We’re super excited about an added functionality making User Segmentation even better!

You can now segment your players based on the day they first launch your game. The functionality is called first session segmentation and it allows you to show even more relevant messages and units to your players.

Here are a few examples of how to start using first session segmentation:

• Target engaged players who have played your game for a specified length of time with Rewards or Announcements

• Suppress Interstitial Ads for players who purchased your game before it was free

• Target players on their first day in your game with Opt-Ins

To utilize this functionality, simply go to your PlayHaven Dashboard. In ‘game settings’, click ‘User Segments’ and then ‘add segment’. Under the ‘select dimension’ drop down menu, you’ll find ‘first session’. Select this dimension and define the dates and/or time period. You can add more dimensions if you wish. The new user segment will be saved and can be easily accessed for any of your PlayHaven marketing tools.

There are a myriad of smart ways to utilize first session segmentation. Contact our team of Account Managers for more ideas.

]]> http://blog.playhaven.com/target-players-based-on-the-day-they-first-launch-your-game/feed/ 0 http://blog.playhaven.com/success_mobiledeluxe/ http://blog.playhaven.com/success_mobiledeluxe/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 15:00:32 +0000 kasey http://blog.playhaven.com/?p=1556 Read more »

At PlayHaven we are always looking for new ways to be creative and innovative. We are typically found hammering away on our computers, building great products for mobile game developers, but every now and then we need to blow off some steam and have a little fun.

Last Friday, the PlayHaven team set out to compete in high-energy, stamina-testing scavenger hunts across the West Coast (San Francisco and Portland). While only one team in each city was crowned victor, each and every team engaged in stiff competition and went to extreme measures to beat out their opponents.

Here are a few photos from a fun-filled day of dominating outrageous tasks, wearing wacky face paint, and running around San Francisco’s Union Square and Portland’s Pearl District while bonding with our fellow colleagues.

Special thanks to Clash in San Francisco and Run Brain Run in Portland for coordinating these awesome events.

Find the BIG HEART with GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE on it.
Take a pic of your whole team doing a hands & knees
human pyramid in front of it.

40 points if you find your team CROWD SURFING a teammate
above your heads IN AN ELEVATOR.

30 points if you find a teammate feeding a PIGEON.

Ready, set, go! PlayHaven’s CTO, Michiel Frishert, strategizes with his team on the game zone map.

The Portland team unwinds from the scavenger hunt over lunch at Brix Tavern.

Check out more of our wacky pics below

We’d love to hear what topped your list of things to do on Earth Day!

… just in case you haven’t received the memo: as of May 1, 2013, Apple will no longer accept newly submitted and updated apps that access UDID.  What’s that mean for you?  Well, it means that brand new PlayHaven SDKs are coming your way!

In anticipation of the announcement (and to help make sure your app complies with Apple policies for the use of device information) we’ve been working hard on updating our iOS, Unity and Adobe Air SDKs. The iOS and Unity SDKs are available now. Adobe Air extension is expected to be released tomorrow.  The new SDKs will:

* Disable UDID by default
* Send MAC, IFA/IDFA and ODIN by default
* Incorporate receipt verification***

***Fine print: Although we’re still working on server side support for receipt verification, we advise you to implement receipt verification as supported in the SDK. We’re a couple of weeks from fully supporting this. But once deployed, you won’t need to touch a thing to leverage in-app purchase tracking with receipt verification. (WIN)

If all that’s not convincing enough, well, we threw in a few bug fixes here and there as well.

Considering the importance of UDID deprecation, we highly recommend that all of our partners update to the new SDKs prior to your next submission to the App store. You’ll definitely want to update if you’re using an SDK earlier than 1.8.2 as those versions did not support identifiers other than UDID. So, disabling UDID would cause the SDK to stop working. Why not go update right now?

Here are the links you’ll need:

* Download it!
* Read about it!
* Familiarize yourself with Apple’s requirements.

We hope we’ve made things easy for you. Just in case you have some questions, we have a great team here to help you along the way.  Trust me!  I ask them questions all the time.  :-)

More awesome products launching soon.

With thousands of new mobile games launching every week, staying competitive continues to get harder for developers and bringing quality users into your games will remain a challenge. Because of this, we believe the strategy you take to engage players once they are in your game is just as important as your acquisition strategy.

That’s why our suite of intelligent engagement, retention and monetization tools is now available for free. So go ahead and start exploring. We encourage you to experiment with your campaigns in order to understand what is most effective for your audience and what works best for your game.

Check out what you can do with our free tools:

*PlayHaven shares 70% of revenue with developers

Keep an eye out on for new premium features we’ll be adding to our platform in the coming months.

Interested in using PlayHaven’s engagement, retention and monetization tools? Sign up here or log into your dashboard to get started today.

If you’re interested in acquiring new users, reach out to us at advertise@playhaven.com.

There are a number of inaccuracies being reported and I would like to take this opportunity to provide some clarity.

PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go. We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways.

This employee was not Alex Reid, who is still with the company and a valued employee.

We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct and we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts.

In that spirit, I would personally like to hear your thoughts and concerns.

Email me at ceo@playhaven.com.  I will do my best to respond and encourage an active and civil dialogue.

The Adobe AIR runtime allows developers to package the same code into native iOS and Android apps, among other operating systems and create rich, interactive experiences for their players. Their library of AIR Native Extensions makes it easy for developers to quickly integrate tools such as PlayHaven into apps using Flash’s ActionScript.

With the PlayHaven ANE, Adobe AIR developers can start using PlayHaven to:

• Acquire Users: with targeted cost-per-install advertising campaigns on PlayHaven’s mobile advertising network spanning 4,000 mobile games, 460 million unique users, 115 million monthly active users, and 2+ billion monthly sessions.
• Understand Performance: with a wide variety of game usage, campaign, and revenue performance metrics available via our web dashboard.
• Intelligent Engage & Monetize Users: by delivering targeted in-app marketing communications – like cross promotions, rewards and virtual good promotions – to customizable user segments that are designed to improve retention and revenue.

The new PlayHaven AIR Native Extension is available today – sign up on playhaven.com to download the native extension.

Learn more about the PlayHaven Air Native Extension and Adobe’s Gaming Tools here.

Ville is a tremendous talent and we’re thrilled to have him on the team as we continue to build our team internationally and focus on better serving the needs of developers locally.

Check out what media are saying!

AllThingsD: Top Angry Birds Exec Flies the Coop

Games Industry International: PlayHaven hires former Rovio exec for European expansion

TechCrunch: Gaming Monetization Startup Playhaven Nabs Rovio’s SVP of Brand Marketing Ville Heijari

PocketGamer.biz: PlayHaven opens European office, headed by ex-Rovio SVP Heijari

Talouselama: Rovion lintukuiskaaja jättää yhtiön – Ville Heijari rakentamaan jenkkiyhtiön laajennusta

We welcome both Charles and his hats and are excited to work with him as we expand our team and the reach of our lifetime value maximization platform. See what the press has to say about Charles’ arrival.

• InsideSocialGames: PlayHaven picks up AdMob’s Charles Yim as COO
• Pocket Gamer Biz: Google exec Charles Yim joins monetisation outfit PlayHaven as COO
• TechCrunch: PlayHaven Grabs Google Admob’s Mobile Cowboy Yim As COO
• VentureBeat: Mobile game monetization startup PlayHaven’s new COO: ‘There is life after Google’
• All Things D: PlayHaven Hires Ex-AdMob Employee Charles Yim as COO