Innervate brings mobile-style analytics to Steam with Red Shell

Steam’s PC gaming marketplace is crowded with products, and developers have to scrap and claw to maximize the potential of their releases. Now, a player-acquisition firm is introducing a new tool to help in that fight.

Innervate, a Seattle-based company founded to help game makers reach more customers, is launching its new Red Shell service today. This is a tool that enables developers to understand exactly where their paying customers are coming from on the Steam PC gaming portal. A studio could then take that data to refocus further marketing funds more efficiently in the future. Steam represents a significant chunk of the $100 billion worldwide gaming industry, and marketing tools like Red Shell could help a company grab as big a piece of that sum as possible. And developers like Creative Assembly and Daybreak have already implemented it. Red Shell is free to start using.