GameRefinery Product Updates - GameRefinery https://www.gamerefinery.com/category/product-updates/ Thu, 13 Apr 2023 11:42:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.gamerefinery.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-gr-web-thumbnail-32x32.png GameRefinery Product Updates - GameRefinery https://www.gamerefinery.com/category/product-updates/ 32 32 Supercharge LiveOps With GameRefinery Event Tracking https://www.gamerefinery.com/supercharge-liveops-with-gamerefinery-event-tracking/ Wed, 22 Mar 2023 17:09:29 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=16393 2022 was the year of learning and supporting our existing customers here at GameRefinery. Throughout the year, one topic always came up in customer conversations. Liveops, LiveOps and LiveOps. By the end of 2022, we had a clear vision of what we could do to support our existing and future users: Live Events Tracker. What […]

The post Supercharge LiveOps With GameRefinery Event Tracking appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
2022 was the year of learning and supporting our existing customers here at GameRefinery. Throughout the year, one topic always came up in customer conversations. Liveops, LiveOps and LiveOps.

By the end of 2022, we had a clear vision of what we could do to support our existing and future users: Live Events Tracker.

GameRefinery Live Events Tracker LiveOps tool

What is the live events tracker?

The live events tracker is the sum of the best parts of GameRefinery. It combines our manual and qualitative approach to features and live events top developers use in their games.

In essence, it allows you to see, analyze and understand the live events catering of the top mobile games, which we track in a calendar view with a full event breakdown!

How does the Live Events Tracker work, and where do you get the data?

Quite simple: We utilize our analyst teams to play the games daily. This way, we have a 360 view and understanding of what events take place, how those events work, and most importantly, how long those events last. Like with any feature data in our GameRefinery platform, we document these events to you in the form of screenshots and analyst comments.

GameRefinery Live Events Tracker LiveOps tool

What can the Live Events Tracker be used for? 

The use cases can be split into two areas, discovery and research. 

If you want to discover how competitors or top games run their LiveOps, the Live Events Tracker gives you a comprehensive way to analyze trends, identify patterns and understand how LiveOps is conducted in certain genres’ top games. Very nifty way to, for example, map out LiveOps requirements and content of your next live event project, which is moving to LiveOps.

If you have a game in LiveOps and want to learn from your competitors, such as what features they use, or want to understand how they schedule or plan their LiveOps, the Live Events Tracker gives you an in-game level view.

GameRefinery Live Events Tracker LiveOps tool

What kind of data is available?

For each game event we track, we have a comprehensive list of:

  • All the LiveOps features we see used in the game
  • Analyst comments on how the event works
  • Screenshots of the specific event
  • Instances – How many times in the past the same event has been used

In addition, on a game level, we are also tracking:

  • Download and revenue changes
  • Top in-app purchases 
  • Client/feature patches and game versions available for the public

For multiple games or genres selected, you can analyze the statistics:

  • Analyze the average number of events on a daily basis
  • Most used event types by popularity
  • Average durations per event type
GameRefinery Live Events Tracker LiveOps tool

All right, this sounds awesome! How do I get access?

The Live Event Tracker is available for new and old users starting immediately. Contact our sales team about how your GameRefinery package can be upgraded to include access to all our live event data!

The post Supercharge LiveOps With GameRefinery Event Tracking appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
August 2022 Product Update: Motivations 2.5 – Player Archetypes and Motivational Drivers Are Now Available in Game Analyzer https://www.gamerefinery.com/august-2022-product-update-player-archetypes-and-motivational-drivers-are-now-available-in-game-analyzer/ Tue, 23 Aug 2022 06:51:56 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=15653 Player motivations have been highly appreciated by our users. Not only are you able to shed some light on your game’s existing users, but you can also: See what other games they are playing Understand genre/subgenre level motivational drivers and audiences’ interests Sanity check your feature plans with an existing game audience to guarantee they’ll […]

The post August 2022 Product Update: Motivations 2.5 – Player Archetypes and Motivational Drivers Are Now Available in Game Analyzer appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
Player motivations have been highly appreciated by our users. Not only are you able to shed some light on your game’s existing users, but you can also:

  • See what other games they are playing
  • Understand genre/subgenre level motivational drivers and audiences’ interests
  • Sanity check your feature plans with an existing game audience to guarantee they’ll like it

And so much more…

One feedback we heard was the lack of player motivations in Game Analyzer projects. It would make sense as then you would have the full development pipeline available through motivations: Concepting, pre-production, production, and most importantly, live. 

