Grantoo SDK brings multiplayer to Rail Rush

San Francisco-based startup Grantoo has announced a partnership with Rail Rush developer Miniclip.

Grantoo is an iOS and Android SDK that helps developers bring multiplayer and tournament functionality to their mobile games, adds advertising options for monetization and charitable rewards for users.

The deal brings more than 1 million daily active users to Grantoo’s network, which in turn gives Rail Rush users a robust tournament system designed to increase engagement while helping charities.

Grantoo, similar to mobile app discovery service Gramble, can help attract users by making their play time meaningful through charity.

In addition to adding multiplayer and tournament features, Grantoo gives developers the option of another revenue stream by accepting sponsorship campaigns for tournaments in their games.

These weekly tournaments gives users the chance to compete for a prize to be awarded to the charity of their choice.

“We know from experience that multiplayer and live events increase engagement, retention and monetization in mobile games,” said Miniclip’s VP of business affairs Saad Choudri.

“Not only does Grantoo provide these features as a plug-and-play solution, they unlock additional revenue through its brand-sponsored tournaments, opening the door to millions of dollars in brand advertising budgets.”

Grantoo claims that engagement jumped by 281 percent during tournament play of Alain-Daniel Bourdages’s Pinball Deluxe.

Though Grantoo certainly offers better user engagement, the payoff is that it gives advertisers a more meaningful relationship with games, hopefully getting developers a more equitable cut of mobile marketer’s advertising budgets.

As an example of what can be accomplished through better advertising, the company points to GameLion’s Monster Shooter, which it claims benefited from an increase to average revenue per daily active user of 2.9 cents through sponsorship revenue.