Known for award-winning mobile games like Lords Mobile and Castle Clash, IGG (short for I Got Games) is an international game developer based in Singapore with regional offices in China, United States, Canada, and Japan, just to name a few. IGG publishes games in 23 different languages to appeal to users from over 200 countries and regions worldwide.
IGG’s most popular mobile game is Time Princess, a story-driven, dress-up RPG with over five million installs on the Google Play Store. When crafting a new story for the game’s time-hopping heroine, IGG wanted to incorporate feedback from its loyal fans. The developer decided to run surveys to find the most popular storyline for its target audience.
1,217
Responses from targeted demographic in November 2020
48%
Of respondents favored a news reporter storyline
25%
Liked a Marie Antoinette storyline
24%
Liked a Helen of Troy storyline
Mobile Game Market Research Seldom Elicits Quality Feedback From Engaged Audiences
Market research can radically improve the impact of a game upon its release, but game developers routinely struggle to collect data and opinions from the right users. The modern market research landscape has been slow to adapt to modern technology and consumer behavior — few take a mobile-first approach, and consumers have little motivation to share their opinions. The result is low quality or even fraudulent responses, often on a lengthy timeline. IGG sought a market research solution that would allow them to gather feedback from gamers quickly to make the right decisions regarding game art, structure, and experiences.
To ensure that the necessary market research would result in high-quality answers from specific audiences, IGG teamed up with Tapjoy. Tapjoy’s new MobileVoice® market research solution natively rewards engagement while reaching consumers where they spend their time: on their mobile devices.
“ The MobileVoice® survey results helped us uncover valuable insights around user preferences about Time Princess’s storyline, wand helped in the verification of the product’s story strategy; MobileVoice® provides an additional method of double-verification for the company’s initial product functional testing.”
- Malen Li, Marketing Director, IGG
MobileVoice® Reimagines The Market Research Experience And Provides Valuable Insights
Unlike mainstream market research solutions, MobileVoice® offers a consumer-centric experience, ensuring quality through its rewarded model. It also allowed IGG to work agilely, creating and filtering custom surveys to get the feedback they needed on a faster timeline. IGG was also able to target a niche audience: women ages 18 to 35 in the United States who have played dress-up games. The survey used filtering questions to zero in on this demographic.
The MobileVoice® survey would gauge gamer sentiment on new storyline options for Time Princess’s ongoing narrative. In addition to segmenting users by gender, age, and location, IGG also sought feedback from mobile users who played other dress-up games and were familiar with the genre. To qualify respondents, IGG asked users what kinds of games they have played before. Though all were familiar with the dress-up genre, 79% also played puzzle games, and 65% played other interactive story games.
IGG Gets Useful Insights To Inform Narrative Strategy
In November of 2020, IGG received 1,217 responses. The developer found that 48% of mobile gamers preferred to play as a 20th-century New York City reporter investigating a suspicious death, making it a clear favorite. The runner-up was a storyline in which gamers play as Marie Antoinette, for which 25% of users expressed an interest. Other options include storylines where the user befriends an Arabian genie, vies for love as the Crown Princess in Swan Lake, and evades a curse as Princess Helen of Troy. Thanks to MobileVoice®, IGG had no trouble collecting the desired feedback, ensuring user satisfaction — and by extension, increased retention — before the new story even launched. The developer plans to use MobileVoice® on an ongoing basis to inform strategy for its titles before release.
“The survey results helped us learn user preferences about Time Princess’s storyline and double-verified whether our own decisions were correct or not.”