We are happy to announce that player motivations are now available in Game Analyzer!

This allows you to:

  • See in the conception/production phase how the new game project would fit the market
  • Immediately analyze where to find your audience
  • How feature development roadmaps would change the player archetype split.
motivated gif

Player motivations in Game Analyzer

Motivations data is displayed in a similar fashion as on any other game overview page!

This means that they are available in two places:

  • Frontpage
  • In its own motivations tab

Here is an example of my very own Junk Yard Joust PvP game. Elevator pitch: it’s slither.io Battle Royale + character development meta in a junkyard environment. (Next billion dollar idea, don’t steal). 

From the front page, we can immediately see that based on features for whom the game would fit the best.

The top three audiences would be:

  • Networkers 22%
  • King of the Hills 17%
  • Treasure hunters 16%
Junk Yard Joust PvP game overview in the GameRefinery platform

On the motivations tab, I would find the full breakdown of my Junk Yard Jousts motivational drivers and audience:

Junk Yard Joust PvP game motivations

This would give me valuable information straight out of the bat:

  1. Identify the core audience. This is something my design team could use to further polish the game experience.
  2. Identify market fit. I could immediately take this data to the market level and see if such games exist, how much they make, whether my audience even likes PvP battle royale games, and whether the game fits the target market.
  3. Reference comparison. I could immediately narrow down my list of references from the sea of PvP games to only a few. 

Using Game Analyzer’s motivational data elsewhere on the platform

As Game Analyzer projects are now available in Market Explorer, I can add my own game as its own segment. For example, we could compare Junk Yard Joust (blue) against the Battle Royale subgenre (orange) and games which have a similar audience to mine (purple). 

Player Motivations in GameRefinery Market Explorer

After doing some digging, I found a few interesting games that fit my games player profile and the core player experience I’m after. Above motivational data and side-by-side feature, a comparison is also available in the Game Comparisons motivational tab!

Player Motivations in Compare Games tool

The above data would help me in sanity checking the initial concept’s fit to the market. What to add, what to remove, is the audience there, and what would the market size be before greenlighting the project and starting the expensive and time-consuming production phase. 

Final words

Personally, we find this to be one of the most exciting player motivations related update as it closes the motivational loop in GameRefinery. Our motivations can now be used throughout the development cycle in each step by EVERYONE in the team. Market researchers, designers, product owners, marketing teams, etc., you name it!

Note that the above use cases represent only the tip of the iceberg, and the data is flexible to numerous use cases and needs!

We heard a lot of feedback and request from users to add this element to our service, and now we are motivated to see and hear the user feedback from you.

The post August 2022 Product Update: Motivations 2.5 – Player Archetypes and Motivational Drivers Are Now Available in Game Analyzer appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
June 2022 Product Update: Slack Bot 2.0 Upgrade Is Now Live https://www.gamerefinery.com/june-2022-product-update-slack-bot-2-0-upgrade-is-now-live/ Tue, 07 Jun 2022 07:51:24 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=15297 In December 2021, we released our first iteration of the Slack bot! This update spurred A LOT of feedback from our users on how we could improve the bot and make it more customizable and relevant to specific team needs.  We are happy to announce that we have completed our first round of updates, which […]

The post June 2022 Product Update: Slack Bot 2.0 Upgrade Is Now Live appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
In December 2021, we released our first iteration of the Slack bot! This update spurred A LOT of feedback from our users on how we could improve the bot and make it more customizable and relevant to specific team needs. 

We are happy to announce that we have completed our first round of updates, which we call Slack Bot 2.0! (We know, so original…)

Slack Bot 2.0. upgrade - GameRefinery platform

What is included in the Slack Bot 2.0 upgrade?

Slack Bot 2.0. upgrade - GameRefinery platform
  • Ability to filter by specific genres: You can now set the bot to notify you only of the events on the category, genre, or subgenre which are most relevant for you!
  • Filtering news events by game types – You can further choose between three kinds of games: 
    • Preferred categories, genres, or subgenres using our genre taxonomy
    • Followed games – If you, for example, follow your competitors and references
    • Followed games only – This way, you can really filter down to those games that matter to you the most. In other words, you see news events only from the games you follow.
  • Event types – There is a chance that only certain kinds of updates interest you the most. Hence you can choose between seven options, the ones of your liking:
    • Editorials – Awesome articles like this product update and our other blog posts 🧡
    • Game Updates – New updates we add to our database
    • First appearances – When new games are caught on our radar
    • New game analysis – When a new complete game overview page is added to our service
    • Post-Update – When we update an old game overview after a hiatus 
    • Soft Launch – When the game has entered to soft launch stage
    • New Game Published – When a new game is published globally

The best part is that you can combine any of the above settings and host multiple channels with your own bots. This way, you can, for example, have one company-wide channel, 2nd for the casual team, 3rd for the midcore team, 4th for the market research, etc. 

