Better Revenue Forecasting for Social Games

One of the great things about social games is that there continues to be a wealth of information available that makes their business case much less uncertain than for other kinds of games.

As one example, Lisa Marino, Chief Revenue Officer at RockYou, gave a presentation at GDC on Monetizing Social Games that’s well worth reviewing.  Lots of good stuff in her slides, and in particular she provides some fascinating data on daily revenue per DAU.  This is a much more precise set of numbers than monthly revenue per MAU.  Measuring per DAU allows for better accounting of the initial fast rise of most successful social games (when DAU can be a very high percentage of MAU), ongoing engagement (how often your players return), churn, long-term drop-off, etc.