Showing posts with label Google Play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Play. Show all posts

Thursday, October 20, 2016

New video tips to help news publishers find success on Google Play

Posted by Tamzin Taylor - Strategic Partner Lead, Google Play





Today we have released a three-part video series ‘Tips for
your news app on Google Play’
, where you can find actionable tips
and learn best practices for developing, launching and monetising a high quality
news app. The video series accompanies the recently published href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Google_Inc_The_News_Publisher_Playbook_for_Android?id=O7T3CwAAQBAJ">News
Publisher Playbook
.

href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc_ElGrEtiEXc83m1SeYu3-Q">Watch
the video series
to learn:

  • 10 tips on how to design and develop your News app
  • 10 tips to help you launch your News app and start gaining readers
  • 10 tips to engage your readers and monetize your News app




You can also href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Google_Inc_The_News_Publisher_Playbook_for_Android?id=O7T3CwAAQBAJ&hl=en_GB">get
the News Publisher Playbook on the Play Store
to help you develop a
successful news mobile strategy on Android. It includes tips on mobile website
optimization, how to create a Google Play Newsstand edition, how to improve your
native app, and more.

Give us your feedback

Once you’ve checked out the video series, we’d love to hear your feedback so we
can continue to help you find success with and achieve your business objectives.
Leave a comment or a thumbs up, and href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVHFbqXqoYvEWM1Ddxl0QDg?sub_confirmation=1">subscribe
to the Android Developers YouTube channel
!

Also, href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc_ElGrEtiEXc83m1SeYu3-Q">check
out our other videos in in the Tips for Success on Google Play series
,
including the recent video on href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfwHq8w9GBc&list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc_ElGrEtiEXc83m1SeYu3-Q&index=11">10
tips to build an app for billions of users
.

For more best practices to find success on Google Play, href="http://g.co/play/playbook-androiddevblogposts-evergreen">get the new
Playbook for Developers app
.








Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Announcing the Google Play Indie Games Festival in San Francisco, Sept. 24

Posted by Jamil Moledina, Google Play, Games Strategic Lead


If you’re an indie game developer, you know that games are a powerful medium of
expression of art, whimsy, and delight. Being on Google Play can help you reach
over a billion users and build a successful, global business. That’s why we
recently introduced programs, like the href="https://play.google.com/store/info/topic?id=topic_b000054_games_indie_corner_tp&e=-EnableAppDetailsPageRedesign">Indie
Corner
, to help more gamers discover your works of art.


To further celebrate and showcase the passion and innovation of indie game
developers, we’re hosting the Google Play Indie Games Festival at the href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Terra+Gallery+%26+Event+Venue/@37.785531,-122.3929643,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xf5fb5bcb9c7795ab!8m2!3d37.785531!4d-122.3929643">Terra
Gallery
in San Francisco, on September 24.





This is a great opportunity for you to showcase your indie title to the public,
increase your network, and compete to win great prizes, such as Tango devices,
free tickets for Google I/O 2017, and Google ad campaign support. Admission will
be free and players will get the chance to play and vote on their favorites.


If you’re interested in showcasing your game, we’re href="https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSduaM998L0WXm_4znsZjHX5-unZLBChNXHuCHbTlWuAcmMNmQ/viewform">accepting
submissions
now through August 14. We’ll then select high-quality games that
are both innovative and fun for the festival. Submissions are open to US and
Canadian developers with 15 or less full time staff. Only games published on or
after January 1, 2016 or those to be published by December 31, 2016 are
eligible. See href="https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSduaM998L0WXm_4znsZjHX5-unZLBChNXHuCHbTlWuAcmMNmQ/viewform">complete
rules
.


We encourage virtual reality and augmented reality game submissions that use the
Google VR SDK and the href="https://store.google.com/product/tango_tablet_development_kit?srp=/product/project_tango_tablet_development_kit">Tango
Tablet Development Kit
.


At the end of August, we’ll announce the group of indies to be featured at the
festival.


You can learn more about the event href="https://events.withgoogle.com/google-play-indie-game-festival/">here.
We can’t wait to see what innovative and fun experiences you share with us!


