How do you learn from competitors and industry best practices?

1 Identify your target audience

Before you start looking at your competitors, you need to know who your potential players are. What are their demographics, preferences, motivations, and pain points? How do they discover, play, and share games? What are their expectations and feedback? You can use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Audience Network, or App Annie to gather data on your audience, or conduct surveys, interviews, or focus groups to get direct insights.

2 Study your direct and indirect competitors

Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, you can identify your direct and indirect competitors. Direct competitors are those who offer similar games in the same genre, platform, or niche as yours. Indirect competitors are those who offer different games, but still compete for the same attention, time, or money of your audience. You can use tools like SteamSpy, Sensor Tower, or GameRefinery to find and compare games by genre, platform, revenue, downloads, ratings, reviews, features, and more.

3 Analyze their game design and mechanics

The next step is to analyze how your competitors design and implement their game mechanics, systems, and features. How do they balance difficulty, progression, and rewards? How do they create immersion, fun, and challenge? How do they use graphics, sound, and UI to enhance the gameplay? How do they integrate monetization and marketing strategies into the game loop? You can play their games yourself, watch gameplay videos or streams, or read game design documents or postmortems to learn from their successes and mistakes.

4 Evaluate their marketing and monetization methods

Another important aspect to learn from your competitors is how they market and monetize their games. What are their value propositions, positioning, and branding? How do they reach and retain their players through channels like social media, email, ads, or influencers? How do they optimize their store pages, trailers, screenshots, and descriptions? How do they generate revenue through in-app purchases, ads, subscriptions, or other models? How do they measure and improve their performance indicators like retention, conversion, or lifetime value? You can use tools like AppTweak, StoreMaven, or AppFollow to track and optimize your marketing and monetization efforts.

5 Benchmark your own game against the best practices

After you have gathered and analyzed the information from your competitors, you can use it to benchmark your own game against the best practices in the industry. How does your game compare to the top performers in your genre, platform, or niche? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are the gaps and opportunities in the market? What are the trends and innovations that you can leverage or avoid? You can use tools like SWOT analysis, gap analysis, or feature matrix to evaluate your game and identify areas for improvement.

6 Experiment and iterate on your game based on your findings

The final step is to experiment and iterate on your game based on your findings from the previous steps. You can use tools like Unity, Unreal Engine, or GameMaker Studio to prototype and test new features, mechanics, or systems. You can use tools like Firebase, PlayFab, or GameAnalytics to collect and analyze data on your game performance, user behavior, and feedback. You can use tools like TestFlight, Google Play Console, or Steamworks to launch and update your game to different platforms and markets. You can use tools like A/B testing, user testing, or surveys to validate your assumptions and hypotheses.

By following these six steps, you can learn from competitors and industry best practices to create better games that meet the needs and wants of your target audience. Remember, however, that learning from competitors does not mean copying them. You still need to find your own unique selling point, voice, and style that differentiate your game from the rest.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?