GameAnalytics launches indie publishing initiative

GameAnalytics is launching a new indie-facing initiative designed to restore balance to the increasingly lopsided mobile games market.

"Runway" is a publishing label aimed at mobile games from smaller developers, which lack the resources to use soft-launch periods to gather data on their games, refine them, and then proceed to a global rollout - the same approach used by the biggest and most successful mobile companies.

Games published under the Runway banner will launch in territories like Canada, Australia and Ireland, then use GameAnalytics' data gathering tools and expertise to prepare for the next step.

"The big hits on the App Store and Google Play don't happen by accident," said Luke Aviet, CEO of GameAnalytics, in a statement. "Mobile's major players use soft launches to hone and even cull their games ahead of any global release.

"They sharpen and refine the titles using the data they pool from these test runs to increase their chances of success when the app is scaled across the rest of the world."

The first crop of Runway games are almost ready for soft-launch already, and the Danish company will reveal more details on them in the coming weeks. Runway is led by head of publishing Tom Kinniburgh, a veteran of Wooga, Chillingo and Ayopa Games.

"It's an exciting time both for GameAnalytics and the developers we're working with," Kinniburgh added. "It really does feel like the right time to make a difference with data, and we're keen to talk to developers who grasp the benefits of a targeted, managed soft launch, and those are the studios we want to work with."