The Four Best Reasons to Raise Your Game With a Publisher
26 May 2022
Let’s say you’re a mobile game development studio with a newly launched title that’s doing pretty well. You clearly have the production talent on hand, and you think this game could be the next big mobile hit. But for that to happen, you need to get players’ eyes on it, and that requires capital, analytics and marketing expertise you can’t yet scale for. What’s more, in an oversaturated marketplace, the only titles that seem to be popping are those with big IPs or the direct attention of mobile platforms.
According to the most recent Statista survey, Mobile Gaming revenue is expected to reach $125 Billion in 2022 and $175 Billion by 2026 with an annual growth rate (CAGR 2022-2026) of 8.73%. Mobile game consumer spend reached $116 Billion in 2021 (data.ai) and is set to reach $138 Billion by 2025 (Sensor Tower). That’s a MASSIVE market. And with thousands of mobile games launching every week, the market is incredibly saturated and the competition is fierce.
So how do you stand out? How do you RAISE YOUR GAME?
Scaling a game is not easy. Many indie developers don’t have the resources or bandwidth to battle their way to the top. That’s where publishing power comes in, particularly Tilting Point’s unique Progressive Publishing model that takes established games to the next level through a growing personal partnership.
In this blog we’ll explain the top four reasons you should work with a games publisher, starting with…
1. Capital Investment
User acquisition is single-handedly the most expensive part of scaling a mobile game. Financial support is imperative. Some of the largest gaming companies will spend millions on UA. This simply isn’t possible when you’re an emerging development team.
At Tilting Point, we offer a FREE UA test to acquire users for your game. We then compile an overall evaluation of the scaling potential of the game based on a variety of factors including game mechanics, user behavior, player sentiment, retention rate, and more. If the evaluation is successful, and we decide to move forward together, we will provide ongoing UA funds from our $127M annual UA war chest for the lifetime of your game, so long as we are partners.
That’s what happened with our longest-running free-to-play title Star Trek Timelines, which we first partnered on in 2017 and spent $7.5M on UA in the first two years. This partnership grew from just UA funding to UA management, and eventually into acquisition with the formation of our first-party development studio Wicked Realm Games, during all of which our investment never slowed.
2. Marketing & Talent
We understand how hard it is for indie developers to rapidly scale their games and continue to achieve success. You know how to make amazing games, but marketing them requires a totally separate skillset. Besides just increased UA funding, this is one of the major advantages to partnering with a mobile games publisher.
Partnering with a publisher provides access to deep marketing and product expertise, as well as cutting-edge technology. At Tilting Point we maintain a $127M annual UA war chest, and a team that will guide partners step-by-step through our Progressive Publishing model and ultimately help achieve success for their game.
When partnering with Tilting Point, you’ll have full access to individuals and teams with expertise in:
- User Acquisition Funding & Management
- Platform Relationships
- App Store Optimization (ASO)
- Ad Monetization & Mediation
- Live Operations & Production Management
- Creative Asset Creation
- Game Development Funding
- Game Design
- Community Management
- Marketing & PR Strategy
- IP Integrations
- Tokenomics & Design
- NFT Marketplace & Minting
- Publisher Loyalty Program
We brought a strong combination of these services to the indie space sim TerraGenesis, along with an all-important port to Android devices. The result was a 5x increase in total installs in the first two years of our UA management & investment.
As an exciting next step in our marketing services, Tilting Point has entered the emerging world of Web3 gaming with our announcement of top blockchain industry partnerships. What this means is providing a common ground solution for Web2 and Web3 developers. We will bridge games from Web2 to Web3, we will help F2P partners expand into Play to Earn, and, with our extensive publishing expertise, we will help native Web3 game companies reach broader audiences. Adding Web3 as a main amplifier will offer deeper engagement and retention for all the games we work with, and is a natural extension of what we do as the ideal growth partner for developers.
Partners who join Tilting Point in exploring Web3 will gain access to a low-code, blockchain-free API from Stardust, allowing them to integrate NFTs quickly and cost-effectively into their games. They’ll also have use of the efficient and low-cost Web3 platform from Polygon Studios, to build and launch games on the blockchain while ensuring the highest security and lowest carbon footprint.
3. Data & Technology
A strong publisher can provide access to key tools for both automation and optimization; not just third party platforms, but proprietary in-house technology as well. For example, Tilting Point boasts unique tools for creative automation (CAT), data-driven optimization for UA spending (DORA), and machine learning to improve game economies and monetization (Gondola). You can read about each of these tools here.
Proper publishing tools are perhaps most important when dealing with seismic shifts in the gaming industry. We saw this in 2021 with the scramble around Apple’s targeting permissions changes in iOS 14.5. Many thought it would be the apocalypse, but far-sighted publishers like Tilting Point were prepared to weather the storm. In the end, not only did we manage to maintain most of our spend for developers’ games on iOS, but some titles like Adventure Escape Mysteries actually saw their revenue double thanks to iOS14-specific strategies, as well as the tools listed above.
4. Partnerships
When you’re a development team just starting out, you’re probably spending most of your time navigating the technical constraints of Apple and Google’s software as opposed to forging relationships with them. By contrast, a publisher who has had years of cooperation with platform partners can guide developers down ideal paths they might otherwise miss.
Tilting Point has built up relationships with Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and more for an entire decade, and we know how to capitalize on market placement and exposure for your indie game. Additionally, we have long-standing relationships with a multitude of gaming and mediation networks to further pump up user acquisition and monetization.
Sometimes in the course of a partnership, it’s determined that a particular game could thrive on another platform besides iOS & Android. With the connections made to alternate platforms such as the Microsoft Store, Steam and Nintendo Switch, as well as to regional publishers who can open doorways to otherwise sealed global markets, Tilting Point can help uncover brand new revenue streams. Our hit title SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off started exclusively on mobile, but has been downloaded 2 million times on Windows, and has been in the Top 20 Best Sellers for Switch.
Lastly, how can you pretty much guarantee store visibility with your next live ops integration or all-new game? Tilting Point has outstanding relationships with licensors at ViacomCBS, Nickelodeon, MGM and others, based on previous game launches. We also have a host of powerful IP options waiting for the right game engine to propel forward. For a great example of IP integration success, you can look at our work on Astrokings with limited time events featuring characters from Stargate SG-1, courtesy of MGM. This event took place two times in 2021, with game installs increasing by four times for each event period.
Let’s RAISE YOUR GAME together!
As pioneers of the Progressive Publishing model, Tilting Point is a partnership-first company that amplifies and accelerates developers’ businesses and games. Whether through our UA fund, Web3 enhancement, co-development, or M&A, we’re dedicated to helping your game reach its full potential and helping your company succeed.
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Tilting Point is a leading free-to-play publisher that powers up existing live games using deep marketing and product expertise, cutting-edge technology and a user acquisition war chest. Recognized as one of the top mobile game makers in the world by PocketGamer.biz in 2021, Tilting Point was founded in 2012, and has grown to a staff of over 460 people with offices in New York, Barcelona, Boston, Kyiv, Los Angeles, Seoul & San Diego. Tilting Point’s most successful games include SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off, Star Trek Timelines, and Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest.
