The rise of rewarded user acquisition platforms

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This article was written by Almedia CEO and founder Moritz Holländer.

The concept of ‘reward’ sits at the very heart of video games’ powerful appeal. In presenting players with all manner of quests, goals, and aims, they thrive in rewarding our in-built psychological needs to feel competent, autonomous, and purposeful.

Simply put, we gravitate to games because of the ways they reward us.

It should come as little surprise, then, that rewarded user acquisition (RUA) is rising rapidly as a powerful option for mobile game developers looking to grow their audiences and businesses.

Consumers that play games are already an open book to being rewarded by and around the medium they adore. And when it comes to being marketed to, who wouldn’t want to receive a meaningful reward – including cash – simply for playing a game?

And as game developers and marketers look for innovative, impactful ways to engage meaningfully with users in a new landscape for privacy and targeting, rewarded user acquisition is becoming much more than an emerging trend. 

It is rising as a go-to for significant sections of the global mobile games industry, and is increasingly reshaping the conventions of growth, user acquisition, and retention.

How does rewarded user acquisition work?

Rewarded user acquisition (UA) for mobile games recognises that while free-to-play and live serviced games continue to dominate, a fresh approach to user acquisition is needed. Rewarded UA platforms reward players with cash and digital items for the likes of trying games, completing surveys, or even simply signing up to services and platforms. 

It’s important to note here that Rewarded UA is distinct from approaches such as rewarded ads, where users receive a reward for enduring a gameplay-blocking video within a game.

In those cases, the incentivisation takes place within the ad itself. The new generation of rewarded user acquisition, meanwhile, asks audiences to come to a devoted platform specifically to earn rewards – and proactively encourage them to stay with the games they discover.

As a game dev, you could put your game on a rewarded user acquisition platform – at Almedia, for example, we provide the consumer-facing Freecash platform.

Players browsing there can then choose to download your game, and in return for engagement and gameplay, be rewarded with a monetary contribution. This is typically through the likes of currency or credits, which can then be exchanged for Amazon vouchers, PayPal credit, or Google Play vouchers among others.

If players were simply rewarded for downloads alone, your game might get a number of installs. But when staying players are the heartbeat of your growth, you want more than downloads alone.

That’s why the best reward-based campaigns see integration between the reward concept and activity in the game. In other words, players are rewarded for spending active time in your game, rather than simply just downloading it. 

So when we worked with Mad Brain Games to bring highly retained players to their game Word Farm, for example, together we built special in-game events and tasks that would encourage users to keep playing, securing greater rewards by achieving certain tasks.

Where did rewarded user acquisition come from?

Mobile game user acquisition has always had to evolve in tandem with mobile gaming itself.

As such, over time we’ve seen the likes of premium, cross-promotion, ad formats such as interstitials, rewarded video and playables, freemium, subscription and other models variously rise or fall. So often, targeting users via their data-powered methods. 

Then, when Apple handed more control of personal data to users with the deprecation of its IDFA in April 2021, established approaches became ever more imprecise.

Here it is worth noting that the new generation of rewarded approaches are not related to the ‘incentivised campaigns’ of the early 2010s. Back then, rewards were given for installs alone, with the motivation to push games up to an attention grabbing highly discoverable position in the charts.

That elevated profile might have aided discovery, but otherwise there was no meaningful attempt to engage or retain. Soon, Apple and others banned the practice, and many got their fingers burned. But that is not a reason to miss out on the opportunity severed up by the new era of rewarded acquisition.

Supporting success in a privacy-first landscape

Following the regulation of IDFA, mobile developers are increasingly focused on growing their existing successes. As targeting users grows harder, launching new games that have to make a fresh start with UA is less appealing. The same regulation also reduced the ability for ad personalisation, and made measuring ROAS considerably more challenging.

This has all been in the best interests of the user, protecting their privacy. The result? Modern audiences want mutually beneficial relationships with game devs and publishers, where their value is recognised, and where they get value in return.

We are also in the era where Web3 ‘play-to-earn’ gaming has fascinated vast audiences, educating them in the potential they bring to developers and publishers, while establishing more expectation of truly valuable rewards.

Rewarded user acquisition, meanwhile, puts agency in the players’ hands, and recognises their value, while making an explicit proposition with transparent gains for audience and publisher alike. Critically, players choose to come to a platform like Freecash, rather than having campaigns thrust upon them in their games, or having to trawl through the App Store or Google Play looking for their next game to play.

Rewarded user acquisition campaigns are also highly cost effective, because the founding model means developers only pay for successful installs. From that point on rewarded platform providers use that CPI to motivate lasting engagement and deliver rewards. The user engagement there is also effectively guaranteed; players have to be engaged to meet the criteria to earn a reward.

Another impact of adopting rewarded UA is that studios see lasting, sustainable growth, as the focus is on deeply engaging high-intent users, over the short-term gains of simply securing downloads and using game systems to keep players. And because concrete actions need to be performed to secure rewards, marketers get pragmatic, meaningful insights and data on the success of campaigns.

A risk-free UA model?

Concerns about the rise of rewarded UA are inevitable. It is something new, and it plays out without the reassuring familiarity of highly targeted, personalised ads. Campaign performance metrics, meanwhile, arguably arrive in a new language and context.

But companies like Almedia are here to make it safe, reliable, and highly impactful; because we need the method to thrive as much as the players and game developers do. That’s why we don’t just provide a platform for Rewarded UA, and leave you to it.

A rewarded future

Rewarded user acquisition continues to evolve. Providers and game developers are better understanding how to craft engaging, retention strategies, as technologies like the new generation of AI allow for deeper personalisation and recommendations.

In turn, rewarded campaigns in game may extend from 30 to 40 days to hook the player, to extending out to many months; with RUA even founding new gameplay features and meta games. Crossovers with other verticals such as Web3 and fintech will only bring more opportunities.

As concerns about privacy continue, and players constantly evolve their understanding of game discovery and acquisition, rewarded is looking set to become a dominant model – to the point that in the coming years, RUA platforms may evolve and merge with ad tech and other established systems, meaning new products and hybrid strategies.

In short, rewarded gaming is not going anywhere. From our perspective, we’re seeing an exponential growth trend. Now might be the ideal time to step up as an early adopter and make meaningfully rewarded players central to your growth strategy.