How Pixel Federation optimized its ASO before a game launch to secure top rankings

Challenge

As the ASO lead in Pixel Federation, Matej works closely with his team to devise an effective ASO strategy for their games’ portfolio. This includes not only maintaining good visibility for Pixel Federation’s existing games, but also working towards making each new game a success.

In August 2021, Pixel Federation launched a new transport tycoon game: Port City. After performing thorough market research, the team realized that to be able to compete with established games, they needed to optimize their mobile game’s metadata right from the start.

Solution

Using AppTweak, Matej and his team had the ASO tools available to perform extensive keyword research to optimize their game’s title. When crafting titles for games, it is important to target relevant and high-volume keywords. But for Pixel Federation, it was also important to find the right balance between their game’s branding Port City and the gameplay keywords “simulator” and “tycoon.”

Thanks to AppTweak’s smart keyword metrics such as Difficulty, Chance, and Relevancy, the team narrowed down their keyword research to a small list of high-priority keywords. They decided to optimize the title to “Port City: Ship Tycoon” to ensure long-term impact on visibility and effectively convey the game’s value proposition.

AppTweak’s extensive data and metrics also facilitated decision-making. The data is easy to digest and visualize, which helps to align stakeholders on the recommendations.

Results

In just a matter of 2 weeks, the game managed to rank #1 on the high-volume keyword “port.” The game also ranked in the top 10 for keywords including “ship tycoon” and “transport tycoon” in the US App Store. Since the launch, their visibility on the keywords and combinations included in the game title continues to increase steadily over time, proving the long-term impact of early ASO optimization.

This experience made Pixel Federation understand the importance of adding highly relevant keywords in the game title from the start. Adding relevant keywords to your game’s metadata can help you drive more downloads, which ultimately will make it harder for competitors to knock you off the top ranking positions!