What marketability really means in games and how to test it early

This article is based on the GameAnalytics Game Dev Masterclass series, created in collaboration with Michail Katkoff from Deconstructor of Fun.

Marketability is one of the most important and most misunderstood ideas in game development. It often gets reduced to CPI, CTR, or early install numbers. But real marketability is broader than that. It is about whether a game can earn attention, convert that attention into engagement, and eventually scale into a sustainable business.

This is exactly what Stephanie Zhang (GameAnalytics) and Frederik Vig (Trophy Games) discussed with Michail Katkoff from Deconstructor of Fun in the second GameAnalytics Masterclass. You can watch the full second masterclass here.

One of the clearest lines from the discussion comes early: “CPI only gives you kind of a glimpse of the truth .” A low CPI can look promising, but it does not tell you whether the audience is the right fit, whether the game retains, or whether it can monetize at scale.

Marketability is not one number

A big theme in the masterclass is that marketability changes depending on who is asking the question and at what stage of development the game is in. Early on, teams may care most about whether the concept gets attention at all. Later, they need to understand whether that attention turns into retention, monetization, and long-term value. For some teams, marketability also includes broader strategic questions like portfolio fit, cross-promotion potential, or whether a game brings the right users into the rest of the ecosystem.

That is why one of the most useful observations in the conversation is that marketability should be treated more as product-market-channel fit than as a pure UA metric.

What to measure at each stage

The strongest practical insight in the discussion is that different metrics matter at different stages.

Prototype stage: test attention and concept appeal

At the earliest stage, the main question is whether the idea gets attention. This is where teams often look at:

• CTR
• IPM
• fake-store conversion
• concept-level creative response

As Stephanie puts it, “At this point you want to prove the concept.”

At this stage, teams are not yet proving the whole business model. They are testing whether the game earns the next click.

Soft launch: pressure test the game

Soft launch is where marketability becomes more real. The game has to do more than attract interest. It has to function well, retain users, and show early signs of monetization.

That means moving into:

• crash rate and technical stability
• D1, D7, and D30 retention
• payer conversion
• CPI
• ROAS
• average revenue per user

The discussion offers a useful high-level retention rule of thumb here: “40 to 20 to 10.” Not as a universal truth, but as a directional benchmark for early health.

Scale: move from appeal to value

Once a game moves toward global launch, teams have to think beyond early clicks and installs. This is where marketability connects more directly to:

• DAU and MAU
• registration and conversion funnels
• LTV
• regional performance
• CAC efficiency
• long-term retention and churn

In other words, marketability starts as a question of appeal and becomes a question of scalable value.

Why marketability is more than CPI

The discussion gives a strong example of why CPI alone can be misleading. For Trophy Games, management titles often create immediate assumptions in the user’s mind. A player sees an airline or truck theme and may assume the gameplay is about driving or flying, not management. That can create cheap clicks without necessarily creating good players. That is why Frederik points out that if you only look at CPI, “it would be kind of misleading.”

This is one of the most important takeaways from the video. A good marketability framework has to ask:

• Did the creative get attention?
• Did it attract the right player?
• Did the product deliver what that player expected?
• Did the user retain and monetize?

If not, the game may be marketable on the surface but not actually scalable.

Benchmarks help but they are not the strategy

Another valuable point in the masterclass is the role of benchmarks. Benchmarks are useful because they help teams sanity-check performance. They can show whether retention, CPI, or creative response sits in the expected range for a category. But as Stephanie notes, benchmarks are not a roadmap.

Different teams have different art styles, budgets, mechanics, and audience dynamics. Two games in the same category can scale in very different ways. That is why the stronger recommendation in the conversation is to go beyond static numbers and analyze what is actually driving performance. In creative terms, that means identifying patterns in winning ads and understanding the “recipe” behind them.

Or as Michail summarizes it: “Deconstruct the creatives of other companies that are succeeding and then build out of those ingredients your successful strategy.”

That is a much more useful way to think about benchmarks than simply asking whether your CPI is above or below a category average.

Category knowledge changes how teams interpret risk

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion is the contrast between teams that know their genre deeply and teams moving into less familiar territory. A studio with a strong portfolio in one genre has an advantage. It understands the audience, the monetization patterns, the likely effect of new features, and how much improvement can realistically be unlocked over time. Without that context, the same early numbers feel much riskier.

