Finding your winning service formula
Online games aren’t just ‘products’; they’re service-based, generate various user expectations and behaviour, and require a different approach than offline games.
We understand the intricate developer/operator relationship that often underpins online games, and the inter-connected internal processes involved.
Every game presents its own unique combination of challenges — with game consulting we can help you tackle yours and move you closer to a winning service formula.
You can find examples of the online games consulting services we provide below.
Welcome, bienvenue, willkommen, bienvenido
Europe is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for online video games, with a wealth of player communities and complex ecosystems, featuring a multitude of languages, laws and cultures. This can make Europe a daunting place for foreign companies to set up and conduct operations.
For companies entering the European market, ICO Partners provides business intelligence and strategic recommendation such as:
- Evaluation for office locations
- Regional strategy recommendations
- Opportunity analysis by country
- Product selection and analysis
- Business development strategy
- Evaluation of payment solution providers
- Budget planning
- Licensing or self-publishing support
- Game positioning recommendations
- Evaluation of localization quality and demand
- Insight into country specific legal aspects
- Recommendation on company structure
All together now!
With the increasing popularity of crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo small developers nowadays have a chance to make games without the approval of publishers, reach new audiences and gain financial resources beforehand. ICO already strategically supported several successfully funded Kickstarters.
With this experience and extensive market intelligence data (for free insights have a glimpse at our blog) we know the common hurdles of crowdfunding and offer following services for crowdfunders:
- Analysis of the potential of a project
- Campaign evaluation
- Support on setting a suitable funding goal and rewards
- Evaluation of your platform strategy (what are the projects priorities and how the different platforms can address them)
- Media support in cooperation with our PR arm ICO Media
We also offer to review your crowdfunding campaign for a few of £350 per review. For more details click here.
Long term strategies, long term success
The online gaming market is fast changing and highly competitive, which makes long term but flexible strategies which can iterate on a regular basis necessary. ICO’s experienced team has worked in business development for years and are experts in providing support on topics such as:
- Support on licensing strategy and partner selection
- Self-publishing best practices
- Territory development strategy definition
Tweaks to perfection
Game development is a comprehensive process and in course of the development it can happen to sometimes miss the forest for the trees.
With over 15 years of online games industry experience and in-depth understanding of the market, we evaluate games and offer advice and recommendations in the following areas:
- Marketing positioning and communication strategy
- Monetization evaluation
- Live operations (for managing server hosting, deployment process or patching process)
- Quality evaluation
- User interface and usability tests
- Review score predictions
For a healthy business
Of course it’s not all about the money, but a healthy monetization strategy is essential for every online game. Especially in the age of free to play finding the right monetization formula to satisfy gamers and the business a like is a big challenge.
We have audited user flow and business models in many games, live and in development, suggesting changes to improve conversion and monetization. Our expertise in new business models and western players’ gameplay and payment habits enables us to provide expert advice on your game’s monetization.
Honest, constructive analysis
ICO Partner’s team of experts is available to help you assess any online game projects.
Whether you are an investor, a developer or a publisher, we can provide in-depth analysis of online operations and services as well as game development, complete with recommendations to mitigate the risks involved with your project at every stage.
We apply a very straightforward approach and provide our clients with honest and constructive analysis with actionable recommendations.
Bespoke requests
This list just shows a selection of our consulting services.
If your requested service is not here, just give us a heads up and together we can found out what we can do for you.