Android Developer Story: StoryToys finds success in the ‘Family’ section on Google Play


Posted by Lily Sheringham, Google Play team


Based in Dublin, Ireland, href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8762313232916265908">StoryToys
is a leading publisher of interactive books and games for children. Like most
kids’ app developers, they faced the challenges of engaging with the right
audiences to get their content discovered. Since the launch of the Family
section on Google Play, StoryToys has experienced an uplift of 270% in revenue
and an increase of 1300% in downloads.


Hear Emmet O’Neill, Chief Product Officer, and Gavin Barrett, Commercial
Director, discuss how the Family section creates a trusted and creative space
for families to find new content. Also hear how beta testing, localized pricing
and more, has allowed StoryToy’s flagship app, href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.storytoys.myveryhungrycaterpillar.free.android.googleplay">My
Very Hungry Caterpillar
, to significantly increase engagement and revenue.



href="https://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/families/about.html">Learn
more about Google Play for Families
and href="http://g.co/play/playbook-androiddevblogposts-evergreen">get the Playbook
for Developers app
to stay up-to-date with more features and best practices
that will help you grow a successful business on Google Play.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Improvements for smaller app downloads on Google Play

Posted by Anthony Morris, SWE Google Play


Google Play continues to grow rapidly, as Android users installed over 65
billion apps in the last year from the Google Play Store. We’re also seeing
developers move to update their apps more frequently to push great new content,
patch security vulnerabilities, and iterate quickly on user feedback.


However, many users are sensitive to the amount of data they use, especially if
they are not on Wi-Fi. Google Play is investing in improvements to reduce the
data that needs to be transferred for app installs and updates, while making
data cost more transparent to users.


Read on to understand the updates and learn some tips for ways to optimize the
size of your APK.

New Delta algorithm to reduce the size of app updates



For approximately 98% of app updates from the Play Store, only changes(deltas) to APK files are downloaded and merged with the existing
files, reducing the size of updates. Google Play has used delta algorithms since 2012, and we recently rolled out an additional delta algorithm, href="http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/">bsdiff href="http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/">(created by Colin Percivalid="fnref1">1href="http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/">), that our experimentation shows
can reduce delta size by up to 50% or more compared to the previous algorithm
for some APKs. Bsdiff is
specifically targeted to produce more efficient deltas of native libraries by
taking advantage of the specific ways in which compiled native code changes
between versions. To be most effective, native libraries should be stored
uncompressed (compression interferes with delta algorithms).


An example from Chrome:


Patch Description



Previous patch size

Bsdiff Size





M46 to M47 major update

22.8 MB

12.9 MB




M47 minor update

15.3 MB

3.6 MB





Apps that don’t have uncompressed native libraries can see a 5% decrease in size
on average, compared to the previous delta algorithm.

Applying the delta algorithm to APK Expansion Files to further
reduce update size



APK Expansion Files allow you to include additional large files up to 2GB in
size (e.g. high resolution graphics or media files) with your app, which is
especially popular with games. We have recently expanded our delta and
compression algorithms to apply to these APK Expansion Files in addition to
APKs, reducing the download size of initial installs by 12%, and updates by 65%
on average. APK Expansion file patches use the href="http://xdelta.org/">xdelta algorithm.

Clearer size information in the Play Store



Alongside the improvements to reduce download size, we also made information
displayed about data used and download sizes in the Play Store clearer. You can
now see actual download sizes, not the APK file size, in the Play Store. If you
already have an app, you will only see the update size. These changes are
rolling out now.






  1. Colin Percival, Naive differences of executable code,
    http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/, 2003. 




Example 1: Showing new “Download size” of APK




Example 2: Showing new “Update size” of APK



Tips to reduce your download sizes


1. Optimize for the right size measurements: Users care about download size (i.e. how many bytes are transferred when installing/updating an app), and they care about disk size (i.e. how much space the app takes up on disk). It’s important to note that neither of these are the same as the original APK file size nor necessarily correlated.