This is why a game with weak current metrics may still move forward inside a familiar portfolio, while a game with stronger top-funnel signals but weak deeper metrics may be killed if the studio lacks confidence in how to improve it. That does not mean marketability is subjective. It means marketability is always interpreted through a studio’s ability to act on what it sees.

A common mistake: measuring the wrong thing too early

The conversation identifies a mistake that many teams make: optimizing for the wrong KPI at the wrong stage.

For example:

• focusing on ARPU too early in prototyping
• celebrating CPI before retention is proven
• tying product metrics and marketability metrics together before the game is stable
• over-indexing on one metric without understanding the rest of the funnel

Stephanie uses a strong metaphor here: before soft launch, trying to merge product metrics and monetization metrics can be “like trying to make a paper plane fly.” That is a helpful way to frame it. Some questions only become valid once the game is technically sound, the product experience is clear, and retention is at least somewhat proven.

User acquisition can improve the product itself

A particularly strong concept in the masterclass is that marketability work is not just about marketing. It can also improve the game.

The example discussed around Farm Manager is a good one: creatives featuring horses attracted far more female users than the original tractor-led approach. That was useful not just as a UA insight, but as a product insight. It revealed a mismatch between what those players expected and what the game actually showed them early on. They were attracted by the promise of livestock and animals, but did not encounter that part of the product soon enough.

That is exactly where marketability becomes more than ad testing. It becomes a way to learn what the product should surface earlier, what fantasies it should fulfill faster, and which audiences it may be under-serving. This feedback loop between marketing and product is one of the most valuable ideas in the entire video. You can watch that section in the full masterclass here.

Marketability is not luck

One of the myths challenged most directly in the discussion is the idea that marketability is something teams simply “stumble on.”

Stephanie pushes back on that clearly: “Marketability is really something you earn early and you constantly iterate on and improve.”

Marketability is not magic or luck but a structured process:

• test early
• learn from signals
• compare against realistic references
• iterate on the concept
• pressure test in soft launch
• connect creative learning back into the product

That is what turns marketability from a vague buzzword into something actionable.

AI is making marketability work faster

The final topic in the masterclass is AI, and the most useful takeaway is not that AI changes everything. It is that it changes the speed of iteration.

Teams can now:

• generate more creatives faster
• analyze more market examples faster
• remix winning ingredients into new variants faster
• test more hypotheses with lower cost

But speed does not replace judgment. The teams that benefit most are the ones that can still identify what is actually useful inside all that extra output. Frederick makes an important point here too: the industry may already be getting tired of low-quality AI creative spam. Quantity alone is not the advantage. Better quality and faster learning are.

Final takeaway

The clearest lesson from this masterclass is that marketability is not a single metric and not a late-stage concern. It starts in prototype with attention. It becomes real in soft launch through retention and monetization. And at scale, it turns into a question of long-term value, audience fit, and sustainable growth.

The most useful mindset shift is to stop treating marketability as something you either have or do not have. It is something you test, interpret, and improve over time. Or, in one of the strongest lines from the discussion: “It’s not your own roadmap.” Benchmarks, CPI, and early metrics help, but they do not replace thinking. The real work is understanding what those signals mean for your specific game, your audience, and your ability to improve it.

FAQ

What does marketability mean in games?

Marketability is the ability of a game to attract attention, appeal to the right audience, retain players, monetize effectively, and scale sustainably.

Is marketability just about CPI?

No. As discussed in the masterclass, CPI only shows part of the picture. A game can have a low CPI and still fail if retention, conversion, or monetization are weak.

What should teams measure in the prototype stage?

At the prototype stage, teams should mostly focus on attention and concept appeal, using metrics like CTR, IPM, and fake-store conversion tests.

When should retention and monetization start to matter?

They become much more important in soft launch, once the game is technically stable and ready to be pressure-tested beyond early appeal.

Are benchmarks enough to evaluate marketability?

No. Benchmarks are useful context, but teams also need to understand what is driving performance and how those learnings apply to their own product.

Can user acquisition improve the game itself?

Yes. Creative testing and UA performance can reveal which themes, mechanics, and player expectations the product should better support.

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