Chapter 13. Third-Party Integration, Monetization, and Services

Android game development or any other smartphone game development is not complete without implementing background services. Background services help the game spread and perform to reach the next level.

The style of game development has changed a lot with time. New styles and monetization techniques have been introduced. New game services have been created to support these techniques. Many tech companies start their own services to create a new industry. Any work we do professionally is mainly to earn our living, and the gaming industry is not an exception. However, this industry is targeting entertainment, fun, and interactivity between a device and the user. Developers make money based on this. All the third-party integration and services help developers monetize the game, which directly or indirectly helps increase revenue.

Services can be any background support that is not game specific and can improve the experience of a game...

Google Play Services

Google is currently the largest platform for Android applications. Moreover, Google is the owner of the Android OS. So, there can be no one better than Google to be the service provider for the Android platform.

Google Play Services is a background service for all Android devices to access all Google service product APIs. It was launched in 2012 to support Android development and take it to the next level.

The most used services in the Google Play Services package are:

• Google Analytics

• Google IAB

• Google Leaderboard

• Push notifications

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a service to track each and every event in the game. This can reveal user behavior, user actions, the number of users playing per day, each user's playing time, and so on. So, no data can go unnoticed by the developer. This analytic data helps developers identify the critical sections in the game. With this help, the developer can improve the game for better experience.

Significance

It is not always possible to...

Multiplayer implementation

There was a time when multiplayer was limited to conventional PC and console gaming. The modern day gaming industry consists of extensive use of social networking. This automatically opens up the opportunity for multiplayer gaming.

Improved hardware systems and continuous network support with modern connectivity have enhanced the world of multiplayer gaming. Multiplayer gaming can be classified mainly into two categories:

• Real-time multiplayer

• Turn-based multiplayer

Real-time multiplayer

Real-time multiplayer is just like playing sports together, where every player reacts to any action by the game or other players at the same time. For example, a football game is played by 22 players, and each and every player acts as per the situation at the same time. If we imagine the same scenario from a digital gaming perspective, it will be called a real-time multiplayer.

In the general structure of multiplayer games, there should be a server where the gameplay runs with all the...

Analytic tools

We have already discussed Google Analytics. There are several other analytics services other than Google. We will discuss analytics from a general point of view.

Analytics tools are inevitable for games. They help developers understand users better, which has a direct effect on game quality, user retention, and monetization.

Requirement of analytics tools

Developers have been collecting and analyzing data from users in many forms for years. Often, we have encountered forms and analysis enquiries about many products. This data helps the developer or manufacturer modify or improve the product.

Let's have look at the variety of data from analytics and its importance through the following points:

• User behavior

• Game crash reports

• Game event triggers

• Gameplay session timing

• Gameplay frequency

• Game balancing

• User retention

• Piracy prevention

User behavior

Analytic tools can track each and every movement of every user. This data can be further analyzed, and user behavior inside games can be guessed...

Android in-app purchase integration

In-app purchase is a feature through which the application's component can be bought from inside the application with the help of several payment gateways. This is one major aspect of monetization for Android games.

What are in-app purchases?

In the modern day gaming industry, freemium games are booming. This means users can play the game for free, but they have to pay for certain components or for game progression advantages. This model has been proved to be a success, as it supports both free and premium concept in terms of digital gaming.

In-app purchases serve this purpose perfectly. We have already discussed Google In-App Billing services, which is just a means of in-app purchasing through Google. But there are other services that support the same thing.

In general, a game should offer in-app purchase items to give users a choice to buy the following types of content:

• Unlock certain features in the game

• Buy certain items to get an advantage over other players...

Android in-game advertisements

In-game advertisements are the most significant factor in monetization for both free and freemium games. Developers use their game platform to show advertisements in order to generate revenue.

Here is how it works:

1. Advertisers submit the advertisements to various advertisement agencies.

2. Each advertisement has a certain value and time duration limitation, which is called campaign cost and campaign time, respectively.

3. The developer subscribes with those agencies.

4. The developer integrates the agency advertisement platform to include and show advertisements.

5. The developer sets the parameters for advertisement types, genre, and level.

6. When the application triggers an advertisement call to the agency server, it looks for the available or running advertisement campaigns that match the criteria predefined by the developer.

7. Upon successful match, the server sends the advertisement elements to the client device application.

8. The application loads the advertisements.

9. The application...

Monetization techniques

Monetization is basically a system or strategy to generate revenue from any application. The developer needs to decide their game monetization model based on the game requirements. We can classify these models into four categories:

• Premium model

• Free model

• Freemium model

• Try-and-buy model

Premium model

This is a typical pay-before-play model. The user needs to pay for the game before downloading it. Normally, these games do not have in-app purchases or in-game advertisements. This is just a one-time buy for the user for the gameplay, and normally all users have the same opportunity for game progression.

