November 22, 2024 – Samsung Electronics is transforming mobile gaming by fully commercializing its mobile cloud gaming platform as it officially launches out of beta in North America.
First introduced as an open beta last year, Samsung’s mobile cloud gaming platform delivers significant benefits to players by allowing full-fledged Android-native games to be played instantly without download or reduced latency on all Galaxy devices, and to game publishers by driving massive efficiency and scale for user acquisition.
Today, a large majority of entertainment and media consumption is immediately available through streaming services, but the largest category of media - mobile games, with over 2 billion users globally - still employs the download model for each piece of content. Samsung strives to make mobile gaming just as accessible.
State of the Mobile Gaming Ecosystem for Publishers
Long gone are the days when game publishers only needed word-of-mouth to drive virally and organic scale of mobile games. In today’s mobile game ecosystem, 80% of Android game downloads are a direct result of targeted paid advertising in places where our attention is aggregated. However, this business model also presents one of the biggest pain points for publishers: conversion rates. The industry average of an ad click resulting in both a successful install and first play session is less than 5%. That means over 95% of people who have expressed interest in a publisher’s game, via an ad, never make it into the game itself, resulting in considerable cost implications for publishers and making advertising an inefficient funnel for monetization.
This is in large part due to the complex onboarding process after installing a game through App Stores, which requires players to opt into permissions and download large amounts of data to access publisher’s gaming content.
Samsung is Revolutionizing Mobile Gaming and Driving Business Impact
The commercialization of Samsung’s mobile cloud gaming platform will now provide a first-of-its-kind and innovative way for publishers to seamlessly reach millions of Galaxy device owners. When players click an ad for an Android-native game, they will be navigated into the Galaxy Store where they can immediately start playing within seconds - with no waiting, account setup or downloads required.
Through the mobile cloud gaming beta, Samsung has seen instant access to games dramatically increase user acquisition performance with a 50% conversion from initial click to game start – a tenfold improvement over the industry average. During the beta, cloud gaming on Galaxy devices also experienced substantial growth with a 149% increase in monthly active users year-over-year in the United States and Canada.
“Our cloud gaming platform offers the ability for publishers to significantly increase their top-of-funnel conversion rates for their user acquisition campaigns by seamlessly converting an ad click directly into first gameplay, eliminating the need to drive users to an app store to download and install,” said Jong Woo, Vice President and Head of Game Services at Samsung. “We’ve seen it dramatically increase UA efficiency for publishers, expanding the number of players coming into their games and driving superior return on their advertising investment. In the long run, we believe our cloud game platform will not only change the way Samsung Galaxy gamers play mobile games but disrupt how publishers commercially scale their games within our device ecosystem.”
Samsung’s mobile cloud gaming platform supports Android native APKs, provides a cloud-based attribution solution with major mobile measurement partner (MMP) providers, and supports existing in-game monetization models for a seamless fit with publishers' current operations.
Samsung’s innovation with its mobile cloud gaming platform is not only streamlining the costs to publishers, it is democratizing gaming to more people by providing immediate access to games without installation. Samsung continues to deliver new ways to play mobile games, with more exciting updates to come next year.
For publishers interested in redefining their mobile game distribution on Galaxy devices with Samsung’s cloud technology, visit Samsung’s Developer page to learn more.
About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI, foundry and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com
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