Market Analysis

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Getting Started with Market Analysis

The Market Analysis tool is your gateway to understanding the gaming landscape for your concept. It's designed to help you evaluate game ideas by analyzing market trends, competition, and potential. Here's how to begin your journey:

1. Start by selecting one or more games in the search bar. These can be existing games, game concepts, game ideas added to the Favorites, trending game topics, or any combination of these. This game or games will define the game niche that will be analysed.
2. Once you've entered your input, click "Add to Analysis". The tool will then create a topic based on existing related games, giving you a snapshot of the current market.
3. To fine-tune your analysis, adjust the search options:
   • Source: Choose between App stores (iOS/Android) or Steam, depending on your target platform.
   • Country: For mobile game analysis, select a specific region. The default is the United States, but you can explore other markets if that's your focus.

You can analyze up to 5 topics simultaneously, allowing for rich comparisons.

Keep in mind that the tool uses data that is updated daily, ensuring you're always working with current market insights. This dynamic approach allows you to track trends and make informed decisions as the market evolves.

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Understanding the Ludo Score

The Ludo Score is at the heart of the Market Analysis tool. It's a comprehensive rating on a scale of 1-10 that represents your game concept's market potential. Think of it as a quick snapshot of how well your idea might perform in the current market.

The final Ludo Score is a weighted average of some of the Chart Dominance, Trend Potential, Newcomer Impact, and Creative Edge scores. While a higher score generally suggests greater overall market potential for your concept, remember that each component provides valuable insights. A game with a moderate overall score but a high Creative Edge, for instance, might still be worth pursuing if you're aiming for a niche market.

Use the Ludo Score as a starting point for deeper analysis, not as the final word on your game's potential. It's a tool to guide your thinking and prompt further investigation into the market landscape for your game concept.

You can find detailed information about the Ludo Score and its metrics in the Ludo Score section of the documentation.

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Refining Your Game Concept and Decision Making

The Market Analysis tool isn't just about providing data - it's about helping you make informed decisions to refine and improve your game concept. Here's how you can leverage the insights from the tool:

1. Identify underserved niches:
   • Scan the Market Landscape Plot for areas with few similar games but high popularity.
   • Consider how your concept could be adapted to fill these gaps, potentially capturing an underserved audience.
2. Balance innovation and market fit:
   • If your Creative Edge score is high but other metrics are low, think about ways to incorporate some familiar elements that align with market trends.
   • The key is to maintain your unique selling points while improving market alignment. This balance can make your game both innovative and marketable.
3. Refine your target audience:
   • Analyze the characteristics of similar successful games to understand potential player segments.
   • Use this information to adjust your concept and shape your marketing strategy. You might discover unexpected demographics interested in games similar to yours.
4. Iterate and compare:
   • Don't be afraid to run analyses on different versions of your concept.
   • Small tweaks can sometimes lead to significant changes in market potential. This iterative process can help you optimize your game idea.
5. Inform feature planning:
   • Identify popular elements in successful similar games. What features seem to resonate with players in your target market?
   • Consider incorporating trending features that fit naturally with your concept, enhancing its appeal without compromising your vision.
6. Support investment decisions:
   • When you're deciding between multiple game concepts, use the Market Analysis tool to evaluate their relative market potential.
   • This data-driven approach can help you prioritize development resources, focusing on the ideas with the strongest market alignment.

Remember, while the Market Analysis tool provides valuable insights, it should complement rather than replace your creative vision and understanding of your target audience. Use it as a guide to refine your ideas and make informed decisions, but don't let it stifle your creativity or passion for your unique game concept.

It's important to note that chasing trends mindlessly is rarely a winning long-term strategy. By the time you release your game, the market may have shifted. Instead, consider using trending topics as creative sparks and combining them with novel elements. The Market Analysis tool can also help you reveal niche opportunities that larger players may have overlooked.

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Analyzing Multiple Topics

One of the most powerful features of the Market Analysis tool is the ability to compare up to 5 different game topics simultaneously. This comparative analysis can provide rich insights and help you make more nuanced decisions about your game development. Here's how you can leverage this feature:

1. Evaluate different concept ideas:
   • If you're torn between several game ideas, analyze them all side by side.
   • Compare their Ludo Scores and individual metrics to see which concepts have the best overall market fit.
   • This can help you prioritize which ideas to develop further or which to pursue first.
2. Identify promising hybrid concepts:
   • Compare topics from different genres to spot potential for innovative combinations.
   • You might notice that both your "match-3" topic and your "city-builder" topic have high Trend Potential scores. This could inspire you to create a unique hybrid game combining elements of both.
   • Use these insights to create game concepts that blend popular elements in novel ways.
3. Track evolving trends:
   • Analyze multiple related topics to see how trends shift over time.
   • Use the Weekly Topic Popularity graph to compare trend lines for different concepts.
   • This can help you anticipate future market directions and align your development timeline accordingly.
4. Benchmark against successful games:
   • Include topics based on popular games similar to your concept.
   • Use their metrics as benchmarks for your own game's potential.
   • This can help you set realistic goals and identify areas where you need to improve your concept.

By leveraging the multi-topic analysis feature, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the market landscape. This holistic view can inform your decision-making process, helping you refine your game concept, identify your unique selling points, and position your game effectively in the market. Remember, the goal isn't just to follow trends, but to use this data to find the sweet spot where your creative vision meets market opportunity.

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Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues while using the Market Analysis tool, here are some common problems and their solutions:

1. Too many unrelated games in analysis:
   • If you're getting an overwhelming number of results that don't seem closely related to your concept
   • Another possible cause is that there aren't any similar games in the top charts at the moment. In this case, there isn't anything you can do about that, but the Creative Edge metric will always show the most similar games regardless of market performance.
2. Unexpected Ludo Score:
   • If your Ludo Score seems surprisingly high or low, take a closer look at the individual metrics (Chart Dominance, Trend Potential, etc.) for more detailed insights.
   • Try comparing your topic to similar successful games. This can provide context for your scores and help you understand where your concept stands in relation to established titles.
3. Graphs not loading:
   • First, try refreshing the page. Sometimes a simple reload can resolve display issues.
   • If that doesn't work, try clearing your browser cache and reloading the page.
4. Unable to add more topics:
   • Remember that you can analyze up to 5 topics simultaneously. If you're trying to add a sixth topic, you'll need to remove one first.
   • To remove a topic, look for a delete option near the topic name in your list of analyzed topics.

If you've tried these solutions and are still experiencing issues, don't hesitate to reach out to Ludo.ai support, and join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/FmTPyugsrR