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Are there benefits to merging gaming with sleep? Find out how Pokémon Sleep stacks up against other sleep-related apps. We’ll delve into the unique features that make Pokémon Sleep a standout experience and explore how it integrates into the broader Pokémon ecosystem. But that’s not all; we’ll discuss if there could be plans to extend its reach beyond sleep and venture into the realm of promoting other healthy habits.

You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Topics we will cover in this episode:

1. Introduction
2. Understanding Pokémon Sleep Gameplay
3. Comparing Pokémon Sleep to other sleep-tracking apps
4. Pokémon brand strategy and wellness focus
5. Benefits and concerns of Pokémon Sleep
6. Pokémon GO Plus device and sleep tracking
7. Market reception and future potential
8. Future possibilities for the Pokémon brand

The post Episode 48: Pikachu, I Snooze You! Mastering the Dream World With Pokémon Sleep appeared first on GameRefinery.

As shooter games continued to grow in popularity and spin out into new subgenres, it was only a matter of time until developers turned their sights to the mobile market – but the biggest barrier was the lack of controllers. For a long time, shooter games on mobile were a niche genre, and the touch-screen controls were considered cumbersome compared to their console counterparts which use dedicated controllers. 

In recent years, however, mobile shooters such as Call of Duty, Free Fire, and PUBG: Mobile have soared to the top of the charts. Much of that success is owed to gaming’s ‘Battle Royale boom.’ Fortnite has become a worldwide phenomenon, and battle royale shooters such as Free Fire and PUBG: Mobile have established themselves as worthy competitors. Call of Duty has also established itself on smaller screens with a mobile iteration of its blockbuster franchise, complete with its own battle royale mode.   

But is the market becoming oversaturated? Below, we take a deeper dive into the highest-grossing and most downloaded shooters on the mobile market to see which subgenres developers should be focussing on if they want to make an impact in the shooter space. 

The most popular mobile shooters

Three titles dominate the US iOS shooter market: Call of Duty: Mobile, PUBG MOBILE, and Free Fire. These three take up about 80% of the market share in the West, with the rest (20%) being evenly divided across other titles. These three titles heavily focus on cosmetic in-app purchases (IAP). For example, players can acquire decorative skins for their characters, companions, vehicles, and weapons through gacha mechanics, battle passes, or direct purchases. 

Free Fire differentiates from the other two top dogs as even though the main focus of its in-app purchases is cosmetic, the items for sale also provide character and weapon buffs. The top-end weapon skins, for instance, change the attributes of weapons slightly to give a slight edge in competitive play, while characters and pets can be upgraded with various skills that modify gameplay. 

Given that Free Fire doesn’t have the same IP recognition that PC and console powerhouses like Call of Duty and PUBG have, the developers likely felt the need to give players an extra incentive to buy into the game. The result speaks for itself; Free Fire has way higher revenue per download than its competitors, with around $29 ARPD compared to PUBG Mobile’s $12 ARPD and Call of Duty: Mobile’s $7.30 ARPD.

Regarding the broader market, most shooters among the top-grossing 500 focus their monetization on upgrades and other powerful in-app purchases—this can likely be attributed to the demands of fuelling a purely cosmetic business model. 

Players must regularly be provided with exciting new playable content alongside a raft of purchasable cosmetics to fuel the in-game economy. Titles like Call of Duty achieve this every month with new classes, maps, game modes, and more due to being based on a blockbuster franchise. Smaller studios would no doubt struggle to keep up, so they opt for power progression to gain a higher revenue per download and enable a more sustainable, less content-driven model.

However, this does come with certain downsides. Tying player progression to monetization is often criticized by players for being ‘pay-to-win,’ particularly in genres heavily focused on competitive multiplayer. If a delicate balance isn’t achieved, there can be backlash amongst players, which can lead to negative reviews flooding in for your game.

Which shooter subgenres should developers pursue? 

With Call of Duty, PUBG, and Free Fire dominating the mobile shooter market, many developers may wonder if competing in the shooter genre is worthwhile. 

While it is undoubtedly crowded, those who dig deeper will find a surprising amount of uncovered ground in this genre. In fact, roughly four categories could be explored more in the mobile game market: extraction shooters, RPG-like looter shooters, survival shooters, and tactical FPS games. Let’s take a deeper dive into these subgenres. 

Extraction shooters

Extraction shooters are one of the less crowded shooter subgenres and move slower than other titles. The aim is to go into a match, loot items, kill enemies within a time limit, and extract from the area before or when the time runs out. These games are usually PvPvE (player vs. player vs. enemy). Popular titles on the PC and console market include Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown.

One of the few extraction shooters to make headway on mobile platforms (particularly in the Chinese market) is Arena Breakout — a realistic-style FPS game with some survival elements, such as a highly complex health system. 

Players participate in PvPvE matches against NPCs and other players in two game modes, either with pre-equipped items or without owned items. During the match, players must consider their physical health level, find equipment and items to loot, kill off enemies and evacuate safely within the time limit.

Arena Breakout has a distinctive monetization model. Unlike other shooters, it does not focus on cosmetics or power progression but instead on collecting items that can be traded and lost in the battle. Pushing players towards purchasing safety boxes to save their most precious items from being stolen differentiates Arena Breakout from the more power-orientated progression shooters, as even if weapons can be somewhat upgraded, there is still a need to purchase a safety box to keep items secure. While in the match, if the player has not stored their items in the safety box and they die during the match, the player will drop all items they carried with them to the pre-equipped items game mode for other players to steal. 