All the above customizations are also easily available in your organization setting, where you can update settings and add and remove new bots as you so wish!

Final words

We received A LOT of feedback from users after the initial launch of the Slack Bot 1.0 in December, and we have now implemented the most critical updates you brought to our attention. However, this does not mean that we are done with the bot. Keep those ideas coming, and let’s prepare for version 3.0! 😉 

01001101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110110 01100001 01101001 01101100 00100001

The post June 2022 Product Update: Slack Bot 2.0 Upgrade Is Now Live appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
Product Update May 2022: Tweaks to Data Visualization https://www.gamerefinery.com/product-update-may-2022-tweaks-to-data-visualization/ Tue, 31 May 2022 07:22:49 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=15269 Tweaking data is a constant effort here at GameRefinery, and we are always delighted to do so based on user feedback! Since launching Market Trends, we have heard the same suggestion multiple times: MORE DATA! Our data scientists can never decline a challenge, and thus we are happy to announce that we have expanded our […]

The post Product Update May 2022: Tweaks to Data Visualization appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
Tweaking data is a constant effort here at GameRefinery, and we are always delighted to do so based on user feedback! Since launching Market Trends, we have heard the same suggestion multiple times: MORE DATA!

Our data scientists can never decline a challenge, and thus we are happy to announce that we have expanded our time scale all the way back to 2018!

What this means in practice is that you are now able to see feature popularities all the way back to the point we started collecting them. Six years of historical data and feature popularities and breakdowns are now at your fingertips!

Let’s take a dive down this memory lane!

Gif for the post

With six years of data available, this gives a completely new perspective to the timespan function in Market Share. Take an example, the rise of Battle Pass’ popularity and other monetization features in Casual games over the years.

Market Trends in the GameRefinery service

It took three steps to set up this query:

  1. Select the category, genre, or subgenre we are interested in
  2. Select the feature groups – In this case, monetization
  3. Set the timespan – I chose April 1st, 2018 – May 24th, 2022

This is only an example, so in other words, we can mix these filters as we see fit! The sky’s the limit!

Feature definition tabs

You might have noticed how we have full breakdowns for all the features in GameRefinery. What these breakdown tabs have are:

  1. Definitions 
  2. Facts
  3. Implementations 

Let’s focus on the facts part!

With the new historical data, we have improved the visualization of the individual features’ historical implementation and added genre taxonomy as a filter. 

For example, let’s take base construction – Peaceful meta in puzzle games!

The popularity of meta elements

Before, you could not choose the genre or see the complete historical data of the feature. Now you can do both!

This helps you conduct your research on one page rather than hopping back and forth. 

As always, this same category, genre, or subgenre-specific data is available for all the 260 features we track! 

Final words

Getting feedback and suggestions keeps our data scientists and engineers busy while they help us improve the service! Thus, we are always happy to receive them. We hope that these minor tweaks to the visualization and the depth of the data make those few data scientists happy who asked about it – You know who you are. 😉 

If you would like us to tweak other parts of the service or see new features, do not hesitate to send us an email or use the chat function in the service! We are always all ears!

The post Product Update May 2022: Tweaks to Data Visualization appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
May 2022 Product Update: Player Archetypes and Game Analyzer Projects Now Available in Market Explorer https://www.gamerefinery.com/may-2022-product-update-player-archetypes-and-game-analyzer-projects-now-available-in-market-explorer/ Tue, 03 May 2022 05:30:01 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=15071 Market Explorer is one of the cornerstone features of the GameRefinery platform. Over the years, it has gone through multiple evolutions and minor tweaks. As many of our users use it almost daily, we have also heard a lot of feedback on how we could both improve and expand its offering. We have listened to […]

The post May 2022 Product Update: Player Archetypes and Game Analyzer Projects Now Available in Market Explorer appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
Market Explorer is one of the cornerstone features of the GameRefinery platform. Over the years, it has gone through multiple evolutions and minor tweaks. As many of our users use it almost daily, we have also heard a lot of feedback on how we could both improve and expand its offering.

