Data-driven method development and evaluation for indie mobile game publishing

With the emergence of mobile distribution channels, the traditional game value chain has produced new changes, leading to the emergence of the mobile value chain. Independent (Indie) game developers can upload their games directly through third-party app stores and publish them themselves. However, many indie game developers have issues with game publishing, especially updating the new version, promoting the market, and forecasting revenue for their games. This paper aims to provide a method to guide indie mobile game developers with mobile publishing. This new method mainly focuses on addressing the main challenges from the indie game developer’s side. The method includes a new concept of mobile game publishing logic and an online analysis tool along with the guidelines. It shows how to collect and analyze data and guide new version updates, marketing promotion, and revenue forecasts. In practice, the method was provided to six indie game companies and guided their mobile game publishing, and related data were collected and analyzed for evaluation. Based on the survey and interview results, the usefulness, usability, and confidence in the method were positive, and the method improved the indie game developers’ mobile game publishing and benefited their game business.