Chrome example:


























Compressed Native Library Uncompressed Native Library
APK Size 39MB 52MB (+25%)
Download size (install) 29MB 29MB (no change)
Download size (update) 29MB 21MB (-29%)
Disk size 71MB 52MB (-26%)



Chrome found that initial download size remained the same by not compressing the native library in their APK, while the APK size increased, because Google Play already performs compression for downloads. They also found that the update size decreased, as deltas are more effective with uncompressed files, and disk size decreased as you no longer need an compressed copy of the native library. However, please note, native libraries should only be uncompressed when the minimum SDK version for an APK is 23 (Marshmallow) or later.

2. Reduce your APK size: Remove unnecessary data from the APK like unused resources and code.

3. Optimize parts of your APK to make them smaller: Using more efficient file formats, for example by using WebP instead of JPEG, or by using Proguard to remove unused code.

href="https://medium.com/google-developers/smallerapk-part-1-anatomy-of-an-apk-da83c25e7003#.jgy8wuni9">Read
more about reducing APK sizes
and watch the I/O 2016 session href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xctGIB81D2w">‘Putting Your App on a
Diet’
to learn from
Wojtek Kaliciński, about how to reduce the size of your APK
.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

5 Tips to help you improve game-as-a-service monetization

Posted by Moonlit Wang, Partner Development Manager at Google Play
Games, & Tammy Levy, Director of Product for Mobile at href="http://developers.kongregate.com/">Kongregate



In today’s world of game-as-a-service on mobile, the lifetime value of a player
is a lot more complex, where revenue is now the sum of many micro transactions
instead of a single purchase with traditional console games.


Of course you don’t need a sophisticated statistical model to understand that
the more time a player invests in your game, and the more money they spend, the
greater their LTV. But how can you design and improve monetization as a mobile
game developer? Here are 5 tips to help you improve game-as-a-service
monetization, with best practice examples from mobile games publisher, href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=7580247376460930437&hl=en_GB">Kongregate:


1. Track player behavior metrics that have a strong and positive correlation with LTV




  • D1, D7, D30 retention indicates how well a casual player
    can be converted into a committed fan.
  • Session length and frequency measures user engagement and
    how fun your game is.
  • Completion rate at important milestones can measure and
    pinpoint churn.
  • Buyer and repeated buyer conversion, represents your most
    valuable user segment.


2. Optimize for long-term engagement and delight your best players

Retention is the first metric that can distinguish great games from mediocre
ones. Games with higher retention rates throughout the user’ lifecycle, monetize
better consistently. Retention is king, and more importantly, long-term
retention should be prioritized.
Therefore, when designing your game,
aim to create a sophisticated and engaging experience to delight your most
committed fans.



[This chart shows the retention of top games / apps over time]





  • When considering long term retention, focus on achieving a strong D30, but
    also look beyond the first 30 days. Measure long term retention
    by assessing the following rates: D30 to D60, D30 to D90, and D30 to D180. The
    higher the rate, the stickier your game is in the long term, which will increase
    your LTV.
  • Players are willing to pay a fixed amount of money per hour of “fun”, so
    think about updates when designing your game, to make
    the content rich and fun for those who will play at very high levels and
    spend the most time within your game
    , don’t gate your players or hinder
    their in-game progression.
  • Use the href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2016/01/new-features-to-better-understand.html">Google
    Play Games Services - Funnel Report
    to help you track different
    milestone completion rates in your games, so you can identify drop off points
    and reduce churn
.
3. Increase buyer conversion through targeted offers



First-time buyer conversion is the most important as player churn rate
drops significantly after the first purchase
, but stays relatively flat
regardless of the amount spent. Also, past purchase behavior is the best
predictor of future purchases. Find your first-time and repeated buyer
conversion rate directly in the href="https://developer.android.com/distribute/users/user-acquisition.html">Developer
Console.






  • Use A/B testing to find the price that will maximize your total
    revenue
    . Different people have different willingness to pay for
    a given product
    and the tradeoff between price and quantity is
    different for different products, so don’t decrease prices blindly.
  • Tailor your in-game experience as well as in-app purchase offersbased on the player’s predicted probability to spend using the href="https://developers.google.com/games/services/android/stats">Player Stats
    API
    ,
    which
    predicts players churn and spend.




