4 Tips for Finding and Engaging Mobile Players in the US

Posted by Michelle Tan, Strategic Partner Development Manager

Did you know the majority of the top-grossing Google Play games in the US come from overseas developers?

As one of the world’s biggest games markets, the US represents a significant opportunity for your mobile games business to grow its player base. In this post, we look at 4 tips that could help your mobile game enter and grow in the US market.

Tip 1: Localize for a diverse audience

Among its population of 336m¹, the US boasts considerable ethnic and cultural diversity that should not be overlooked, including US Hispanics and the Chinese community.

If you have a game localized in Simplified Chinese or Latin American Spanish, you potentially have a significant ready audience in the US. And if you don’t, it’s worth localizing for one or both of these languages, both in-game and on Google Play surfaces, such as your store listing, icons, and screenshots.

You can find more about optimizing games for US Hispanics in our Captivate and delight US Hispanic mobile gamers post and more details on publishing in Chinese languages in our Demystifying Chinese languages in the app world post.

Tip 2: Lean into the reasons gamers play

In 2022, Google and VGM conducted a survey to explore the behavior and motivation of mobile game players. Among mobile players in North America, the survey found that the most common reasons to start playing were boredom, a need to relax, or because they had spare time.

Consider these reasons when promoting your game to US gamers. For example, weave mention of these play triggers into your game’s store listing description. You can create up to 50 custom listings and target them to users by country, pre-registration status, or visits from specific URLs. Then, consider carrying this emphasis into your social media and other channels where you communicate with US players.

Tip 3: Optimize for low-end devices

You might think that high-end phones dominate the US mobile phone market. However, there are low-end devices active in the US as well. Therefore, optimizing your game to run well on devices with limited resources can ensure a high-quality experience for all users. To do this:

• Use the core app quality checklist and best practices as a guide.
• Be aware of the total game size.
• Consider providing simpler, lighter versions of game assets by default and offering options to download additional features.

The Reach and Devices section in your Play Console can also help you better decide which specifications to build for, where to launch, and what to test, using insights about your user and issue distribution.

More importantly, games not optimized well for a device’s resources can freeze and crash. And, as with many other markets, North American mobile players are not tolerant of this behavior, with approximately one in three players surveyed abandoning games because they encounter too many bugs and crashes.

Tip 4: Offer frequent challenges, quests, and promotions

Google Play data shows that mobile gamers in the US spend throughout the week, with weekends seeing the most activity. To satisfy the demand this creates, consider running frequent Liveops events such as challenges, quests, and promotions.

Where you promote in-game purchases as part of these activities, it’s worth noting that the research by Google and VGM found that North American mobile players are more inclined to purchase in-game currency than other in-game benefits.

The same research also found that progression is a key motivation for spending, with 31% of North American respondents indicating they purchase to progress more quickly and 28% to reach a personal goal.

So, If you are planning to enter the US market or looking for more players for your mobile game in the US, consider:

• Localizing for Chinese or US Hispanic communities.
• Speaking to the most common reasons gamers play.
• Optimizing your game to run well on low- and high-end devices.
• Offering frequent challenges, quests, and promotions.

To learn more about North American mobile game players’ behavior and motivation, check out the Mobile Insights Report on games.withgoogle.com.

¹ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/

4 Tips for Finding and Engaging Mobile Players in the US was originally published in Google Play Apps & Games on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.