With the development of the times, the original generation of the Matchwall has been born for nearly 20 years, and recently when the game inn studied some overseas mobile game data reports, it was found that the once “extensive supply” and “downloads first” Matchwall logic is no longer what it used to be. Today’s incentive traffic has undergone qualitative changes, which can not only bring high-quality traffic to games, but also help customers improve core data such as retention, ROAS, and LTV. This makes us deeply curious about the current incentive traffic model.
With this curiosity, we found the source of the data report – Mistplay, which is an incentive traffic platform serving global game products
(Suzie Kim)。 A chat with Suzie surprised us to find that Mistplay has taken incentive traffic to the next level.
According to Suzie, in the past period of time, the data of a number of games it has cooperated with has bucked the trend, with some products having 7-day retention higher than the industry average of 25%, 30-day ROAS higher than the average of 21%, 7-day ARPPU 50% higher than other platforms, and installs increasing by 2.5 times……
In her view, the high retention rate of users and better LTV will be important dimensions to incentivize traffic and customer acquisition in the future, and it is also the advantage of Mistplay. Not long ago, Mistplay, which has been deeply involved in the Android platform for nearly ten years, officially launched the iPhone version of the application, bringing a new order of users and advertising traffic to the industry. Players can earn rewards through a newly created incentive system, compete in tournaments to increase their earnings, and participate in Q&A and surveys. These methods can further help publishers achieve their advertising performance goals and increase ROI by acquiring high-value loyal users.
This article will use cases and reports released by Mistplay, combined with Suzie Kim’s industry experience, to reinterpret the content and gameplay of today’s game overseas and incentive traffic platforms.
Data speaks for the true value created by 2 million monthly active users
In order to better understand the operation mode of the incentive traffic platform, let’s start with the data report: According to the “2024 Mobile Game Player In-Purchase Report” released by Mistplay, about 32% of paying players (and 41% of heavy payers) plan to reduce their game spending, and players are generally more concerned about discounts and promotions. More than 30% of users tend to be conservative, and the challenge of mobile game products to acquire paying players and promote player payment will become increasingly severe.
(Picture: Game products need to launch better operational services in the future to impress paying players)
Mistplay shared in its “2024 Mobile Game Growth Report” that when asked about the main challenges they faced in discovering games, 49% of surveyed users had difficulty finding games that matched their preferences, more than 48% of players were lost in the vast number of game ads, and 42% said they could not judge the quality of the game before entering the game. Players’ demand for authentic game information and a great community platform has never diminished.
On the one hand, the budget is cut, and on the other hand, a good game product is also expected, which reflects the real core needs of players. And user incentive apps like Mistplay, which take “player loyalty” as the core competitiveness, are very forward-looking and hard power. At present, Mistplay has achieved a monthly active user traffic pool of 2 million and is still growing in nine major markets around the world, including North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Suzie Kim shared with us a number of customer cases that demonstrate the platform’s role in improving the core data of the game, and even showing a significant “quality premium” feature.
For example, the game manufacturer “Photon Fox” in Chengdu, whose main product “Magicabin: Witch’s”
Adventure) has been in the top 30 best-selling simulation business categories in North America for a long time since its release on the Android platform in 2023, and has entered the TOP3 many times, with a total of more than 2.5 million downloads.
And the IAP is tailored for them through Mistplay
The tROAS advertising strategy, with advanced AI algorithms and machine learning models, accurately targets and matches Mistplay’s core players in the simulation business category, and actively bids. Not only did the 7-day game retention rate be 25% higher than the industry average, but the 30-day ROAS increased by 12%, and the average game time per player exceeded the average by 15%. This means that at the same traffic cost, Mistplay users can bring a longer value contribution cycle to the game. This also allows Photon Fox to successfully expand its market to Europe, South Korea and other places.
Suzie
Kim explained that traditional incentivized traffic is like a “traffic wholesaler”, while Mistplay is more like a “player incubator”. The Mistplay model emphasizes “play-and-earn”, using the game duration as the reward benchmark, and users can redeem points for gifts by continuously playing games, forming a positive cycle of “the longer you play, the more interactions – the more points, the more rewards – the higher the retention and LTV”. According to the “2024 Mobile Game Player In-Purchase Report”, 79% of paying players will actively participate in the platform’s loyalty program, and 51% of users will increase their in-game purchases due to additional point rewards.
This mode directly brings about the improvement of the core data of the game. Suzie Kim is known for her performance in Cat Snack
Bar” as an example: This cat-themed game produced by the Korean game company Treeplla has millions of monthly active users and more than 30 million downloads, and through Mistplay’s strong influence in the US casual category, it continues to gain high-quality users and finally enters the top three free list of simulation management in the US App Store. 30-day retention achieved a 70% increase, and user LTV was effectively improved, allowing manufacturers to achieve higher profits with lower customer acquisition costs.
In addition, there are well-known casual games like the “AniPANG” series of Korean Playlinks: the use of IAP tROAS in the Korean market
After advertising products, the game achieved a 7-day ROAS increase of 36% in 2024, a 7-day ARPPU that was 50% higher than other platforms, and a 7-day IAP
ROAS is 27% higher than other platforms, achieving the goal of continuously acquiring high-retention and paying users. This reflects another core advantage of Mistplay’s traffic pool: not only attracting users, but also filtering out core players who are willing to pay.
