Developing a profitable mobile game is no walk in the park – it takes time, resources, market research, UX design, and the list goes on. Even once your game is developed and released, you need to carefully assess the steps to take in order to ensure its longevity. Investing in aspects like marketing strategy, user acquisition, and in-app monetization can boost your game’s long-term profitability and success.

But let’s say that, as a game developer, you’ve done all the right steps and checked off all the strategic boxes, and you’ve got yourself a massively successful mobile game. At that point, multiplying your game’s success, popularity and profit margins calls for bigger moves. Large-scale global expansion opportunities for your already-successful mobile game can be highly rewarding when done right.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss how mobile game developers can expand their game’s success and reach by entering new markets like MENA. We’ll dive into what the process looks like and what to watch out for, while giving you some insight on how Tamatem comes in.

Why Expand Your Mobile Game’s Reach Internationally

The success of a mobile game is measured in metrics like number of downloads, monthly active users, retention rate, and so on. As your game hits certain milestones, it becomes a never-ending race to hit the next one and the one after that. At a certain point, the continued large-scale success of your mobile game becomes a matter of international expansion.

Mobile gaming is a massive global industry with many international markets left untapped. With that said, it’s important to carry out extensive research on different regions, their market size and scalability before expanding your mobile game internationally.  

Looking at the MENA mobile games market, it’s important to weigh out all the factors that make it a ripe entry point for expansion opportunities. Expected to hit $6 billion in 2021, there’s no doubt that the market is on the rise. As an emerging market, the region has high scalability opportunities especially when you consider how underserved the Arabic language is. However, entering an unfamiliar international market, like MENA, without strategy, can come with high barriers to entry and large risk. 

Do’s And Don’ts Of Entering A New Market

In order to enter a new market and take advantage of a potentially lucrative expansion opportunity, mobile game developers must plan strategically. Bringing a mobile game to market the second time around shouldn’t be taken lightly, so here are some do’s and don’ts for entering a new market without undermining the success of your mobile game: 

Don’t…

• Make the expansion without a plan

Expanding into a new market, especially an international one with different barriers to entry (eg. language), must be planned out. Don’t underestimate the power of market research and a thoroughly planned go-to market strategy that considers your new target audience’s needs.

• Enter on your own

Entering a new market on your own can be a recipe for disaster. Although you’ve already proven your success as a game developer in your own market, don’t be closed to the idea of partnering with a local games publisher in the new region you plan to enter. 

• Use the same strategies

Using the same strategies you did in your original market might not work for your mobile game in the new market. Do not stick to the exact same marketing strategies, in-app incentivization strategies or launch strategies you implemented when releasing your game locally. Even if you do have a great mobile game on your hands, your entry strategies could make or break it.

Do…

• Choose your new market wisely

Focus on choosing an international market that is ready and growing. For example, the MENA mobile games market is a great option to expand to because of its high growth and high mobile game adoption rate. The market is not yet saturated, it’s still emerging and it’s filled with opportunity.

• Focus on localization and be open to changes

When entering a new market, you must focus on localizing your mobile game to cater to your new audience to the best of your abilities. Expanding your mobile game into an international market comes with new considerations like language, culture, religious factors, and so on. In order to make sure your mobile game is easily understood and adopted by your new audience, you should be open to making the necessary changes to localize it successfully.

• Partner with the right mobile games publisher

Localizing and publishing your mobile game in a new market is done best when you partner with a top local game publisher. Partnering with the right mobile games publisher will give you access to market insights, high quality translation, local marketing experts, and more. Having a publishing partner will take a huge load of pressure off your team and set you on the right track to successfully penetrating a new, profitable market.

Tamatem And Game Developers: How It Works

At Tamatem, we’re big backers of localization. Instead of focusing all efforts on developing our own mobile games, we’ve recognized the opportunity in localizing and publishing already-successful games. Once we decide to partner with a mobile games developer on publishing their game in the MENA market, our team kicks off an extensive process. With the best industry experts in the region, we carry out 360° localization to ensure your game becomes suitable for the market. From there, we implement data-backed market research to build out a top-notch go-to market strategy catered to your game. With aggressive marketing and large-scale user acquisition strategies, Tamatem is guaranteed to push your already-successful mobile game to new heights.

If you’re a mobile games developer interested in penetrating the profitable and opportune MENA market, Tamatem is the partner for you.