There have not been too many similar examples in the mobile game market yet of extraction shooters, although PUBG Mobile has a similar mechanic in a recurring gameplay mode Metro Royale (which also draws inspiration from Escape from Tarkov).

Survival shooters 

These shooters revolve around a survival theme, often in a post-apocalyptic environment featuring zombies or other threats. These games usually feature detailed weather, hunger, and health mechanics (among others), which need to be considered during the game to survive. Exploration and resource-gathering play a big part in these games in addition to combat, with some survival games also implementing shooter mechanics. 

There are only a few mobile titles in the Western market that specifically focus on survival gameplay, and currently, there are no shooter survival games among the top-grossing ranks on the US iOS platform. However, some top-down survival games, such as The Last Day on Earth: Survival, have managed to gain popularity.

On the contrary, the PC and console market has a number of survival shooters, including the zombie-filled DayZ and post-apocalyptic Rust. Both titles feature a wide area to explore with other players, combining PvE and PvP elements. DayZ has enormous maps, with the main threat stemming from zombies, with occasional encounters with other players. In Rust, the main danger is other players, even though there are also some PvE elements. The biggest differentiator between the two is Rust’s base-building focus, which can be done solo or with others.

Arena Breakout, LifeAfter, and Undawn in the Chinese mobile game market incorporate some elements into their gameplay. Undawn is interesting because it’s a new survival title that recently hit the Chinese and Western mobile markets. 

Around its launch in the CN iOs market, the game peaked at the top-grossing position 6 but has since dropped outside the CN top-grossing 200, currently sitting at the top-grossing rank of 371 and sustained download rank of 183. In the US iOs market, the game is lingering in the sustained top-grossing rank 324 and the sustained download rank 260, but has not quite yet reached the top-grossing 200.

Undawn is a third-person survival shooter with MMO traits where the player is trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. It is similar to the survival MMO LifeAfter, which has even been visiting the US top-grossing 200. 

In Undawn, players partner up to survive the punishing world to complete various tasks. There is a heavy storytelling aspect, with cutscenes regularly interspersed between gameplay featuring several main characters. The game also includes detailed survival mechanics. Players must consider their character’s physical health, hygiene, and sleep level, as well as prepare for changing weather conditions to survive.

Typical of a Chinese midcore game, Undawn has plenty of cosmetic items for the character and a home system, which can be decorated with various buildings. Upgrading the home system is a crucial part of progression, as the player can’t continue upgrading their character if their home level is too low. This, and many other aspects of the game, require a lot of resource collecting—such as collecting berries from the forest or shooting animals. Collected materials are then used to create many items needed in the game, including weapons and food.  

The game has two main focuses for monetization: cosmetic economy and material purchasing. Cosmetic items (for the character and their home system) can be purchased immediately or with gachas. Material items are needed for crafting equipment items, such as guns and armor, which are tied to power progression. These items can either be collected or purchased right away from the store. 

This type of monetization differs significantly from that of the top US iOS shooter games since the focus is on materials rather than upgrading or collecting characters and weapons. 

Looter shooters 

RPG-like looter shooters are another subgenre absent from the mobile game market. The idea of these games is to have some RPG elements (storytelling, character progression) combined with looting and shooting. There is usually a massive open area to explore, and the main aim is to kill off other players and AI-controlled enemies. In the PC and console sphere, these include titles such as Destiny and The Division, the latter of which has officially announced a mobile version.

This type of shooter could answer some of RPG players’ motivations. When looking at our motivation data, we generally find a few motivations that are being neglected by developers or don’t feature in high positions in the US iOS top-grossing shooter games. These include the exploration of new worlds, collecting treasure, role-playing and emotions.

Looking at the above picture, notice how these three motivational aspects are not highlighted in the most popular shooters:

• If the focus were shifted more towards storytelling, RPG players would find it easier to become immersed in the game through its narrative. 
• The motivation to collect treasure already has quite a high position in many top shooter games, but the open-world experience could enhance this aspect even further if the player could loot items on a larger scale. 
• The third motivation, exploring new worlds, needs to be added to most top-grossing shooter games. Having a larger area to explore would scratch that itch.

Tactical FPS games 

Another genre rarely seen on mobile is tactical FPS. Similar to extraction shooters, these focus more on tactical, slow-paced gameplay. Players usually form a team of five and compete against others in purely PvP gameplay. In the PC and console sphere, some of the most well-known titles include Counter-Strike and Valorant, the latter of which is rumored to be launching a mobile version soon. 

When looking again at our motivation data, we noticed that the top three shooter games are missing one aspect which features prominently in tactical FPS games: strategic planning.

Out of all the subgenres we’ve listed, tactical FPS is likely the most rarely encountered on mobile, although some examples remain. Critical Ops is a competitive FPS game similar to Counter-Strike with smooth gameplay and realistic graphics. The focus is on highly competitive, skill-based gameplay with a high learning curve, and the game also has eSports and live tournaments, which occasionally offer real-money prize pools. 