We have listened to you, and thus we are happy to announce that we are bringing two significant tweaks to the Market Explorer! 

These updates are:

  1. Archetypes are added as a filter option – You can now filter games not only by individual motivational drivers but also by archetypes! Learn how your competitors build game experiences for their audience and estimate the total downloads and revenues per archetype.
  2. Game Analyzer projects can be added into the segments – Compare example concepts, production stage goals, or feature development roadmaps to the market to identify feature differences.
Gif of the post

Archetype filters in Market Explorer

There is an entirely new filter in the Market Explorer segment creation segment. 

Archetypes as a filtering option allows:

  • Designers to find specific games to focus their research on how they build the game experience for the audience
  • Market researchers to more easily estimate the total downloads and revenues per archetype 
  • User Acquisition folks to build targeting white and black lists by audiences
Segment filters in Market Explorer
Segment filters in Market Explorer

With this, you can focus on any specific archetype you are interested in instead of using our 12 motivational drivers. Let’s say we want to find thinkers who are the most significant archetype of Royal Match

Thinkers are the biggest player archetype of Royal Match
Thinkers are the most prominent player archetype of Royal Match
  1. We identify the audience we are interested in – Own or competitors’ games’ game overview is good for this!
  2. We scale the percentage share of the archetype we want to pinpoint – In this case, we want to find games where 50% of the players would be thinkers.

There we have it! 

Our segment is complete, and we have found the games out there where thinkers are at least 50% of the audience. 

What is also cool is that we have the possibility to filter thinkers’ percentages in the games data tab as all the archetypes are now filtered options!

Game Analyzer projects are now available in Market Explorer

One big feedback we heard from our users, especially from those who are in the production stage, is that they would like to bring prototypes into the Market Explorer. This would have immediate benefits:

  • Ability to sanity-check your MVP build
  • Ability to identify features for potential LiveOps stage for production MVPs
  • Ability to sanity check feature development roadmaps of live games IF you have created roadmap goal of the live game
  • Identify more potential references and competitors at the feature/system/loop level 

That is now possible in the 4th filter option – “Filter by Games.”

Segment filters in Market Explorer
Market Explore GameRefinery

Click “My Portfolio,” and you can add any game(s) from your list of completed prototypes. 

And tada!

You now have your own segment for your prototype. 

As an example, I created a comparison of my Match3 prototype (blue) vs. top-200 grossing Match3 games (orange). We can see its feature level fit for the market or any other segment we want!

Market Explorer GameRefinery
Ps. Investors, send me a message! My Match3 game is going to be a killer, as you can see!

Let’s quickly summarize what we can now do:

  1. We can add prototypes/concepts to the Market Explorer to see their market fit and to identify feature differences
  2. We can add LiveOps development goals (for example, H2 2022 of my Match3 game) and see what the future version would look like.

Final thoughts

Market Explorer has been and continues to be our gateway to the game market. We hope these motivation filters allow you to find the users by archetypes more easily!

For our development team friends, you have wanted the Game Analyzer option for a long time, so this update is also dedicated to you. You know how you are. 😉

The post May 2022 Product Update: Player Archetypes and Game Analyzer Projects Now Available in Market Explorer appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
April 2022 Product Update: Track Mobile Game Market Trends with Market Trends Tool https://www.gamerefinery.com/april-2022-product-update-track-mobile-game-market-trends-with-market-trends-tool/ Tue, 12 Apr 2022 05:40:00 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=14994 2022 is going to be an interesting year with a lot of eye-catching trends already happening. For example, NFT is a good example of how fast the mobile game market changes and evolves in a short period of time. To help our users stay up to date on what is happening, we are launching a […]

The post April 2022 Product Update: Track Mobile Game Market Trends with Market Trends Tool appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
2022 is going to be an interesting year with a lot of eye-catching trends already happening. For example, NFT is a good example of how fast the mobile game market changes and evolves in a short period of time.

To help our users stay up to date on what is happening, we are launching a completely new feature called Market Trends! 

Market Trends will replace feature trends, and the tool will be allocated under the Market Research features.

Market trends was created to solve a few use cases which our users have brought to us:

1. Expand Feature Trends to cover our genre taxonomy

Now users can use the same genre taxonomy filter to see the historical data of individual features too! This helps to close the gap between the market data, implementations, and, most importantly, individual features’ historical adaptation over time! 

What’s also great is that now you can set the timespan yourself based on your needs, so no more predetermined three, six, or twelve months filters! 