After the qualitative change in traffic, it still has to break through the ceiling Mistplay’s new products should make players more sticky
Mistplay’s reconstruction of traditional incentive traffic is extremely obvious and effective, and its core is to upgrade “short-term event incentives” to “long-term behavior development”.
Mistplay accurately grasps the incentive mechanism based on game duration, and its loyalty model will issue rewards based on continuous data such as players’ active time in the game, level improvement, in-app purchase behavior, etc., and even expand the possibility of customized payment through personalized discount functions, so as to convert players into loyal and high-value users.
Suzie
Kim told us that unlike most advertising companies’ platform model, most of Mistplay’s traffic comes from its own users in the app. As a gaming community, they also value maintaining long-term player activity and loyalty through operational means.
For example, through powerful real-time operations (LiveOps) activities, it continuously optimizes users’ personalized experience, providing them with exclusive rewards and limited-time challenges. It will also launch a variety of community activities, such as spending points to participate in the lottery of popular digital products such as PS5/Switch2, to meet users’ expectations for the long-term stickiness of the platform.
In May this year, Mistplay iterated the “play-to-earn” model and launched a new product “LoyaltyPlay”. This innovative monetization model not only increases user loyalty for apps, but also provides new potential player traffic for game publishers.
Suzie Kim also said that in addition to operations, Mistplay also attaches great importance to technology empowerment. Just like the IAP mentioned above
tROAS advertising is to use the AI engine “Helios” to predict player behavior during the testing stage, conduct intelligent bidding according to users’ in-app purchasing tendencies, and promote the game to the users who are most likely to generate revenue, thereby maximizing user activity and return on ad spend, and further increasing the number of game installs and overall IAP revenue. At the same time, Mistplay’s AI technology also realizes “IAA
tROAS ads”, according to the behavioral logic of users watching in-app ads, comprehensively optimize bidding and delivery scale, and ultimately achieve an increase in installs.
It can be seen that Mistplay is a new era of incentive traffic platform that understands players, operations, and technology, which not only allows players to find the most suitable game products in the community, but also realizes the high value of these players in customer products.
Suzie Kim summarizes the three advantages of its own traffic ecosystem:
Unique Play-to-Earn Model: Offers gift cards and in-kind rewards to incentivize players to stay active and increase LTV
Controllable user quality: The vast majority of traffic comes from its own applications, ensuring the quality and value of players.
Flexible operation space: Through social functions such as tournaments and friend tasks, Mistplay can actively guide users to participate in the core gameplay of the game and increase activity.
At the same time, Suzie
Kim also expressed his expectations for future development in the Asia-Pacific region: since the establishment of the Asia-Pacific team in 2019, Mistplay has successfully helped developers in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in China, successfully expand the global market, and also brought customized play-to-earn content experiences to Korean and Japanese players. In the future, Mistplay will continue to work with developers in the Asia-Pacific region and maintain a global perspective. Our goal is to provide an unparalleled experience for developers and players in the Asia-Pacific region through continuous technological advancements and team development.
In the future, Mistplay will continue to work with developers in the Asia-Pacific region to enhance the localized experience and maintain a global perspective.
Hospitality: not only supply traffic, but also output industry insights
Game Inn learned for the first time that Mistplay originated from its release of the “2025 Mobile Game Loyalty Report”, which made a new analysis of this report from multiple dimensions such as retention, activity, and in-app purchases, so that the readers of Game Inn had a deeper understanding of overseas user stickiness.
In addition, the “2024 Mobile Game Growth Report” released by Mistplay in October last year has also received widespread attention from overseas game companies, and it is worth seeing as a “player behavior researcher” who continues to output detailed data.
Another insight – “2024
The “Mistplay Mobile Game Player In-Purchase Report” delves into the psychology and behavioral logic of players’ in-app purchases, and disassembles the behavioral preferences of “heavy”, “moderate” and “light” paying groups in great detail.
For example, the report pointed out that “to retain paying players, players must buy without regret, and heavy payers are most likely to have negative emotions after in-app purchases and enjoyment (27%), so it is important to continuously evaluate the cost-effectiveness of in-app purchases.” ”
A survey of moderate payers shows that they believe that the most cost-effective in-game purchases are things that retain value for a long time, rather than game items that “come and go quickly”.
The report also points to the main reasons why paying players abandon a game:
Even these aspects have been thoroughly understood, so that Mistplay can effectively take off against the trend with 2 million monthly active users now that it is gradually difficult to acquire customers and player loyalty is deteriorating, transforming its own traffic pool into a high-value player incubator, and stimulating hundreds of millions of dollars in in-app purchases.
Suzie
Kim said that analyzing the gaming habits of global players, gaining insight into future trends, and allowing partners to clearly position themselves globally are the core reasons why Mistplay continues to share data reports. For Mistplay, game companies are not only customers, but also friends, especially for companies that have just gone overseas or are still observing going overseas, Mistplay must help them take the first step to go overseas.
Epilogue:
At the end of the interview, Suzie
Kim looks forward to the global gaming industry: mobile game growth in 2025 will usher in significant development in many aspects, with a focus on deeply understanding player motivation, optimizing brand influence, and exploring new revenue avenues. In this dynamic industry, winners will be defined by strategic adaptability and player-centric innovation that will drive new levels of growth.
During this year’s ChinaJoy, Mistplay will also share with you on the spot, and interested friends can go to booth B109 in Hall W3 to consult with Mistplay.