Despite being one of the most successful tactical FPS games on mobile, it has not appeared in the top-grossing ranks for a substantial period of time. This is likely down to the game being developed by a fairly small studio, which lacks the necessary resources to acquire new users and encourage growth. A larger studio with more capacity would likely fare better.

One to avoid: Battle Royale

The overwhelming popularity of Fortnite has meant that the battle royale subgenre has become a huge aspect of mobile gaming, and shooters are no exception—with each of the top-three shooters dominating the market. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for new titles to establish themselves.

A prime example of this is Apex Legends Mobile. As a smartphone version of the popular PC and console game, Apex Legends Mobile launched with a breadth of exciting features and content owing to its big screen counterpart and featured unique ‘Legends’ characters that differentiated it from other battle royale games on the market. Despite this, the game could not gain a stable position in the market and was eventually shut down.

While we can only speculate the reasons behind this, we suspect it may have been down to the demands of maintaining the game’s LiveOps strategy (which ran separately from its console counterparts) mixed with the immense competition it faced from the three shooter giants. With that in mind, we’d recommend smaller studios to steer clear of this subgenre for now.

Summary

With an 80% share of the Western market, Call of Duty: Mobile, Free Fire, and PUBG Mobile share a firm hold on the mobile shooter throne. Their resource-heavy cosmetic monetization model, combined with their popularity on other platforms (at least in the case of Call of Duty and PUBG), will make it challenging to knock these three titans off their podium. 

Other shooters will have the best chance of breaking into the market if they can introduce some fresh core gameplay ideas. Given the strength of the power three and other mobile monoliths such as Fortnite, that will mean most developers should steer clear of the Battle Royale genre – or else risking a fate similar to Apex Legends. 

Looter shooters are a relatively untapped market on mobile and could tie into the motivations of many players by featuring narrative elements and exploration through a large open-world. That being said, Ubisoft plans to bring The Division to mobile, and Bungie looks set to follow with Destiny, meaning this space may soon become crowded.  

Survival and extraction shooters have a handful of popular titles in the Chinese market, but these subgenres are yet to make a big impact in Western markets despite their popularity on console and PC platforms, suggesting there are many gains to be had. 

Tactical shooters are also almost unheard of on mobile, suggesting it might be difficult to translate this type of gameplay onto a small screen successfully. Critical Ops has proven it can be done, although this title hasn’t made much impact in terms of revenue. We suspect a larger studio with the capacity to further push UA, and even perhaps collaborate with other IP to drum up interest, would fare better.

If you enjoyed this post and wish to explore this topic even further, then check out some of our other content:

• Episodes 25 and 44 of our podcast discuss the mobile shooter market in depth. 
• Delve into Liftoff’s 2023 Midcore Gaming Apps Report
• Use our new LiveOps tools to inspect the framework of the highest-grossing shooters

The post Is the Mobile Shooter Market Saturated? Top Tips on How to Innovate in a Crowded Genre appeared first on GameRefinery.

This major privacy update has greatly impacted mobile marketers and advertisers by making it more difficult for them to access the data they rely on for user acquisition purposes. Snap, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube told the Financial Times that ATT was responsible for losses of nearly $10 billion at the time. 

ATT permission is usually requested via an in-app pop-up notification where users can choose to allow or deny tracking on a per-app/game basis. While companies must get permission from users before tracking or collecting their data, there aren’t any guidelines regarding when or where this pop-up notification should appear in-app. 

This got us wondering: is there an ideal time to ask users for data tracking consent? When do the top-grossing games display their ATT pop-up? And are there any additional tactics that the top-grossing games are using to encourage their players to agree to tracking?

We conducted a study to find out.

Analysis of ATT tracking pop-up data among US top-grossing 200 games 

During this study, we manually inspected whether sample mobile games display ATT tracking consent pop-ups during a hypothetical “first session” (= the first 25 minutes of gameplay). We chose this time frame because it is a reasonable amount of time for a new user to spend on a game and can provide insight into whether or not the pop-up is displayed early on in the user’s experience. 

However, it’s important to note that there may be games that are listed as not including any pop-ups, but do feature them beyond this sampling time frame. Therefore, while our study provides valuable insights into the prevalence of ATT tracking consent pop-ups during the first session, some games may still feature them later on in the user’s gameplay experience.

The study sample included the US top-grossing 200 list for iOS games, according to GameRefinery data that was accessed in late January, 2023. The list was analyzed and 99% of the games were inspected. The remaining 1% were not inspected because they were premium games (marked as “Na” in the charts below).

The data we gathered is valuable for game developers and publishers who aim to understand market trends and create successful games.

Furthermore, game developers can use this data to identify the features and characteristics that contribute the most to a game’s success, helping to guide the creation of new games or the improvement of existing ones. Through this analysis, we discovered when the most successful games in the US market were displaying ATT notifications.

72% of top mobile games display ATT pop-ups within the first 30 seconds of gameplay 

During the study, we found that the vast majority of sampled games (88%) included ATT pop-ups within the sampling time frame of 25 minutes. This indicates a general trend of app developers complying with Apple’s new privacy policy guidelines. 

However, it is worth noting that a small but significant percentage of games, around 11%, featured no pop-ups within the same time frame. This may be because the pop-up features much later in the game or they are not even attempting to get access to the identifier.

