User Acquisition Can Make or Break Your Game
Mastering user acquisition for sustainable long term revenue
Why User Acquisition (UA) is Critical for Gaming Startups?
Gaming is unpredictable – Success in gaming hinges on shifting player behavior. Retention is low and even great games fail without strong visibility.
Network effects matter – Multiplayer modes, leaderboards, and social invites thrive only with a critical mass of players. More users = stronger engagement loops.
Retention alone isn’t enough - Most mobile games have a steep drop-off after Day 7. To sustain revenue, you must feed the top of the funnel. Pokémon GO hit 28M DAUs in 2016, but lost 80% in a year, sustaining revenue through aggressive UA.
Gaming is an impulse decision—players try games instantly after seeing an ad, a friend playing, or a viral moment. With no brand loyalty, especially in hyper-casual games, success hinges on user acquisition and deep engagement.
UA is Increasingly Becoming Challenging:
Market saturation – Hundreds of thousands of games launch yearly, making visibility harder.
Privacy restrictions – Apple’s updates have raised UA costs and reduced targeting accuracy.
Rising CAC – CPI ranges from $1 (Android) to $3 (iOS) and keeps climbing.
Unlike other consumer apps, that can monetise via subscriptions, ads, offline channels, many top-grossing games rely on in-app purchases, not ads or subscriptions.
Existing Strategies:
The most successful games today leverage a mix of organic and inorganic strategies to drive user acquisition. Games today don’t just rely on traditional marketing—they actively create viral growth loops, optimize for visibility, and invest in high-impact partnerships to scale.
Launching Your Game:
Let's say as an early-stage gaming founder, you've raised a seed round of INR 4Cr. How much should you allocate towards UA?
Typically in the first year, UA budget should range from ₹50L-1Cr with the indicative split
30% Google/YouTube Ads – Search-driven discovery
25% Meta Ads – Facebook & Instagram targeting
20% Influencer marketing – YouTube, Twitch, Insta
15% ASO (SEO for games) – Optimize visibility
10% Community (Discord, Reddit) – Build engagement
Disclaimer – This split may vary by game genre, but this is the general trend we've observed.
North Star Metric:
Most games go through 3 phases-
Launch - Optimising CPI, and D1, D7 retention ensuring stickiness and validating core game play
Viral- Leveraging word of mouth and paid advertising to maximise installs, paid conversion
Growth - Increase ARPU, LTV and sustain revenue growth
