Plexonic, a casual and social game development company currently developing multiple titles, was a sponsor of the 2014 Casual Connect conference and showcased SALTR, a game personalization platform, at the event.
While there, Plexonic CEO and co-founder Gevorg Sargsyan spoke with TechnologyAdvice host Clark Buckner on how SALTR works, their target audience, and the gaming industry’s changes and trends.
Plexonic created SALTR to address pressing challenges many game developers face during game development:
- Level-design tweaking: Companies tend to struggle on tweaking levels. Level design balancing is crucial, but happens very slowly.
- Real-time changes: SALTR’s real-time level design capabilities are unparalleled because it’s the only platform that allows any two-dimensional or board game level design to happen in real time. On other platforms, changes are typically delivered to the end user in 7-10 days, including the development phase, and this isn’t a beneficial timetable in order to achieve fast development and implement better level designs.
How Does SALTR Solve Game Development Issues?
Through the SALTR platform, game producers and designers gain an enormous amount of control over their levels by integrating SALTR with their games. Consequently, they can draw a level and all changes will instantly update on an end user’s device, allowing changes and tweaks to be seamlessly delivered.
SALTR helps game developers with three specific features:
- Instant updates remove the need for an end user to manually update a game, while also allowing developers to quickly tweak level designs or game settings.
- Segmented changes allow game developers to specify different types of level complexity groups for different types of users.
- A/B testing allows developers to split-test various types of levels with a portion of their audience. Such tests can be removed from the game in real-time as well, without the need for an end user to manually update the game.
SALTR contributes to in-house game development processes by providing developers with:
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- More control: SALTR expands the control developers have over what’s happening with their game and audience.
- More real time, data-driven decisions: SALTR enables a developer to modify levels based on data-driven solutions. Real-time changes to settings, pricing, and segmentation can be tracked and analyzed to help spur the game’s growth.
Sargsyan sees two major trends shaping the gaming industry today. Different genres experience different engagement trends. In other words, what attracts gamers to one particular genre of a game won’t likely transfer into success for a different genre. Additionally, even games within the same genre may prove to have different trigger points for their respective audiences. Consequently, Sargsyan encourages developers to consider SALTR so as to learn what people want from a game and how best—and how quickly—to provide that to them.
Lastly, Sargsyan stressed that there’s not one specific way to make a gamer a repeat player of your game. Instead, companies and developers should rely on seeing what works and trying different strategies, all the while analyzing user data so as to make the right decisions for both your company and your end users.
For more information on Plexonic, visit www.plexonic.com. To find out more about SALTR, check out www.saltr.com.
This interview is provided by TechnologyAdvice, an Inc. 5000 company that connects buyers and sellers of business technology through meaningful relationships. Categories include innovative training games, customer loyalty programs, strategic employee engagement software and much more.