Our analysis also found that 81.4% of the 177 games with ATT pop-ups displayed them within the first 30 seconds of gameplay. The timing of the pop-ups ranged from one second to 15 minutes and 44 seconds from starting the application, suggesting that some games are waiting to build trust with users during their gameplay session before requesting permission to track their data.

Nearly 70% of the top-grossing 50 iOS games request ATT permission during the first 15 seconds of gameplay

ATT pop-up timing amongst the top-grossing 100 games (n=89) ranged from one second to 2 minutes and 22 seconds with 82% of the games displaying the pop-up within the first 30 seconds of gameplay. Almost 70% of the top 100 games displayed the pop-up window between the first six to 30 seconds of gameplay. 

While we’re unable to access data showing whether users accepted or denied these requests, our analysis suggests that game developers should prioritize displaying ATT pop-ups during the first 30 seconds of gameplay to increase their chances of users giving permission for data tracking. 

Among the top 50 grossing games (n=43), ATT pop-up timing ranged from one second to two minutes and 20 seconds. 84% of these games displayed the pop-up within the first 30 seconds, and 58% of top-50 games displayed the pop-up between 6 and 15 seconds, further consolidating the finding that a “golden window” for ATT pop-up timing exists somewhere during the first six and 30 seconds of gameplay.

This suggests that developers should aim to display the pop-up early, but not too early, in order to maximize user engagement and compliance with ATT requirements.

Do personalized pre-ATT prompts improve the chances of user opt-in?

Some of the mobile games we analyzed displayed an additional pop-up before requesting ATT opt-in permission from their users, which we’ll call a pre-ATT prompt. These additional pop-ups are delivered to convince the user to allow ATT tracking, and 23% of the top-200 games we analyzed included a personalized pre-ATT prompt within the time frame of the sampling. 

Top-grossing 100 games are more likely to display pre-ATT prompts

Our analysis found 26% (45/176) of sampled games with ATT pop-ups also included a personalized pre-ATT prompt. Interestingly, games that fall within the top-100 grossing chart were twice as likely to include a personalized pre-ATT prompt than games that rank 101-200. Out of the games ranked 1–100, 27 had personalized pre-ATT prompts, whereas only 18 games ranked 101-200 had personalized pre-ATT prompts.

Based on this data, our analysis suggests that personalized pre-ATT prompts may be more common in top-grossing games or games that aim to maximize revenue through targeted advertising.

Games that generate more revenue are more likely to request additional user information 

In addition to the above findings, our analysis also found a small percentage of games included additional prompts for user information. Specifically, 13% of the sampled games included some kind of additional prompts, such as requests for email addresses, phone numbers, age, gender, and other personal data. 

Like the findings above, the percentage of games displaying additional prompts varied depending on their ranking in the top-grossing chart.  17% of mobile games in the top-grossing 100 chart included an additional data prompt, compared to only 9% of games ranked between 101–200. This indicates that games that generate higher revenue are 89% more likely to request additional user information than games ranked between 101 and 200.

It is worth noting that this trend raises questions about the privacy and security of user data. While some users may not mind providing this information, others may feel uncomfortable sharing personal details. Game developers should be transparent about their data collection practices and ensure user data is properly protected.

Additionally, it may be beneficial for game developers to consider alternative ways to monetize their games, rather than relying solely on user data collection. This could help build trust with users and create a more positive user experience.

Displaying ATT notifications early could improve the chances of opt-in for users 

After analyzing the ATT frequency and the time notifications appear amongst the top-200 grossing iOS games, our data suggests that the first 30 seconds of gameplay is the sweet spot for displaying ATT pop-ups. 

It’s important to note that we weren’t able to access data showing whether customers were accepting or refusing these notifications, but the trend of higher-grossing mobile games displaying ATT notifications earlier during gameplay suggests that early requests are more successful. This deduction is based on the assumption that developers of higher-grossing mobile games are adjusting their ATT notification display time point based on their individual experience of how users are responding to their notification.

We’ve summarized the key findings from this data below: 

• 81.4% of the games displaying some kind of ATT-related pop-up did so within the first 30 seconds of gameplay.
• Among the top-grossing 50 games (n=43), 58% displayed the pop-up between the first six and 15 seconds of gameplay.  However, we believe that displaying the pop-up during the first five seconds of gameplay may be unpopular among top games due to a higher likelihood of users instinctively rejecting the pop-up.
• Our research also found that only 25.6% (45/176) of sampled games with ATT pop-ups included a personalized pre-ATT prompt.
• Games in the top 100 grossing were 50% more likely to include a personalized pre-ATT prompt than games in top-grossing ranks 101-200. 
• 13% of sampled games also included some kind of additional prompts for user information, including email, phone number, age, gender, etc.
• Top-100 grossing games were 89% more likely to include additional prompts than games among ranks 101-200.

If you enjoyed reading this post, here are a few more you should definitely check out:

• Mobile Game Publishers Are Bypassing Google and Apple Store Cuts With External Web Stores
• First Impression Seals the Deal – Introducing Onboarding Best Practices PART 1
• Power-up UA with a Friend Referral Program

The post What’s the Best Time to Request Permission From Users for ATT? (iOS) appeared first on GameRefinery.

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– If you enjoy the episode, remember to hit subscribe!

Joined by Joel Julkunen, Head of Analytics and Chief Game Analyst, Erno Kiiski, from GameRefinery, a Liftoff Company. 

