To rapidly develop and successfully monetize a portfolio of hyper-casual games with a small team.
Being successful in the hyper-casual games genre is no easy task, and it’s even more challenging when managing a large portfolio of games. Competition from other studios is high and players can churn quickly. This means mastering quick development cycles and consistently delivering new users who drive monetization are keys to success. When GameJam started making and monetizing hyper-casual games with Unity they found a partner that could help them deliver on both fronts.
GameJam prides itself on being a community leader through its efforts to host and support developer events in Vietnam’s growing games industry. Part of the reason why they have the bandwidth to be a community leader is because of the efficiency the Unity platform gives them in creating fun and engaging game experiences. They utilize a variety of creative tools in Unity to help them stay on top of fast development cycles while delivering the bright visuals their games are known for.
“I love the Package Manager and find the Asset Store, Cinemachine, Device Simulator, TextMeshPro, ProGrids, and ProBuilder all to be very helpful for our fast development process,” says Thien Nguyen, a developer at GameJam. Beyond creative tools, a studio favorite for driving efficiency is Crash Reporter. “Unity crash reporting is very helpful. The detailed exception reports enable us to build better products for our players,” says GameJam cofounder Hoa Ngo.
Having a large portfolio of games to manage means GameJam needed a quick and reliable way to implement and manage their game economies. The ad quality and variety they get from Unity Ads helps drive revenue for them and the easy SDK integration process for both iOS and Android is a time-saver they appreciate.
When it came to managing the details of their eCPM, GameJam looked to Unity for guidance. “We recommend working with your account manager to get their recommendations on what eCPM floors could potentially work for your game. We’ve found that having the ability to set more floors with Unity can help drive incremental revenue,” shares Ngo.
As GameJam develops more hyper-casual games at an accelerated pace, user acquisition (UA) is critical to driving monetization, so finding an effective UA partner has been a game changer for them. In 2020, GameJam acquired over 85% of their installs for their Rhythm game via Unity, and of the 15 ad partners they work with, Unity performs the best for return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Ngo explains their strategy for successful user acquisition. “We recommend you run with no budget caps, find the right prices for your game based on your threshold for the number of days to break even, and ensure your cost per install (CPI) is lower than your lifetime value (LTV). We frequently update our creative, try both videos and playable ads in the same campaign, and explore using different concepts and languages for Japan, China, and Taiwan.”
Keeping track of UA goals for multiple games across several target countries in Asia-Pacific can be a lot to manage. With the Unity Report Builder, GameJam always has easy access to understanding their campaign performance, which Ngo really appreciates. “If you’re like GameJam and have a lot of apps to manage, we highly recommend checking out the Unity Report Builder in the Unity Acquire dashboard. We use these custom reports to answer ad hoc questions, and learn more about performance and spend behavior at a portfolio level.”
For studios like GameJam, having a turnkey solution that allows them to quickly develop new games – and acquire and monetize new players – is key to growing their portfolio. With Unity, they have a partner they can trust and has creator’s success as their goal regardless if that’s making games or monetizing them.
“Unity is one of our most trusted partners. In a world where some ad networks now compete with developers, it’s helpful to have a powerful ally like Unity behind you that wants to make the world a better place by enabling creators like ourselves to exist and flourish,” says Ngo.
Knowing they can rely on Unity to help them be successful gives this enterprising studio the power to keep creating fun and engaging games, while still playing an active role in the game development scene in Vietnam.
