How to analyse mobile game competitors

Choose competitors by the problem you are researching

Start with your game’s core loop, audience and progression. A sorting puzzle, a runner and a competitive action game can all sit in broad casual categories while answering very different research questions. Include direct competitors with comparable mechanics and a few adjacent games testing a relevant idea.

Balance established publishers with active smaller and emerging studios. Large portfolios can reveal repeated patterns; a small publisher can show a fresh mechanic or creative approach. Studio size alone should not decide which games receive your attention.

1. 01Write one research question, such as how competing sorting games present their first playable moment in ads.
2. 02Select a manageable set of games with comparable mechanics and progression.
3. 03Add their publishers to see whether the same approach appears across a portfolio.
4. 04Record the store, country and date for every comparison.

Compare the same signals over the same period

Compare creative activity over matching observation windows. A seven-day count and a lifetime count answer different questions. Separate newly observed ads from historical ads discovered during an import, and inspect concepts and variants to understand how much of a count is repeated material.

Store and chart comparisons also need a consistent frame. Use the same store, tracked market, category and chart when comparing ranks. On Google Play, public install information is a different measurement from daily downloads or revenue; avoid treating these as interchangeable.

Read a publisher through the games driving its activity

A studio total can hide very different game stories. Open the portfolio and identify which games account for new creative activity, releases, updates or chart movements. A publisher launching a new title while maintaining a mature game has two research threads worth keeping separate.

Use the game’s history to connect changes without assuming a cause. If a store-page refresh and a chart entry happen close together, record both observations. Their timing can suggest a follow-up question, but does not prove that one caused the other.

Turn observations into a research note your team can use

In SpyReel, start with Pulse, inspect the game and creative history, then follow the relevant games and studios. Revisit the Watchlist when further observations arrive. This keeps a research question connected to its evidence instead of becoming a one-off screenshot in a chat.

1. 01Observation: describe the dated change and the source it came from.
2. 02Context: add the game, publisher, market and previous activity relevant to the change.
3. 03Interpretation: explain the hypothesis you want to investigate.
4. 04Next action: decide whether to inspect a creative, compare variants or follow subsequent changes.