Stages in Soft launch for a Game — ScaleTech Follow Mar 2 · 5 min read

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Let’s first understand what is a soft launch and why it is being used?

A soft launch is a period of time prior to global launch when your game is available in a couple of countries. Soft launch allows you to collect data, identify bugs, and gather player feedback.

Also, it allows you to A/B test, optimize first-time user experience, and improve the on-boarding process of your players. During the soft launch, you also should test the server infrastructure to be sure that you can handle the load of the global launch.

A successful soft launch is the best way to optimize your game for a global launch, as well as an opportunity to test your creatives and marketing channels.

At the end of the day, you should achieve greater LTV(Lifetime Value) than your CPIs(Cost Per Install). If that’s a yes, then you can go to the global launch. If no, you should think about how you can improve the game, or how much money you have left. Then, decide whether or not to kill the game.

Before Starting Soft Launch

Before we get going, there are a couple of things you should do before the soft launch.

First, you should do market research to identify opportunities. For example, define the groups, whether it’s action or strategy, or define the target audience. There’s a difference between making a game for a male 25+ or a female 25+. Additionally, you should do the theme testing, and test the visuals for your games.

Second, you should think about a soft launch strategy. You should pick countries for your soft launch game, and you should think about the device and payment options. Also, if your game is in English, you should think about English-speaking countries.

Besides these considerations, you need to think about Android versus iOS. It is always the best practice to go with Android first because of the iteration process on Android. It takes a few hours to get your build live on Android, but it takes a minimum two days on iOS.

The third and last pre-soft launch preparation, let’s talk about analytics as well. You should set up attribution correctly — meaning all your SDKs are in place, all media sources are configured, and all events are enabled in your attribution platform — so that you can collect data, and then work with your analysts to define the KPIs — for example, retention on day one, day seven, and day 28, and payment behavior as well.

As part of your analytics preparation, you should set up good communication channels between the marketing team, game analysts, and game designers, as we did in our soft launches before. We found that it’s crucial to have close communication between all these different departments.

Stages of a gaming soft launch

Let’s move to the stages. Divide soft launch into three stages, and a Stage 0. In this stage 0, you only have the soft launch release candidate, but it’s a great opportunity for getting early feedback from players and identifying final bugs and issues. We use AWS Cloud to get as many users testing the game as possible. If you don’t have enough budget for Cloud, you can use your friends and family to get it tested and have their feedback.

If you are satisfied with the earlier results, then you can move to Stage 1. Here, we are adding a few Tier 4 countries, like the Philippines, Vietnam, or Mexico because they have low CPIs, and we want to robustly test and identify bugs and issues.

If you are satisfied with Stage 0 and Stage 1, let’s move to Stage 2. In this stage, we are adding a few more local countries. At this point, we are measuring the first-time user experience and onboarding process, as well as the A/B test tutorials. The idea is to improve those metrics.

Then, let’s move to Stage 3. In this stage, we are targeting Tier 1 countries, such as the U.K., Denmark, or the Netherlands. We are also adding iOS to the mix. The goal at this stage is to optimize average revenue per user and monetization metrics. So we are measuring lifetime value, return on investment, and focusing on paid user acquisition.

During the soft launch process

In general, there are a couple of things you should do during the soft launch process.

First, you should set up and test integration and attribution.

Second, you should verify that all SDKs are in place, media sources are configured, and the right events are set in your attribution. You should assign an owner to the soft launch process, whether it is a product guy or a marketing guy. In our company, it was me from the marketing team. This owner is responsible for all the processes that are happening in the soft launch, so you can talk to him and ask your questions accordingly.

Third, you should set goals and KPIs. We recommend these to be included as day-one retention, day seven retention, and day 28 retention. Stick to those goals during the soft launch.

Fourth, you should define your kill factor, so everybody knows why you might kill the game, or not.

Fifth, you should document everything. We created a simple Excel sheet where we documented everything with all builds, as well as the changelog so that we were able to see which change made the biggest impact in each build.

Sixth, you should perform consistent ASO(App Store Optimization). It’s crucial to start with icon testing, screenshot testing, and an optimized feature image. You should test at least one of these elements in a soft launch.

Conclusion

In general, use the soft launch to evaluate the profitability of your game, using the Build, Measure, Learn principle to iterate and improve your game as fast as possible. After all, a soft launch is the best way to optimize your game for a global launch.

Good luck.