Topics we will cover in this episode:

1. Introduction
2. Why should you play Marvel Snap if you haven’t already
3. Marvel Snap is a mobile-first card game
4. The importance of well-known IP in the success of Marvel Snap
5. Progression system
6. Marvel Snap has to start bringing more horizontal content at some point
7. Monetization
8. Friendly matches in a tournament format

The post Episode 42: Marvelling at Marvel Snap appeared first on GameRefinery.

Editor’s Note: This piece was updated in February 2023 to reflect a significant rise in the daily revenue of Eggy Party in the Chinese iOS market.

When a game with a unique style and appearance becomes a hit, it doesn’t take long for new games to emerge, hoping to emulate that success by using the same gameplay mechanics, visual style and features. You can also see this happening in the mobile market with new game modes, such as the Fall Guys-style gameplay that’s now used in side modes in Garena Free Fire and QQ Speed (GKart). 

That said, there’s a big difference between a quick cash-in and a mobile clone that becomes a superior version of the game it’s taken inspiration from by adding new gameplay features and generally being more enjoyable to play. And that’s exactly the case with the chart toppers Stumble Guys and Eggy Party, two mobile clones of the 60-player knock-out party game, Fall Guys. 

Why isn’t there a mobile version of Fall Guys? 

Fall Guys became an overnight hit shortly after its release in August 2020 on PC and PS4. By the beginning of December, Fall Guys had reached 11 million sales on PC while also becoming the most-downloaded game on PlayStation Plus, and the game is now available on Xbox and Nintendo Switch. So, considering how successful it’s been (and still is), why hasn’t its publisher, Mediatonic, released the game on mobile devices? 

BiliBili, a Chinese games and entertainment company, secured the rights to publish a mobile version of Fall Guys shortly after its release, but Mediatonic hasn’t announced any plans to release the game on mobile in the West. It’s worth noting that Mediatonic is owned by Epic Games, and given the publisher is in a long-running legal battle with Apple over disputes around App Store practices, it might be possible that Fall Guys doesn’t make it to mobile in the West until a resolution is found. 

That said, there are arguments for and against releasing a mobile version of Fall Guys. With Stumble Guys and Eggy Party already proving so popular, there might not be much of a market left for a mobile version of Fall Guys to conquer. Then again, the success of Eggy Party and Stumble Guys has provided solid proof of concept and shown there is an appetite for this genre amongst mobile players.

Either way, if Fall Guys does eventually make it to mobile, it will have to make some changes to set itself apart from the competition – so let’s take a look at what the competition is doing. 

Stumble Guys vs. Eggy Party: Similarities and differences

Stumble Guys 

You’d be forgiven for mistaking Stumble Guys for Fall Guys. Developed by Kitka Games and acquired by Scopely Games in September 2022, Stumble Guys is a knock-out party game with a similar visual style and gameplay mechanics to Fall Guys. It was released in February 2021 and supports a maximum number of 32 simultaneous players rather than the 60 in Fall Guys. 

Players race, jump and dash through three rounds of obstacle courses (maps). After each round, a limited number of players that reach the finish line or survive the obstacles make it through to the next round, until a shortlist of finalists is chosen for the last course and a winner is crowned. As of December 15 2022, players can also take part in games via a ‘custom party’ that allows them to tailor search criteria for specific matches, such as competitive modes or playing with friends. 

Similar to Fall Guys, there’s a lot of variation in the map types, which range from races to the finish line and team-based games to survival modes as sections of the map disappear. Maps for both Stumble Guys and Fall Guys have continued to expand in terms of play types over style, although Stumble Guys doesn’t have any memory game maps.

Until very recently, Stumble Guys didn’t feature any limited-time collaborative maps (such as the Sonic The Hedgehog map in Fall Guys), but that’s no longer the case after Scopely announced a collaboration with Hot Wheels. The collaboration introduces a new map, Hot Wheels Hustle, to the map pool, complete with racing mechanics as players race around a Hot Wheels-themed racetrack. 

The shared similarities between Stumble Guys and Fall Guys means Stumble Guys has been able to capitalize on the popularity of Fall Guys. As of October this year, the game has been downloaded over 265 million times and generated over $60 million in revenue through IAPs since its release, with most of its traffic coming off the back of Fall Guys’ move to a free-to-play title. 

As the only established alternative to Fall Guys on mobile devices, Stumble Guys has built considerable momentum around hype for Fall Guys, especially on the day that Fall Guys became a free-to-play title. It’s likely that Stumble Guys activated UA campaigns around this time period and we also know the game has been building a solid fan base thanks to influencer marketing on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, which is one of the reasons why the game is so popular in Latin America.

Stumble Guys was also the third most downloaded game of 2022, according to data from mobilegamer.biz, beating the likes of established mobile games including Candy Crush Saga and Roblox. In total, Stumble Guys raked in over 219 million downloads.

Fall Guys is more robust in terms of features and the various gameplay mechanics on offer, but Stumble Guys contains some mechanics that aren’t present in Fall Guys. This results in Stumble Guys having more of a focus on competitive playing and tournament-style matches. 

