two & a half gamers session #2 - UA & Creative trends 2022, Microsoft <3 ATVI, TOP10 gaming M&A

Hello & welcome everyone. This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #2. Let’s dive in.

Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lančarič

UA & Creative trends / learnings from 2021

Main trend 2022 UA diversification

• Having Facebook as one and only UA channel is dangerous and the times when you could use FB up until the 1M monthly spend are gone. UA channel mix needs to be diversified even more. My UA go to channel was and still is Facebook, even though the quality decreased heavily in 2021, but I am running google UAC and Unity

Hypercasual-led creatives

• The persona-led creatives is/was a trend everybody is talking about now thanks to the iOS14. The thing is, personas and motivations were here a long time ago. I guess it wasn't so popular to talk about back then. Let's focus on something else. Adapting hypercasual game concepts to your game creatives is going to explode next year.

• I’m pretty sure that you saw these ASMR videos on Youtube which let into the game development of the ASMR Slicing hypercasual game by Tricky Tribe – my friends from Slovenia – This ASMR game was a big hit in the United states and I think number one for a couple of weeks. I am also pretty sure you saw different games like Coin Master started slicing their coins. Why not use it for other games as well. Slicing a tomato? Hell yeah! We are not talking only about ASMR slicing here. There are other concepts you could use. Tangle Master 3D, Crowd City, etc. Great thing is, new ones are popping up every day!

• Look at hypercasual game called Countmaster, I am pretty sure there are some clones of it, but this game concept is now used by Warpath and some other strategy games. Topwar, merge strategy game is also leveraging hypercasual game concepts for creatives and I’ve also seen Playrix go into this direction. Gaming companies will do everything to decrease those CPIs!

Audio ads for games

• Podcasts are really popular these days. Looks like almost every person on the Earth listens to a podcast. I even started one to educate and help build the game dev knowledge in Slovakia called Gamecast or 2.5gamers. But where am I going with this? Have you heard any game related ads in these podcasts or in games in general?

• This is relevant not only in terms of User Acquisition, but also a golden opportunity for game developers seeking to monetise their games without damaging retention. Audio ads can be played while you play the game and don't interrupt your gaming experience. Player retention doesn’t get hurt and therefore game devs can increase their profit and LTV. We already see a rise of companies focusing exactly on this topic. Everything looks on the paper, but I really feel we will see 2022 as a year of Audio ads. There is Audiomob and Oodeo in this space, let's watch it closely!