Growth
9 min read
By
Puli Liyanagama
Phil Mohr
CTO & Co-founder
CEO and Co-founder
Nov 15, 2024
Let Us Start by Saying: Metica Exists to Help Games Win
We understand the challenges games face—being at the mercy of ad networks and app stores makes margins tight and profitable growth hard to achieve.
Our mission is to empower games by putting control back in their hands. Using machine learning and AI, we're transforming "Game Optimization" in ways no one else has—through our Game Growth Loop (GG Loop 😎).
With over 15 years of experience in gaming and a team that has been with us since our days at King and Apple, we’ve spent the last two years refining our product through close collaboration with select games. The results speak for themselves—our early adopters are seeing 16-34% LTV uplift.
Now, we’re ready to take Game Optimization to the next level and show you how our product can make a real difference for your game.
Why Current Game Tech Solutions Don’t Cut It
Let’s explain how we’re different. There are so many companies out there offering tech solutions for games. They generally fall into five categories:
LiveOps Orchestration
Offer Management
UA Optimization
Game Backends
Experimentation
There are solid companies in each category, but they focus on just one or two pieces of a very complex puzzle. As a result, the uplift is limited, and the amount of human intervention needed by the game and the solution provider is still huge.
Metica’s technology is different. It tackles all five categories in one easy-to-integrate product. Crucially, it’s an "Actionable Machine Learning Framework." Unlike others that just make suggestions and still require immense human input, Metica doesn't just tell you what to do—it does it for you. It continuously iterates, learning and optimizing in real-time. The complexity games face today is not humanly scalable, but AI and ML can handle it.
This is the best—and, we believe, the only way for game developers and studios to overcome the increasingly competitive environment.
The “Perfect Storm” for Games: How We Got Here
Before diving into what our GG Loop actually is and its benefits for our customers, let’s take a quick look at why it’s so tough for games right now.
Here's the backstory: In April 2021, Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which hit the gaming industry like a tsunami. It wiped out the ability to effectively target players, making it harder to buy ads profitably. Acquisition costs soared as games had to broaden their ad campaigns to get the same number of installs.
Global gaming VC funding saw a 67% drop in 2023 versus 2022.
H1’2024 so far is better than the latter half of 2023, but still down year-on-year. With limited debt funding options and tough terms, the pressure on studios remains immense.
The Game Growth Loop: Merging ROAS and LTV Through Personalization
We want to make game teams' lives easier. To thrive in today’s gaming environment, studios need to rethink their approach. Creating a great game is essential, but it’s no longer enough on its own. That’s where our Game Growth Loop (GG Loop) comes in. Think of it as an LTV-ROAS reinvestment cycle. It’s built around two core drivers of growth:
Leveraging personalization (through IAPs, LiveOps, gameplay optimization, and in-game advertising) to boost long-term LTV
Connecting in-game data from those personalized experiences with attribution logic from Mobile Measurement Partners (MMP) and our own prediction models to optimize both ROAS and LTV.
This creates a powerful, self-sustaining loop. For the more technical minds, think of it as a flywheel.
Personalization drives LTV by optimizing IAPs, LiveOps, and in-game ads. This generates both valuable data and increased revenue, which unlocks more opportunities to reinvest in UA.
With accurate ROAS predictions guiding these investments, studios can efficiently acquire the right players and keep them engaged—and spending—longer. The GG Loop ensures that every player interaction maximizes both LTV and ROAS, turning each step of the player journey into a growth opportunity.
What Does Personalization Really Mean, and Why Does It Matter?
Personalization is at the core of our GG Loop. In an AI and ML-driven world, personalization is changing. For some, personalization still means targeting by segments, but it’s not. (Read our "Ditch Segmentation" blog here.) We’ve written a whole article about it. Some might argue that players don’t expect it. We believe that’s fundamentally wrong—they absolutely do expect personalization. (Read our blog here.)
Our definition of personalization—true personalization for each individual player—is powered by AI and ML, with zero segmentation. The proof is in the results—double-digit incremental LTV uplift for our customers.
The Hurdle: The False Dichotomy Between UA and Retention
You might wonder why everyone isn’t already doing this. First, the tech is tough. Second, no one else has tried it like we have. And third, in many studios—especially larger ones—“UA” and “Retention” are managed by separate teams, which can lead to siloed thinking. The tools, processes, and KPIs often don’t align, creating a false division between these critical functions.
We partner with studios to break down these silos and energize teams, creating a more powerful and sustainable growth model. This has been some of the best feedback from our customers—that we got them excited and drove collaboration. This is what we are about. Our technology doesn’t replace teams—it empowers them. By removing mundane tasks and providing data science insights, we free up time for creativity and driving growth. Our mission is to make you the heroes of your game.
Conclusion: A Path to Sustainable Growth
The challenges facing game studios are real, but growth is still possible with the right strategy. The GG Loop merges ROAS and LTV into a unified approach that optimizes every player interaction, with personalization at its core.
At Metica, we’ve seen how this framework transforms growth strategies. We know that a fundamental shift in thinking can be overwhelming, but the real question for game studios is: Do you want to keep chasing UA, or do you want to thrive?
It’s time to move beyond isolated strategies and embrace a unified approach that maximizes player value at every stage.
Discover how we can unlock opportunities for your game with a free analysis. Book a call with us to get started.