Tournaments and additional gameplay modes 

While the main focus of Stumble Guys is on the 32-player knockout mode, it constantly hosts a variety of tournaments that aren’t present in Fall Guys. Some of the tournaments cost gems (in-game currency) to enter, the cost of which typically ranges between 10–50 gems. Gems can be earned via free daily gacha spins or purchased in packs – but they’re genuinely earned really slowly, which incentivizes entry into the tournaments because of the massive rewards on offer for winners. 

These tournaments often have special rules and reward winners with a prize pool of gems that can be used to purchase skins through gachas, battle passes, and skip battle pass tiers. Some of these tournaments are hosted in collaboration with social media influencers (as seen by the thumbnail for the main event above) and cost gems to enter.

Examples of the special rules in tournaments include 1v1 and 2v2 modes – matchmaking variations that aren’t present in Fall Guys. Ultimately, the presence of tournaments in Stumble Guys means players have another major game mode to sink their time into and this improves the chances of them staying engaged in the long term.

Special emotes

While both games feature emotes, Fall Guys’ emotes are more cosmetic in nature, while the special emotes available in Stumble Guys are permanent boost skills that can be used to your advantage in matches, adding a competitive twist to the game. 

At the time of writing, there are five special emotes in the game: Punch, Slide, Hug, and Banana. They’re only unlockable through the game’s premium Battle Pass track as the end reward, incentivizing progression. Given how advantageous these special emotes are, they also bring a pay-to-win element to Stumble Guys. 

The Punch emote lets you hit other players out of the map, while the Slide emote means you can maneuver obstacles and dodge the punches of other players. Hug is similar to the grab emote in Fall Guys while the recently added Banana emote is similar to Mario Kart as you can throw bananas as traps to trip up other players. 

Overall, the addition of special emotes adds an additional competitive twist to the game.

Monetization

Fall Guys’ free-to-play model generates revenue through battle pass purchases, a paid currency (Show-Bucks) used to purchase rare cosmetic items, and a variety of cosmetic items available to purchase such as skins, accessories, bean colors, patterns, titles and banners. 

Stumble Guys uses many of the same monetization methods but also monetizes through incentivized ads, which give players spins on a lucky wheel for a chance to win prizes, and forced ads, which can be removed by purchasing the starter pack. Similar to Fall Guys, players can also purchase limited-time exclusive skins that can be purchased through limited-time gachas (although the limited-time skins in Fall Guys are purchased directly through the store). 

As the special emotes are only available through Battle Pass premium tiers, Stumble Guys’ Battle Pass is also a major revenue driver. 

What is it that players love about Stumble Guys?

The maps, graphics, characters, and general aesthetic of Stumble Guys will win over a lot of Fall Guys players who want a Fall Guys experience on mobile. As Epic doesn’t share download and revenue figures for Fall Guys, it’s harder to tell which game is more popular. But if we look at Discord figures, Stumble Guys seems to have the larger community (773k members in comparison to Fall Guys’ 284k) and we also know Stumble Guys reached 265 million total downloads as of October this year. 

As you can see from the player motivations chart above, Stumble Guys has an advantage over other platform games as it taps into the competitive nature of players that enjoy social experiences. Competition is at the heart of the Fall Guys experience, but Stumble Guys’ additional competitive elements, such as special emotes, tournaments, and 1v1 and 2v2 gameplay modes, give it a major competitive edge.

The one area where Stumble Guys could improve is its LiveOps. With the exception of new Battle Pass seasons, limited-time skins and tournaments, there aren’t many updates to Stumble Guys, although a recent Halloween update did cause daily iOS revenue to jump by 600%, highlighting the importance of more regular LiveOps.

Compare that to Fall Guys, where the game regularly collaborates with major franchises such as Sonic The Hedgehog and He-Man to host limited-time events with new maps, modes and gameplay mechanics. Other collaborations have included: 

• Ratchet & Clank (Clank Challenge) 
• Horizon Zero Dawn (Aloy’s Challenge) 
• Sackboy (Sackboy’s Challenge) 
• Halo (Spartan Showdown) 

Now that Scopely owns the Stumble Guys IP, we could see a busier LiveOps calendar for the game with more branded collaborations, given the recent Hot Wheels announcement. This is a major partnership and was announced just two months after the acquisition, and given many of Scopely’s games are based on IP including WWE, Looney Tunes and Wheel of Fortune, we know that Scopely recognises the value of IP integration with gaming. 

Eggy Party

Eggy Party (蛋仔派对) is essentially Fall Guys with an eggy makeover – all of the characters have round, egg-like designs. The game is published by Netease and, at the time of writing, is only available in China, but it has quickly become one of the most popular games in the country.

Following its latest update, which introduced a new season with a themed battle pass, limited-time gacha and a new concert area, the game ranked among the top three grossing games in the Chinese iOS market at the end of January. This followed a gradual rise in daily revenue which peaked at over $1.4M. Eggy Party also currently ranks as the most downloaded iOS game in the country.

A worldwide release for the game is planned under the name ‘Eggy Go,’ but a release date hasn’t been set. That said, players in the UK and Netherlands can currently register for a closed beta test, but only on Android devices.

Visually, the game is very impressive, perhaps more so than Fall Guys. It features the same party game knockout mechanics as Fall Guys and Stumble Guys, with 32 players dodging obstacles and racing to the finish line in a variety of maps until enough players are eliminated for a champion to emerge. 

