Dev Center’s Year in Review: 2017

In 2017, the Dev Center Team has been hard at work bringing new features and programs to the Windows developer community. Our goal is to deliver features that will help you, as a developer, attract new customers, engage with your current Windows 10 customers and monetize your apps and games on Windows.  Today, we want to share all the new and exciting things we’ve brought to the community within the past year. Below are just some of the improvements we’ve made:

The Dev Center experience:

• Experience a modern and efficient Dev Center dashboard

• Use the Import/Export feature to quickly create and update Store listings
• Schedule the precise date and time that your app will be available in Store
• Flexible sale pricing and configuration to help promote your app

Monetization opportunities:

• Xbox Live Creators Program – now any developer can integrate Xbox Live into their game and publish to Xbox One and Windows 10

• Offer In-app purchases subscriptions with automated recurring billing (Dev Center Insider Program feature)
• Desktop Bridge – bring existing apps and games to the Microsoft Store and UWP
  • See how Evernote used the Desktop Bridge to bring their app to Microsoft Store

Customer engagement:

• Create more engaging Store listings with video trailers that could drive more acquisitions

• Offer personalized content to specific segments of your customer using targeted offers
• Use search terms to help optimize how your app shows up in customer searches

App & game analytics:

• View near real time health analytics for your apps
  • Filter health data with new filters; OS release version, architecture, Sandbox and PRAID

• Download CAB files for app failures in the Health report that occur on a Windows Insider release
• See how many customers viewed you Store page, acquired, installed and used your apps by viewing the Acquisition funnel
• View your app reviews grouped according to categories with Review insight categories to see where you should focus improvement efforts

• See how your customers are engaging with Xbox features in your game with Xbox analytics
  • Understand the impact of any Xbox Live client errors through the Xbox Live service health tab
• View acquisition reports for your Office add-ins on Dev Center
• Health and Install reports for Windows desktop applications (available through the Windows Desktop Application Program)

Microsoft Ads Platform:

• Join the Windows Premium Ads Publishers Program which curates a list of best in class apps and games in terms of usage, engagement and experience

• Utilize the Microsoft Ad Monetization Platform that provides ad mediation service ensuring that ads from different networks are delivered to developers from a single SDK
• You can now use interstitial and native ads through the Microsoft Advertising SDK
• We’ve added new ad networks (Taboola, Outbrain, Revcontent, SpotX and Smartclip) to our platform to help increase fill rates and revenue
• One-stop-shop reporting available through Dev Center UI and API for all ad networks integrated

• You can use the user acquisition & engagement platform to acquire users with ease

We would like to thank all the Windows developers, publishers and partners for continuing to invest in the Windows 10 ecosystem. We look forward to continuing our work to help make you successful in 2018!