Free model

This kind of model offers the game for free but may include in-game advertisements to generate revenue. The user can play the complete game for free but does not have any extra privileges for any actions.

Freemium model

This model offers the game for free, and the game can be played completely without any real currency spent on it. However, this model offers in-app...

Planning game revenue

As far as we have discussed, we have a fair idea of game revenue generation. A game developer cannot keep on developing games without generating revenue or having strong financial support. Let's discuss game planning now, to keep a developer developing games.

Revenue versus profit

Most new game developers do not know that revenue and profit are two different things.

Revenue is the gross amount of money that a game generates directly from users. Making a game may cost money to developers, and each third-party medium may charge a certain percentage of revenue or some amount for the services. After all the required payments and cuts, the remaining amount is called profit. So, high revenue does not mean high profit.

However, without generating revenue, there cannot be any profit. So, the developer must plan revenue in order to generate profit.

Revenue sources

Now, we know that generating revenue is necessary. To generate revenue, the developer must know about the possible revenue...

User acquisition techniques

If a game has no users, it is as good as scrap. This does not mean that the game quality or design is bad. In the Android gaming market, more than 5 million games are published. Hundreds of games are being published every day, which is increasing the competition.

In this immense crowd, a single game may disappear, irrespective of its quality, but due to having a poor or no marketing strategy. A game can only be successful if it has a significant number of users and good retention.

Let's have a look at few of the user acquisition techniques through the following topics:

• Game promotion channels

• Game blogs and forum discussions

• Paid user acquisitions

• Other techniques

Game promotion channels

There are several ways to promote the game in the market. There are some game promotion channels that advertise in various mediums. A specific game genre channel promotes the same kind of games. Let's look at few of these mediums:

• YouTube channels

• Android forums

• Sports forums

• Facebook promotions...

User retention techniques

Creating a good user base might not be enough to generate decent revenue to gain profit out of the game. Hence comes the term user retention. This means the number of users who are playing the game repeatedly.

Users may download a game, and after a few game sessions, they may never come back. In another scenario, the user may come back again and again to the game. User retention is calculated on time parameters such as weekly or monthly use. This means how many users are coming back to the game within the given time period.

Free and freemium game revenue mostly depends on user retention, because the developer converts the time spent inside the game into revenue through several revenue generations plans. That is why user retention becomes important for doing business with games.

There are many techniques to improve user retention other than the core metagame. Let's discuss the major techniques through these points:

• Daily bonus

• Leaderboards and achievements

• Offerwall integration...

Featuring Android games

A successful game means both profits and fame. A game can be profitable with a good monetization design and marketing. However, getting famous is not that easy. A game becomes famous if it gets featured in various places.

A game can be featured with the help of the following qualities and criteria:

• Creativity and uniqueness

• User reviews and ratings

• Download count

• Revenue amount

Creativity and uniqueness

There are many game critics and reviewers present in the game industry. There are many articles, blogs, magazines, and sites that follow, review, and talk about games. Game creativity and uniqueness are the biggest factors for such mediums. The quality of the game depends on these in terms of game art, game design, and playability. A good art style, good design, and playability can make a game get featured by game stores, magazines, or blogs. In such ways, the developer can make a game famous, which may lead to more users and revenue.

User reviews and ratings

After publishing...

Publishing Android games

So far, you've learned how to reach users and how to make revenue out of the game. However, these are the steps after the game gets published in the market. There are two ways through which the developer can publish the game:

• Self publishing

• Publishing through publishers

Let's have a quick look at this segment of game development.

Self publishing

When users publish under their own banner and name, it is called self publishing. In this case, developers keep 100% of the equity in the games and own the game IPs themselves. Self publishing games are totally controlled by developers. Developers take full responsibility for the game, game ratings and reviews, game revenue, and user satisfaction.

Publishing through publishers

Often, a developer does not have bandwidth to take full game responsibility after publishing it. In this case, the developer may approach established publishers to publish the game. A few times, publishers have their own terms and conditions, and requirements...

Summary

You learned about the whole game development cycle in this chapter. Developers should be capable of taking the right decision for the game to taste success. It is a well-known fact that success does not come easily. This chapter shows all the factors of a game that need to be taken care of to achieve success.

Making a good game is not enough; making a unique game is not enough; making good graphics is not enough; and having a good design is not enough. A game's developers must take help from other third-party services if they are not capable of doing it on their own. Using social platforms is also a must.

Finally, choosing the right publishing place and targeting the correct audience for the game can bring success. In the case of Android-specific gaming, there are already established publishing houses, stores, and other third-party service providers available. The developer needs to assemble all of them carefully after the game has been made. Otherwise, there is a strong possibility...