Similar to Stumble Guys, Eggy Party takes the Fall Guys formula and builds on it by adding new gameplay mechanics and features, many of which enhance the skill-based elements of the game while encouraging social engagement.

Passive skills and active skills

While Stumble Guys uses special emotes to encourage gameplay of a more competitive nature, Eggy Party offers some very light RPG/power progression mechanics through the addition of passive and active skills. 

Six unlockable passive skills give players a passive boost such as shortening the cooldown times for active skills. There are six active skills to unlock, including invincibility for a short time, invisibility for a short time and becoming a “bomb” that detonates after a short fuse (and damages other players), but they can only be used in the final sections of knock-out matches. 

Additional gameplay modes and looping live-event modes

Eggy Party has a lot to offer in terms of additional gameplay modes, namely PvE options (Fall Guys and Stumble Guys are PvP only), a ranked PvP mode with a dynamic leaderboard system, and a 4v4 mode. And similar to the tournaments in Stumble Guys, Eggy Party runs two or three events simultaneously with unique rules and mechanics. 

Custom map creator

While Fall Guys has announced a custom map creator is on its way, we don’t know when it’s arriving and Eggy Party players can already make their own custom maps using the game’s creative mode. There are lots of in-depth features and plenty of useful tutorial videos to guide players through the creation process.

Heavy focus on social elements

Mobile games in the Chinese market tend to utilize a variety of social features such as voice chat, non-competitive co-op, and relationship systems – all features that have grown by 10% in popularity over the last year in the top 20% of most-downloaded Chinese games. 

While the core gameplay loop of Eggy Party is based around competition, there are plenty of features providing a more casual social experience. The main menu for the game is actually a social hub rather than a static menu, where players can socialize with each other and take part in mini-games such as archery and basketball, as well as driving around in karts. 

There’s an in-game streaming platform that players can use to watch other Eggy Party games that are in progress, and the game also features the Friendship/romance mechanic where players can form friendships with other players and build their friendship level by completing tasks.

Monetization

Eggy Party’s cosmetic-driven economy is the primary monetization focus, especially as players can buy and send cosmetic items to their friends. Players can purchase character skins, accessories, avatar frames, emotes, and dances, and the addition of a main social hub likely incentivizes players to dress up their avatars and show off their outfits to other players. 

In addition to direct purchases for cosmetic items, they’re also available through gachas, battle passes, a piggy bank, limited-time IAP offers, and as awards for completing events and matches. 

And speaking of events, it’s worth noting that Eggy Party has already featured an in-game collaboration with the survival horror game, Identity V, another Netease title. The focus on in-game cosmetics alongside Netease’s massive portfolio means it’s likely we’ll see plenty of branded collaborations and collaborations with other games in the future, especially if the title goes global.

At the time of writing, searching for Eggy Go on Google brings up a Google Play link, but it doesn’t work when you click through. Similarly, there’s an APK for Android but many of the reviews say it doesn’t work. 

What is it that players love about Eggy Party? 

In many ways, you can consider Eggy Party the definitive version of Fall Guys. The game includes plenty of features that aren’t available in either Stumble Guys or Fall Guys, especially the focus on social elements and additional gameplay modes. 

It’s unusual for a party game to find success in China, given the market’s tendency for gacha games, RPGs, and MOBAs, but the variety of gameplay mechanics to choose from in Eggy Party means there are more reasons to keep playing. If players get fed up with competing in the knockout mode, they can simply socialize with other players in the main hub, play mini-games or watch others compete in matches via the in-game streaming hub. 

What are the main differences between Fall Guys, Eggy Party, and Stumble Guys? 

While all of the games share common traits in terms of core gameplay mechanics and monetization, they do appeal to specific demographics and motivations. 

Fall Guys has a strong position in the casual market for PC/console players. It has more maps than Eggy Party and Stumble Guys (over 70 in total) and supports a maximum number of 60 players in matches. There aren’t really any other games like it on PC/console, although Fall Guys does have to compete for players’ attention whenever there’s a major AAA release on console/PC.

Fall Guys is more robust than Stumble Guys and its collaborations with brands/IP are a major advantage as they introduce special levels. A lot of lapsed players look forward to new collaborations as it’s an opportunity for them to re-engage with the game. 

Stumble Guys doesn’t have as many features as Fall Guys but will be enjoyed by anyone that’s played Fall Guys and wishes the game had more competitive elements. Additional special emotes add a new competitive dynamic to matches, as do tournaments, and there’s more longevity in the game due to its various game modes. Over 55% of its players are aged between 25–44 (iOS US). 

Eggy Party may not have as many maps or support as many players as Fall Guys, but in many ways, it’s the definitive Fall Guys experience as it includes new social features, gameplay mechanics, and player growth skills not present in Fall Guys. As you can interact with other players outside of matches in the social hub, there’s more of an incentive to purchase character skins. It will be interesting to see how the game performs when it’s released globally as Eggy Go.

If you enjoyed reading this post, here are a few more you should definitely check out:

• Tower of Fantasy – Is the Game Really a Genshin Impact With a Social Twist?
• The New 4X Strategy Hit, The Ants, Stands Out With Its Unique Theme and Heavy Emphasis on Social Elements
• 10 Years of Puzzle & Dragons – Evolution of a Mature Game

The post Stumble Guys vs. Eggy Party: Which Fall Guys Clone Is the King of Mobile? appeared first on GameRefinery.