For example, in href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Kongregate&hl=en_GB&e=-EnableAppDetailsPageRedesign">Kongregate’s
game href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kongregate.mobile.spellstone.google&hl=en_GB">Spellstone,
testing two pricing points for a promotion called Shard Bot, which provides
players with a daily “drip” of Shards (the premium currency) for 30 days, showed
players had a much stronger preference for the higher priced
pack.
The first pack, Shard Bot, priced at $4, granted players 5 daily
shards, and the second pack, the Super Shard Bot, was priced at $8 and granted
players 10 daily shards.





[Two week test results showing preference for the more expensive pack, which also generated more revenue]




Kongregate decided to keep the higher priced Super Shard Bot in the store,
although both packs resulted in very similar retention rates:




4. As well as what monetization features to implement, take into consideration why, when and how to do so





  • Why: “Buyer intent” is most important. Any item with a
    price tag should serve to enhance your players in-game experience.
    For
    example, a new map, a new power, something exciting and additional to the free
    experience. Don’t gate your players with a purchase-only item as happy users
    means more time spent with your game, which will lead to higher
    revenue. Educate users by gifting some free premium goods and currency during the tutorial, and let users experience the benefit first.





  • When: Time offers based on when users may need it.
    If your IAP is to continue gameplay after timeout, then you should surface it
    right when the timer ends. If your IAP is to offer premium equipment, then you
    should surface it when users gear up their characters. The offer should be
    contextually relevant, such that the content should cater to the player’s
    current status and needs in-game.




    In particular, Starter Packs or New Buyer Promos need to be well timed. Players
    need to understand the value and importance of all the items before they are
    shown the promotion. If surfaced too early, players will not feel compelled to
    purchase. If surfaced too late, the offer will not be compelling enough. The
    Starter Pack should appear within 3 to 5 sessions since install, depending on
    your game. Additionally, limiting its availability to 3 to 5 days will urge
    players to make a quicker purchase decision.









  • Powerful cards that have an immediate effect in battle
  • High rarity upgrade materials to upgrade your card deck
  • A generous amount of soft currency that can be used in all areas of the game
  • A generous amount of hard currency so players can purchase premium store
    items
  • Rare upgrade materials for Heroes




[Example starter pack offer in Battle Hands]


Thanks to the strength of the promotion over 50% of players choose the Starter Pack instead of the regular gems offerings:






  • How: There are many ways you can implement premium content and goods in your game, such as power-ups, characters, equipment, maps, hints, chapters etc. The two most impactful monetization designs are:


      Gacha - There are many ways to design, present and balance gacha but the key is to have randomized rewards, which allows you to sell extremely powerful items that players want without having to charge really high prices per purchase.



[Example of randomized rewards in Raid Brigade’s boxes]



      LiveOps - Limited time content on a regular cadence will also create really compelling opportunities for the players to both engage further with the game and invest in the game. For instance, Adventure Capitalist has been releasing regular limited themed time events with their spin on the permanent content, their own progression, achievements and IAP promotions.




[Example timed event for Adventure Capitalist]



Through this initiative, the game has seen regular increases in both engagement and revenue during event times without affecting the non-event periods:




[Timed events drastically increase engagement and revenue without lowering the baseline average over time]


5. Take into account local prices and pricing models



Just like different people have different willingness-to-pay, different markets have different purchasing powers.



    • Test what price points make sense for local consumers in each major market.
      Don’t just apply an umbrella discount, find the price points that maximize total
      revenue.
    • Consider charm pricing but remember it doesn’t work everywhere.For example, in the United States, prices always end in $x.99, but
      that’s not the case in Japan and Korea, where rounded numbers are used. Pricing
      in accordance to the local norm signals to the customers that you care and
      designed the game with them in mind. The Google Developer Console now
      automatically applies href="https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6334373?hl=en&ref_topic=6075663">local
      pricing conventions
      of each currency for you.




href="http://android-developers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/android-developer-story-vietnamese.html">Check
out the Android Developer Story from games developer, Divmob
, who improved
their game’s monetization threefold simply by adopting sub-dollar pricing
strategies. Also, href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Google_Inc_The_Building_for_Billions_Playbook_for?id=cJEjDAAAQBAJ&e=-EnableAppDetailsPageRedesign">learn
more best practices about building for billions
to get more tips on
monetization.




href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.secrets">Get
the Playbook for Developers app
and stay up-to-date with more features and
best practices that will help you grow a successful business on Google Play.

