Isaac Roseboom, Chief Product Officer at deltaDNA. Slides from his PGC London 2019 presentation.

1. Isaac Roseboom
Chief Product Officer

2. Isaac Roseboom
Chief Product Officer
80% data 20% luck:
How to make profitable
games in 2019

3. Agenda
● Biggest games are entrenched at the top of
the charts
○ 7 of top 10 grossing are more than 2
years old
● Production and running costs of games are
going up
○ $500k to launch + live ops
● Only way to scale is paid UA and CPIs are
high
○ Less than 30% of games in deltaDNA
are ROAS positive on UA spend
○ Even profitable games can take 6+
months to recover CPI
● Is there any good news?
Making games is hard

4. Agenda
2016: US/IOS
● $8.4bn in rev
● 85% of revenue in top 100
● 61% in top 10
● 10% ($0.8bn) between 100-1000
2018: US/IOS
● $11bn in US app store games rev
● 61% in top 100
● 34% in top 10
● 21% ($2.4bn) between 100-1000
Most of the 31% growth in mobile gaming
revenues has been outside of top 100!
2018 vs. 2016 IAPs

5. Agenda
2016: US/IOS only
● 178M players (newZoo), 180M (statista)
● $0.10 ARPDAU
● 3.1% lifetime conversion rate
● 3 transactions per spender
● Avg. player lifespan = 8 days
2018: US/IOS only
● 179M players (newZoo) 200M players (statista)
● $0.11 ARPDAU
● 4.2% lifetime conversion rate
● 5 transactions per spender
● Avg. player lifespan = 12 days
Each install is more valuable!
2018 vs. 2016 - Why?

6. Agenda
2016: US/IOS
● 10 paid apps in top 100 grossing
● Avg. game makes 25% of revenue from ads
● 8% of games totally ad supported
2018: US/IOS
● 1 paid app in top 100 grossing (Minecraft)
● Avg. game makes 32% of revenue from ads
● 17% of games totally ad supported
2018 vs. 2016 Other business models

7. Agenda
2016 = Boom and bust
● Both organic and paid installs peak
in the first month and then tail away
● By month 6 install volume 5x lower
2018 = Sustainable growth
● Little paid in first month
● As organic drops off and live ops
kicks in then paid UA starts
● After 4 months hit a sustainable
level of installs at close to launch
peak
2018 vs. 2016 - Game Management

8. Agenda
Ability to sustainably grow games is driven
by access to user level data
● Where did a user come from? What
content did they see? How much did
they cost?
● Did the game meet their expectations?
● What is their immediate value
(IAPs+Ads)?
● What is their estimated lifetime value
(IAPs+Ads) and ROAS?
Making successful mid-tier games

9. Agenda
● 2016 typical games running 3 paid campaigns at a time
● 2018 typical game running 10 paid campaigns at a time
○ Playable, rewarded, interstitial, banner
○ Targeted w/matched creative: competitor games, lookalike campaigns
○ Cross promotion across portfolio
Where did a user come from?

10. Agenda
● Typical portfolio size
on deltaDNA has
grown
○ 2016: 3 games
○ 2018: 6 games
● More advanced cross
promo across
portfolio
Advanced Cross Promotion

11. AgendaDid the game meet their expectations?
DDNA Benchmarks: 78% of organics and 81% of paid play more than 2 mins
Organic
Test 1
Playable
Test 2
Rewarded Video
Test 3

12. Agenda
● %Users convert in first day / week
● %Users engaging with ads
What is their immediate value?

13. Agenda
● Games can take between
14 - 50 days to recover ad
spend
● Best games actually start
slower and consistently
grow LTV
● Average games get all the
value within the first 100
days
Why is accurate LTV so important?

14. Agenda
● Simplest model is to take
○ LTV = lifetime X ARPDAU
● Lifetime estimated from retention
curve
● Can combine Ad and IAP ARPDAU
● With just 7 days of data from a
cohort can get ~80% accuracy
● More sophisticated models using
detailed parameters can get to
90%+
LTV Modelling

15. Agenda
● Clash of clans and candy crush will still
be top 10 grossing
● But the gap to the 1000th grossing
game will only be 10x (not 1000x)
● F2P games won’t be about the biggest
but the best player base
○ More 1M MAU games less 200M+
○ Higher ARPDAU (IAP+Ads)
○ Better player and portfolio
management
● The most successful publishers will
grow players not (just) games
Looking forward to 2020

16. AgendaConclusions
● Opportunities for mid-tier games has
grown significantly, revenues outside
top 100 have doubled in 2 years!
● This has been driven by smaller
publishers getting smarter
○ Smarter UA strategy
○ Better reporting on RoI
○ Data driven game design & live
ops
● Better third party tools to facilitate this
○ Robust attribution tools
○ Easy to use analytics
○ Powerful live ops and CRM

17. Isaac Roseboom
Chief Product Officer
Thank you!
info@deltadna.comwww.deltadna.com