2. Look at trends in multiple markets

Market Trends will cover all seven markets. This allows you to check the above genre/subgenre-specific features also at multiple market levels. This means we’ll cover other big development markets such as Japan and China, which have their own unique trends going!

This feature is perfect for users who work on feature priorities, designs, understanding market trends, or are generally curious to know what individual trends are happening out there!

Using Market Trends is easy and straightforward! In total, there are four key filters available on the features tab of the Market Trends!

1. Genre taxonomy

Using our genre taxonomy, you can focus specifically on your closest competitors, interesting market segments, and potential references of your upcoming titles!

As all the games in our platform are categorized based on this genre taxonomy, it means you can precisely find the underlying feature trends now compared to old Feature Trends!

2. Features

We will adopt the most liked part of the trending features, which is the feature breakdown. Using the 260 features, you can easily focus on the most relevant individual features!

3. Timespan

Before, we offered three filtering options: Three, six, and twelve months. That is now in the past, and we offer dynamic filtering for our users to be very flexible with the timeframes. 

4. Sorting options

There are three underlying ways for you to sort out the data further:

  1. Trending up or trending down – It’s cool to see what features are gaining popularity, but the ability to see which are losing attraction can save you from surprises. 
  2. Top 10%, 20%, or 50% of the games – You can select the range of the focus from the top-performing games to a broader spectrum
  3. Revenue/downloads – You can rank the feature popularity changes by their impact on the said KPIs.
The popularity of monetization features in shooting games since January 1st, 2022 (source: GameRefinery SaaS service)
The popularity of monetization features in shooting games since January 1st, 2022 (source: GameRefinery SaaS service)

Here is a link to an example of the popularity of monetization features in shooting games since January 1st, 2022 😊 

Closing words:

One of the top feature requests we heard from our users was the combination of our genre taxonomy with the trending features. We also saw other opportunities to expand this further thus, in the future updates, we’ll be bringing the motivations historical data to this page too. Stay tuned for that update! 😉

The post April 2022 Product Update: Track Mobile Game Market Trends with Market Trends Tool appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
December 2021 Product Update: GameRefinery Insights Now on Slack https://www.gamerefinery.com/december-2021-product-update-gamerefinery-insights-now-on-slack/ Tue, 07 Dec 2021 13:02:11 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=14192 Even though 2021 is coming to an end soon, our development is working overtime to achieve feature requests from our users. One of the very last releases of 2021 is a fully integrated GameRefinery Slackbot! I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords! 🤖 The Slackbot is our last update to upgrade Daily Insights into […]

The post December 2021 Product Update: GameRefinery Insights Now on Slack appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
Even though 2021 is coming to an end soon, our development is working overtime to achieve feature requests from our users. One of the very last releases of 2021 is a fully integrated GameRefinery Slackbot!

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords! 🤖

The Slackbot is our last update to upgrade Daily Insights into version number 2.0.

The GameRefinery Slackbot allows you to receive customizable notifications on everything you find important in the market!

  • Are you focusing on market research? Get notifications about what is happening in the market.
  • Are you focusing on product development? Get notifications on competitors’ updates.
    … the list goes on!

The Slackbot currently covers key updates, releases, and new analyses we add to our database. Bot’s posts include hyperlinks to the content and example screenshots, which makes identifying vital updates easier!

GameRefinery Slackbot’s posts include hyperlinks to the content and example screenshots, which makes identifying important updates easier!

Adding the GameRefinery Slackbot is very quick and easy to do!

1. Click the Add to Slack button on the top of the Daily Insights page

Add to Slack button in the Game Refinery service

2. Select which workspace you like to add the bot to.
Protip: Create a specific channel before this step. Example #gamerefinerybot 😉

This step might also require your dedicated Slack admin’s approval, so please notify them first before adding the bot so they can approve it!

GameRefinery Slack Bot access

3. You are all set!
The GameRefinery bot has been added to the specific channel you’ve selected for it. You can begin inviting example colleagues to this channel and enjoy the coming updates.

GameRefinery Slack Bot

Final words

This release is the very first step we take to bring our data closer to everyone at our users’ organizations! With Slackbot, everyone in the organization can stay up to date on what is happening in the market, what kind of releases developers push, and what games are released.

