Activision taps Swrve for mobile game analytics and A/B testing

Activision Blizzard is taking mobile games as seriously as major console titles, and it’s proving that today by licensing Swrve’s technology for analytics and A/B testing for mobile apps.

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Activision has already integrated Swrve’s technology — which allows for real-time testing, extensive analytics, and monetization triggers — into the recent hit mobile title Skylanders Cloud Patrol. The company will rely on Swrve as it works to bring its popular IPs to the mobile arena.

“I think we’re pretty unique in our approach,” said Swrve CEO Hugh Reynolds in an interview with VentureBeat yesterday. The company’s technology focuses on acting proactively and making changes to apps as soon as possible, rather than the passive analytics of some competitors (including Apsalar, Flurry, Kontagent, and Mixpanel).

Reynolds’ team has been working with Activision in the form of different companies over the past 10 years. The two companies formed a similar licensing agreement back in 2002, when Reynolds was CEO of the game physics engine company Havok.

Activision recently announced that it would be staffing up internal mobile game capabilities, the VP of mobile Greg Canessa told VentureBeat. The Swrve partnership is the latest sign that mobile is an aspect major publishers have to focus on.

Reynolds tells me that Swrve is now handling about a billion game events a day. With the Activision partnership, he expects that number to explode soon.

Swrve has raised $4.7 million in funding to date from SV Angel, Mantis Group, and Intel Capital. Among Swrve’s 20 customers are PlayFirst, XMG Studio, 5th Planet Games, and Breaktime Studios.

Photo: Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat