Lessmore Games is a mobile gaming studio originating from Germany with a remote team, with a strong understanding of when and where to use data when building mobile games and steering their monetization strategy. Understanding player behavior and ad revenue is crucial for mobile gaming companies, and the team at Lessmore is very well aware of the impact of data when it comes to improving their games and their revenue.

Challenges Faced Before Bruin

Before adopting Bruin, Lessmore Games was primarily running all of their workloads on Snowflake, and utilizing Snowpark as their primary driver. All of the workloads being in Snowpark introduced quite a few hurdles into the process, combined with the complexity and unintuitive nature of the architecture. In the realm of game analytics, tracking player journeys, analyzing stage difficulty, and managing churn were becoming increasingly difficult tasks. Marketing efforts were similarly hindered by challenges in obtaining high-level insights into marketing profitability and conducting predictive analytics for new marketing strategies.

Frequent silent data failures were another major issue, often detected only after stakeholders experienced the consequences. These failures, occurring weekly, caused substantial setbacks and required immediate attention. Additionally, Lessmore Games experienced complete pipeline breakdowns at least once a month, severely disrupting their operations. The orchestration process was time-consuming and often led to the rejection of stakeholder requests due to the high effort required for proper orchestration.

The deployment process was equally cumbersome, with each change necessitating a 15-minute manual process, and the pipeline's instability due to frequent changes added to the complexity.

As a result of these persistent issues, Lessmore found their productivity and efficiency hampered significantly. The team was frequently diverted from strategic tasks to address technical failures, leading to missed opportunities and delays in their development roadmap. The constant firefighting also resulted in increased stress and reduced morale among team members. The cumbersome deployment process and frequent pipeline breakdowns meant that even minor updates required extensive effort and coordination, slowing down innovation and responsiveness to market demands. These challenges underscored the urgent need for a more robust, intuitive, and reliable data management solution, paving the way for their eventual transition to Bruin.

Decision Points for Choosing Bruin

When evaluating Bruin, several key decision points stood out for Lessmore Games, ultimately guiding their choice to adopt the platform.

One of the primary considerations was the need for a cloud-agnostic solution. With operations spanning across two different cloud platforms, Snowflake and Google BigQuery, Lessmore Games required a data management system that could seamlessly integrate with both environments without compromising performance or functionality. Bruin's cloud-agnostic capabilities were a perfect match, ensuring flexibility and scalability regardless of the underlying cloud infrastructure.

Another critical factor was Bruin's promise of assistance with early architecture decisions and the onboarding and migration processes. Transitioning from a deeply entrenched but flawed system like Snowflake Snowpark required careful planning and execution. Bruin's commitment to providing comprehensive support during these initial stages was extremely valuable. This support meant that Lessmore Games could avoid potential pitfalls and ensure a smoother, more efficient migration process. Additionally, the appeal of Bruin's all-in-one solution, which consolidated multiple tools into a single cohesive platform, was highly attractive. This integration simplified operations, reduced the learning curve for team members, and enhanced overall efficiency.

“Bruin solved many pain points for my team, making work not just more enjoyable but significantly more productive as well.“

Moreover, the exceptional support and expertise offered by the Bruin team played a crucial role in the decision-making process. The team at Lessmore Games was particularly impressed by Bruin's dedication to customer success. This dedication was evident through personalized support, proactive guidance, and a genuine commitment to helping Lessmore Games achieve their goals. The confidence in Bruin's team to deliver on their promises and provide ongoing support made the decision to switch to Bruin an easy one. Innovative features, robust data governance, real-time insights, and scalability further reinforced Bruin as the ideal choice for Lessmore Games, positioning them for future growth and success in the dynamic gaming industry.

Impact of Bruin

Since switching to Bruin, Lessmore Games has experienced profound improvements across various dimensions. Data reliability has seen a remarkable boost, with only one silent data failure occurring, which had no business impact and was easily rectified. Deployment issues have been entirely eradicated, with no manual interventions required anymore. The process of onboarding new data scientists has become seamless, allowing them to quickly integrate into the existing data architecture.

“Bruin strengthens our data infrastructure, boosting user acquisition accuracy and efficiency.“

The support from the Bruin team has been outstanding, providing continuous assistance in architecture and infrastructure decisions. This has led to the adoption of great patterns and best practices, further enhancing Lessmore Games' data management capabilities.

Tangible Benefits

The tangible benefits of adopting Bruin have been substantial:

• Infrastructure costs have been dramatically reduced, from approximately $7500/month on Snowflake to just $900.
• Similarly, BigQuery monthly spend decreased from $1500 to $120, 12.5x reduction.
• Maintenance efforts have also seen a significant reduction, dropping from 20 hours per week to just 4 hours.

Conclusion

The partnership with Bruin has been a transformative milestone for Lessmore Games. By addressing critical pain points and significantly reducing operational costs, Bruin has empowered Lessmore Games to redirect their focus towards innovation and growth. Lessmore Games' strategic foresight in selecting Bruin has enabled them to overcome complex data challenges and streamline their operations efficiently.