We are preparing a whole dedicated roadmap for our Slackbot so you can expect cool updates coming in 2022. 😉

01000010 01100101 01100101 01110000 00100000 01100010 01101111 01101111 01110000

The post December 2021 Product Update: GameRefinery Insights Now on Slack appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
Genre Taxonomy Update April 2021 https://www.gamerefinery.com/genre-taxonomy-update-april-2021/ Tue, 13 Apr 2021 05:12:46 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=11737 As weeks turn into months and months into years, we have seen a lot of interesting trends happening in the global mobile phone game market. To make sure that these trends become more tangible for our GameRefinery users, we are rolling out our very first genre taxonomy update for the year 2021. We have also […]

The post Genre Taxonomy Update April 2021 appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
As weeks turn into months and months into years, we have seen a lot of interesting trends happening in the global mobile phone game market. To make sure that these trends become more tangible for our GameRefinery users, we are rolling out our very first genre taxonomy update for the year 2021.

We have also updated our original “New Genre Taxonomy and Why We Need It” post to accommodate these new sub-genres.

Genre Taxonomy 2021

New sub-genres are:

  • Merge Games
  • Asymmetric Survival
  • Other Casino
  • Casual Casino
  • Sovereign Games
  • Bubble Shooter
  • Tower Defense RPG

Also, the Idler sub-genre was before under the Arcade genre, but now it’s under the Simulation genre.

Here’s the updated genre taxonomy map to visualize the changes:

GameRefinery's genre taxonomy April 2021
GameRefinery’s updated genre taxonomy

In this article, we’ll introduce the new sub-genres with definitions that have been added to our genre taxonomy. We want to thank again user feedback that helped us to pick these sub-genres!

You can use these new sub-genres to:

  • Look for recently soft launched games per new sub-genre
  • Create custom segments in Market Explorer to identify competitors or references for your upcoming games
  • Browse through feature implementation examples from games per new sub-genre
  • Look what kind of updates games in each sub-genre have introduced since the soft launch.

Let us begin the introductions!

Merge Games

Merge games example
Merge games example

Check the example game Merge Dragons’ game overview page!

Definition: Merge games are all about combining/merging objects of similar type (e.g., dragons, plants, chests, buildings…) within the game to create new objects of a higher tier. Merging is often used to, e.g., clear puzzle levels or to upgrade items, buildings, or other tangible assets in the game.

Asymmetric Survival

Asymmetric Survival example
Asymmetric Survival example

Check the example game Identity V’s game overview page!

Definition: Usually, synchronous PvP games that use an asymmetric setting in team composition (e.g., 1v4). Often one side plays a “hunter” and other players are “hunted,” hence the survival theme.

Other Casino

Other Casino example
Other Casino example

Check the example game 乐乐捕鱼 game overview page – Remember to have Chinese market selected.

Definition: Casino games whose main focus is not on Slots, Bingo, or Poker. E.g., Chinese mahjong and fish-shooting games go here.

Casual Casino

Casual Casino example

Check the example game Coin Master’s game overview page!

Definition: Games that combine gambling elements with social gameplay. These games often have a casual “casino-style” core gameplay (e.g., Slots) matched with deeper meta such as town building and social elements.

Sovereign Games

Sovereign games example

Check the example game Game of Sultans’ game overview page

Definition: In Sovereign Games, players get to assume the role of a ruler – and manage, e.g., an empire or a kingdom. RPG, narrative, and simulation/management elements often play a significant part in Sovereign games.

Bubble Shooter

Bubble Shooter example

Check the example game Bubble Shooter – Panda Pops!’s game overview page

Definition: Match3 games where you shoot board pieces (e.g., bubbles) to make matches.

Tower Defence RPG

Tower Defence RPG example

Check the example game Arknights’ game overview page!

Definition: As the name implies, Tower Defence RPGs combine TD-core gameplay with substantial RPG meta elements. They are mid-core games by heart and usually feature complex character and/or item progression mechanics as well as a deep storyline.

Idler moving from Arcade-genre to Simulation

We are moving the idler sub-genre from Arcade-genre to Simulation, as for us, it represents better the current gaming ecosystem and how developers categorize games within the industry.

Conclusion

GameRefinery has an unprecedented view of the game market as we continuously analyze the games and keep our fingers on the game market’s pulse. We want our platform to reflect this. We have a gut feeling that the 2021s first genre taxonomy update won’t be the last one. 😉

Big shout out to all our users who shared their opinions and thoughts about what they saw happening in the market and what sub-genres would be interesting to track. This update is dedicated to you!

The post Genre Taxonomy Update April 2021 appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
January 2021 Product Update: Analyze Game Update Impacts Even Better with Feature Updates and Changes https://www.gamerefinery.com/january-2021-product-update-feature-updates-and-changes/ Thu, 21 Jan 2021 09:52:37 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=10248 GameRefinery’s development team took a short break during the holiday season and new year. We are now back on the grind with a massive update to three existing features. At first glance, these updates seem minor, but as we will dwell into it in this article, we find out that these are some of the […]

The post January 2021 Product Update: Analyze Game Update Impacts Even Better with Feature Updates and Changes appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
GameRefinery’s development team took a short break during the holiday season and new year. We are now back on the grind with a massive update to three existing features.

At first glance, these updates seem minor, but as we will dwell into it in this article, we find out that these are some of the biggest quality of life updates we’ve done. Big shoutout to our users who brought this idea to our attention!

In total this update introduces three new changes to the GameRefinery platform:

  1. Game Update Impacts – Ability to filter between feature changes & updates in Game Update Impacts.
  2. Sharing – Sharing relevant content from GameRefinery to other users.
  3. Soft Launches – Soft Launches with more day options filter

Image for the post

Buckle up as we are going to go through all of these in this product update article!

Game Update Impacts Changes

Starting now, you can filter updates by two categories:

  • Feature Changes – When new features have been added or removed from the game.
  • Updated Features – When new content related to the existing features have been added.

Here is the kicker: Using Update Features, you can now browse and see how developers have changed already implemented features in their games. This includes daily quests, battle pass seasons, new limited-time IAP-offers, and so on.

What this means in practice is that teams can now filter and see what kind of changes developers of best-in-class games have been making to the game’s features to analyze and see what works the best! How cool is that!

The Updated Features filter covers all the major changes we track in the feature level, such as monetization and retention features, just to name a few. This gives, for example, a completely new scope to Liveops designers!

These changes can then be backtracked to see how the specific feature might have evolved over time!

Game Update Impacts: Filter updates

This new filter goes hand in hand with the existing filters available in Update Impacts: Genre taxonomy, time period, and the type of update filter!

How to use the new filters?

Right on the top of the Features column, you see a small triangle icon.

  1. Click that icon to open the pop-up menu.
  2. Select the filter based on your interest: any changes (= this shows you both feature changes AND updated features), feature changes, or updated features.
  3. Confirm your choice by clicking the orange Select Features-button.
  4. The filter is now created!

Let us go through two use cases.

Product Owner – Seeing what kind of results competitors have had from adding a feature in the game

Product owners are constantly battling with backlog priorities. “Should I add feature X or feature Y?”

Using the Feature Changes filter, Product Owner can immediately see what kind of results competitors received from adding a similar feature that they have in their backlog.

In this scenario, we are checking battle passes added to Shooter genre games in the past 12 months.

  1. We choose the Shooter genre
  2. Set time filter to All Time
  3. Select Features filter from the type of updates filter
  4. Select only the Feature Changes filter in the features-column
  5. Choose battle pass in Select Features-Screen
  6. Show 30 Days

Feature Changes Filter in Game Update Impacts

Using this data, Product Owners can evaluate if adding the specific feature to their own game would make sense. As we set the “Show 30 Days” filter on, we can see how much revenue, download, or rev/dl metrics changed when we compare performance 30 days before and after the update. Talk about peace of mind!

Want to try the new search filter in the service yourself? Here is a link to the search query for you! 😉

Liveops Designer – Analyzing holiday updates!

I admit it. I am still in the holiday mood, so let’s look at how Liveops designers can use the filter to see what kind of holiday updates games in the Puzzle genre had in the past six months!

  1. We choose the Puzzle genre
  2. Set time filter to Past six months
  3. Select Seasonal filter under the type of update filter
  4. Select only the Updated Features filter in the Features column
  5. Choose Live events – Recurring & Live events – Non-recurring
  6. Show 7 Days results

Game Update Impacts in GameRefinery service

When an update has a green bubble and orange analyst comment icon, it means that we have screenshots AND our analyst’s take on the update — a quick and easy way to inspect and have an informative breakdown of what competitors have been doing.

To find the evolution of an existing design, click the orange Show Update-button.

Here is a link to the same search for you! 😉

In our example let us use Fishdom’s December 15th update as an example.

Now you can see the evolution of existing features. Click any of the features you are interested in to see our historical implementation examples!

Implementation Examples Special Rewards from Live Events

Here is the link to all the historical screenshots of special rewards from live events Fishdom has had. 🙂

Sharing – New button on every page!

Our fastest users might have already found new share buttons on almost every page in our service.

