push notification, usefull or not?

We have had some measurable success with push notifications. We tend to use it for general nudges to re-engage with the game, tournament/LTE starting/finishing, sales etc.

Our best practise now is not to request that permission as part of the initial boot of the game, but to introduce it after the player has been engaged for some arbitrary time. At that point we explain what we'll be using push for, and the benefits to the player, then we ask for the permission.

 

We run our own push service.

 

For inexpensive push, cost that scales by the number of pushes you send, look at Amazon SNS. Easy to use, but you really need your own server. No features, just push. For lots of push features already built for you to use on their server, look at Pushwoosh. Cost scales by the number of users your app has. So, Amazon good if you have lots of users but don't send many pushes. Pushwoosh good if you don't have many users but you do send lots of pushes.

 

Also look at Parse. I'm using them in my latest game (and possibly everything moving forward) as they have Push, analytics and more under one umbrella. I figure that the less frameworks you need to integrate and the fewer sites you need to visit to do things, the better. PLUS, their set up tutorials/wizards are outstanding. Really good stuff.

 

Also, I completely agree on the point of not just asking for permission at the game start. Figure out some reasonable metric (number of times played or an actual time period from the first open) and ask for it then. At that point you are more likely to have an interested player that you could have lost if you just ask for it right off the bat.