeing them up to make more and better games. The company uses and open source SDK that is easy to integrate and can work through the Web. The SDK itself is optional as Web-based APIs are also an option.
“We are trying to bring the flexibility of the Web into your mobile games,” Yang said. “We do that through what we call dynamic overlays. All the content that you want to push to your game can be done in real time or they can be scheduled as well. We give developers a dashboard to have full control over the game all the time. You can analyze the metrics and see the outlaying performance.”
Yang notes that some developers have started to build this type of functionality for themselves – dashboards and analytics tools that can help push business aspects of games. If developers want to stay in the top of the app store rankings, increasing monetization and engagement through easy publishing tools and analytics is a must.
“Whereas solutions like push notifications and banner advertising, video advertising or offer walls are all kind of hammer and nail solutions that do one thing and do it well, we are arming developers with a Swiss Army Knife with a bunch of different blades for marketing and monetization.”