We have introduced the share button to multiple pages to help our users share content faster with their colleagues & bring the data points to their internal documentation or presentations.

When you click the share button, our system automatically copies the URL to your clipboard. You can then quickly paste it to Slack, Teams, email, or even hyperlink to design documents!

What is super cool is that the sharing button adapts to the games you have selected, the page you are on, and all the filters you might have selected!

The button is currently available in multiple places – Click the links for examples I have created for you!

I cannot stress enough that when you click the share button, all the filters and data points you’ve selected are saved to the generated URL, allowing you to share the same view with your colleagues practically!

Soft Launch – New time filters

More and more interesting games are moving to the soft launch. These games interest both developers, as some of them are most likely competitors, and publishers, who want to find out first the potential new hit pieces!

Based on the feedback we received from our users, we’ve expanded the time filter in our Soft Launch feature. Where we before had 30 days, we now have the option to choose 7 or 14 days! This should make discovering new interesting soft launches easier and faster!

Soft Launch mobile games in GameRefinerey service

Final words

We hope that you find this update helpful and, most importantly, actionable. As we can see, it is always these kinds of minor tweaks and updates that really make the service so much more enjoyable to use! If you have any feedback on these changes or suggestions on how we could tweak other parts of the service, do not hesitate to drop us a message!

The post January 2021 Product Update: Analyze Game Update Impacts Even Better with Feature Updates and Changes appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
December 2020 Product Update: Feature Appeal For Motivational Drivers https://www.gamerefinery.com/december-2020-product-update-motivational-drivers/ https://www.gamerefinery.com/december-2020-product-update-motivational-drivers/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2020 14:44:19 +0000 https://www.gamerefinery.com/?p=9823 The final 2020 update to Motivations is here! Since launching motivations in Q2 we have received tons of positive feedback and development suggestions! One recurring piece of feedback was the missing option of seeing the features that drive the 12 motivational drivers we track. We heard your feedback and with this update, features that appeal […]

The post December 2020 Product Update: Feature Appeal For Motivational Drivers appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
The final 2020 update to Motivations is here! Since launching motivations in Q2 we have received tons of positive feedback and development suggestions! One recurring piece of feedback was the missing option of seeing the features that drive the 12 motivational drivers we track. We heard your feedback and with this update, features that appeal to each of the 12 motivational drivers will be visible on the GameRefinery platform.

2020s last update is dedicated for our active users who with their feedback helped make GameRefinery motivations and all our tools better!

In practice, you can see which features in competitors’ games help improve specific drivers OR what features would improve your own. This way, you can stay one step ahead of the competition or be more precise with your feature road-mapping when targeting certain archetypes or desired behaviors.

In this post, we will walk you through all the places where this new data is available – with provided links to some ready to go queries!

These feature-level motivational breakdowns are available in four places and are immediately available for users who have access to motivations:

Data Glossary

All features are now categorized under motivational drivers in the Data Glossary. This is a very quick and convenient way to see how features affect particular motivations on the GameRefinery platform. 

Game overview pages

You can see the new “See Feature Effects” button next to the twelve motivational drivers. From there, you can find which of the key motivational driving features that specific game has implemented. 

PS. CSR Racing 2 is currently featured on our platform, so you can check its motivations data here 😉 

Market Explorer

Features with motivational impact are listed in Market Explorers motivations-tab as well. This is convenient for connecting your researched segments and matching games with motivational drivers when conducting market research. You can always jump from market explorer to individual games overview pages when you find something interesting!

Take these top 500 grossing 4x strategy subgenre games in the US as an example!

Compare Games

This is where it gets interesting! Are you interested in finding the features that differentiate your games, motivational drivers, from competitors’ games? That is now possible in the Compare Games motivations tab!

For example, let’s take improving skills. Mario Kart is killing it compared to CSR 2 & Offroad Outlaws. When you choose games to compare, you can see which specific features they have implemented under each motivational driver!

These three games happen to be our featured games, so you can access the data yourself. I created a segment for your convenience here 😊 

FAQ:

Is this update free?

If you already have motivations as a part of your plan, then all the data points are immediately available in your package! If not, you need to purchase motivations first. 

My plan does not currently cover motivations. How can I unlock it?

Send us a message or email through the service. We are more than happy to hear your use cases and show how GameRefinery motivations can help you solve them!

The post December 2020 Product Update: Feature Appeal For Motivational Drivers appeared first on GameRefinery.

]]>
https://www.gamerefinery.com/december-2020-product-update-motivational-drivers/feed/ 1