Level up your mobile indie skills with the Indie XP series

There’s a lot more to a successful mobile game than the core development. In this speaker series, we explore all the fundamentals outside of game development that will take your indie mobile game to the next level. These are the key areas across game design, marketing, business, live operations, and more that will work to make your indie game a success after launch.

In Season 1 of the Indie XP series, we explore:

• Understanding your core game loop.
• Monetization and game design.
• Promoting your game with creative assets.
• Launching your indie game.
• Effective mobile marketing.
• Making your game a live service.
• Analytics and key metrics.

Dive in with Unity and Unico Studios to understand areas of your game that can hurt player experience and can be detrimental to user acquisition (UA). We share changes you can make to core game elements, and pay special attention to those that help keep players engaged.

Key takeaways

• Player retention and engagement are key to a game’s long-term success.
• Think about key components of your game mechanics with retention in mind.
• Long-term retention/engagement is more important than basic revenue.
• Always put players first

What does monetizing a game mean, and why is it different for big game studios vs indies? We break down the process, discuss the “players” in the ecosystem, and provide easy steps to follow so you can play and succeed in the monetization game.

Key takeaways

• Monetization works best when it’s seamlessly incorporated into game design.
• When choosing ads, look at format, economy mix, genre, and user-initiated vs not.
• Consider your options: Working with single or multiple ad partners.
• Understand the metrics to track success.

Why are creative assets important for promoting your game? In this session with Luna Labs and Tripledot Studios, we explore how to plan, develop, and implement truly compelling assets to get your indie mobile game noticed after launch.

Key takeaways

• Take advantage of advertising creative - it’s in your control.
• Leverage advertising creative to shape your game.

Featuring technical lead Omar Abdelwahed from East Side Games, we walk you through the major stages that will take your game from concept to worldwide launch – and beyond. This includes everything from your initial development gates to soft launch.

Key takeaways

• Map out the development phases and stage gates during concept.
• Identify your target audience, elements of fun, and core mechanics.
• Plan organic and paid strategy early around retention and monetization.
• Test and iterate (then do it again)

How can a marketing campaign grow your game? To find out, join Eric Seufert and Mark Robinson for this exploration of marketing fundamentals within the context of indie games. We discuss effective strategies and methodologies needed for social, influencers, content, and more.

Key takeaways

• Your marketing strategy should start in the early game concept phase.
• Use marketing exercises to survey the market and identify optimal game mechanics, theme, and tone.
• Consider marketing and user acquisition as distinct initiatives.

Join Unity and Ludia to find out why having a live-service model in your indie game matters and discover the advantages. We discuss how to create live-service campaigns, in-app content, communications, marketing, and more.

Key takeaways

• Plan your live operations strategy ahead of time.
• Data is your friend - use it to inform your live service.
• Prioritize player retention overall.
• Be open to change when it comes to your live service.

Are you developing an indie mobile game? Join us and our partner Adjust to explore the metrics, reporting, and optimization necessary for success. We’ll also dive into what the core metrics mean and how you can leverage them to take your game to the next level.

Key takeaways

• Dive deep into why your users churn and what makes them come back.
• Increase user lifetime value (LTV) and retention by reactivating churned users.
• Increase return on investment (ROI) by optimizing your most engaging channels and networks.
• Create a highly targeted audience based on user funnels.
• Sync uninstall and reinstall metrics to power up your engagement strategy.

Looking to grow your skills with more great sessions from Unity? Check out the Unite Now homepage for inspiring talks, demos, Q&As, and more.