TinyCo tries a different approach to the user acquisition problem

Bringing new users to free-to-play games has been an issue at the front of mobile developers' minds for a while now, and TinyCo (Tiny Monsters) has a new program that aims to solve the problem. Many mobile developers spend a considerable amount of their budgets on user acquisition, paying for in-game ads or promotional campaigns that will drive players to their titles -- a portion of which they hope to convert into paying users. User acquisition costs are rising, though, and game discovery remains a problem on app stores where developers have to compete with hundreds of thousands of releases. TinyCo believes it's found a way around those problems, and it's looking for help from other developers. The San Francisco-based developer has a new revenue sharing program encouraging other studios to promote TinyCo games in their own titles. After directing players to install TinyCo games, those studios then earn at least 50 percent and as much as 80 percent of the lifetime revenues that user generates in TinyCo titles. While this doesn't solve the user acquisition and game discovery problems for other developers, the "Tiny Partners" program does give them another revenue source, and it's an initiative that studios could copy. The program's free SDK is compatible with games released for iOS, Android, and Amazon's AppStore. Several developers have already signed up for the program, including Fluik Entertainment and MobilityWare.