Announcing Android add-ons for Docs and Sheets




We know many of you consider your mobile device as your primary tool to consume business information, but what if you could use it to get more work done, from anywhere?

We’re excited to introduce Android add-ons for Docs and Sheets, a new way for you to do just that—whether it’s readying a contract you have for e-signature from your phone, or pulling in CRM data on your tablet for some quick analysis while waiting for your morning coffee, Android add-ons can help you accomplish more.


Get more done with your favorite third-party apps, no matter where you are


We’ve worked with eight integration partners who have created seamless integrations for Docs and Sheets. Here’s a preview of just a few of them:




  • DocuSign - Trigger or complete a signing process from Docs or Sheets, and save the executed document to Drive. Read more here.





DocuSign lets you easily create signature envelopes right from Google Docs



  • ProsperWorks - Import your CRM data to create and update advanced dashboards, reports and graphs on Sheets, right from your device. Read more here.

  • AppSheet - Create powerful mobile apps directly from your data in Sheets instantly — no coding required. Read more here.

  • Scanbot - Scan your business documents using built-in OCR, and insert their contents into Docs as editable text. Read more here.





You can find these add-ons and many more, including PandaDoc, ZohoCRM, Teacher Aide, EasyBib and Classroom in our Google Play collection as well as directly from the add-on menus in Docs or Sheets.







Try them out today, and see how much more you can do.





Calling all developers: try our developer preview today!


As you can see from above, Android add-ons offer a great opportunity to build
innovative integrations and reach Docs and Sheets users around the world.
They’re basically Android apps that connect with href="http://developers.google.com/apps-script?utm_campaign=android_discussion_googledocs_072816&utm_source=anddev&utm_medium=blog">Google Apps Script projects
on the server-side, allowing them to access and manipulate data from Google Docs
or Sheets using standard Apps Script techniques. Check out href="https://developers.google.com/apps-script/add-ons/mobile?utm_campaign=android_discussion_googledocs_072816&utm_source=anddev&utm_medium=blog">our
documentation
which includes href="https://developers.google.com/apps-script/add-ons/mobile/mobile-style?utm_campaign=android_discussion_googledocs_072816&utm_source=anddev&utm_medium=blog">UI
guidelines
as well as href="https://developers.google.com/apps-script/add-ons/mobile/?utm_campaign=android_discussion_googledocs_072816&utm_source=anddev&utm_medium=blog#see_what_you_can_make">sample
code
to get you started. We’ve also made it easy for you to publish your
apps with the Apps Script editor.


Android add-ons are available today as a developer preview. We look forward to
seeing what you build!

Expand Your Global Reach on Google Play With New Language and Country Analytics



With users in 190 countries around the world, Google Play offers you a truly
global audience for your apps and games. Localization is one of the most
powerful ways to connect with people in different places, which is why we
launched translation support for in-app purchase and Universal App Campaigns
earlier this year. With over 30 language translation options available via the
Developer Console, we updated our app translation service to help you select the
most relevant languages, making it quick and easy to get started.


With the launch of new language and country analytics, you gain access to app
install analysis on Google Play, including:

  • Information on the top languages and countries where apps have been
    installed, broken down to the level of your app’s category
  • The percentage of installs that come from users of those languages
  • Further information to help inform your go-to-market plans for these
    countries





To make ordering translations easier, we show language bundles that you can add
to your order in a single click.


To get started, select Manage translations -> Purchase
translations
from the Store Listing page in the href="https://play.google.com/apps/publish/">Google Play Developer Console.