Tower of Fantasy is a new MMORPG developed by Hotta Studio and published by Perfect World and Level Infinite. The anime art style is fairly similar to the one in Genshin Impact, but one of the biggest differences is that Tower of Fantasy players explore the open sci-fi world of the planet Aida, rather than the fantasy setting depicted in Genshin Impact.

At the peak of its success, Tower of Fantasy jumped to the iOS top-grossing ranking 11 in the US market but has come down a long way since then. In the Chinese market, where Tower of Fantasy was released earlier in 2021, it has been able to stick in around iOS top-grossing 100. In the Japanese market, the game has proven more popular and kept its position in iOS top-grossing 100 after its release, which happened around the same time as in the US market. 

The performance trend of the US market can be shown in the graph below. Downloads had a huge spike at the start, which also affected the revenue spike. Since the launch, the downloads have been strongly decreasing, which has also affected the revenue. Although, in these types of games, whenever there is a new content update, there is also a revenue spike, which can be shown in the case of Tower of Fantasy. However, the revenue spikes have been continuously smaller.

Similar to the mechanics of Genshin Impact, the player explores the vast open-world by climbing on the walls, swimming in the rivers, gliding in the skies, wiping out enemies, and solving different kinds of puzzles. The difference between the two titles is their genre. While Genshin Impact is an action RPG, Tower of Fantasy is marketed as an MMORPG. The genre difference is what makes Tower of Fantasy stand out from its competitor Genshin Impact, as the two games might have otherwise been too similar without some tweaks in the feature set. How is the genre shift shown in the game?  

The differences between the open-world in Genshin Impact and Tower of Fantasy

Both games have a massive open-world to explore and support co-op features, but Tower of Fantasy has a bigger focus on social elements and makes the process of playing with other players smoother than Genshin Impact.

In Genshin Impact, players can roam through the open-world together with up to three of their friends when they invite them to their own world (or are invited to the worlds of other players). They can play through open-world challenges and beat the bosses in the open-world together with others, as well as complete daily quests. To invite others to your own world, the Adventure Rank needs to be level 16, which requires some progress in the game before getting there.

Tower of Fantasy allows fairly similar free-world roaming together with others almost right from the beginning – players can complete open-world tasks, beat enemies, or kick world bosses’ asses together. There is one difference between the two games, though. In Genshin Impact, players need to invite the other player to their game or vice versa, whereas in Tower of Fantasy, players can meet other players in the shared open-world, where they can intuitively interact with them and invite them for open-world exploration and fighting. This makes interacting with players much easier. 

As an example, if you encounter other players in the game that are attempting to take down a boss, you can instantly jump in on the action. This adds to the social experience when the possibility of bumping into random players is higher and less structured. Tower of Fantasy also includes a chat feature for socialization, where players can communicate with each other where to find the world bosses and ask for their help to slay them.

Differences between cooperative PvE and PvP modes in Tower of Fantasy and Genshin Impact 

In addition to the shared open-world, the greatest difference between the two titles can be found in the amount of PvE and PvP modes. 

Genshin Impact does not have special PvE modes specifically made for cooperative playing, but there is an option to play the domain challenges (special bosses) or to beat the enemies in the world together with other players whom the player can join a party with. These players have to be on the friend list – there is no possibility of joining a party with a group of random players with filtered matchmaking.

Tower of Fantasy instead has a variety of co-op PvE modes to play, such as an eight-person Raid and typical four-player dungeons, like Dimensional Trials. These can be played with a group of random players in a jump-in co-op style rather than having to complete a matchmaking process first.

Tower of Fantasy also has a balanced PvP mode, Apex League, with a seasonal ranking system and rewards for the best player. As a typical MMORPG feature, players can also challenge others for an open-world fight.

Guild adds up to social features 

While Genshin Impact has not incorporated a guild in its game, Tower of Fantasy has and is particularly well-suited to the feature as an MMORPG. By joining guilds (which are known as Crews), players can get extra benefits such as weekly rewards for premium currency, as well as the possibility to shop in the guild shop for various items. Guilds are also a great way to get to know other players and interact with them. They can also be created with random players met in the open-world, which links the system nicely to the MMO experience. 

Does Tower of Fantasy live up to its social creds? 

Some players have struggled to encounter other players in the open-world area, an issue that we experienced while playing and analyzing the game, too. This is a striking difference from many other Chinese MMORPGs, where the world is often packed with other players. This lack of players results in a world that feels empty, which takes away the MMORPG feeling of the game and means that many of Tower of Fantasy’s most appealing gameplay elements can’t be put to good use. 

That said, this could be an issue that’s server-based, which is something that developers could and should fix. When the server or the channel is packed with other players, this feature distincts Tower of Fantasy from Genshin Impact’s single-player experience in the most noticeable way as there is a possibility to bump into a random player or a massive group of random players during the world exploration or the main story progression. 

Another great distinction is the higher number of cooperative game modes in Tower of Fantasy, which pushes the player towards some kind of social interaction even when they play “the single-player experience” by only progressing in the main storyline. Also, the guild system gives even more possibilities for players to engage socially. There are at least many options for the player to include others even more in their gaming experience than in Genshin Impact. 

To see more examples of social features and how they are utilized in similar types of games, head out to look at GameRefinery’s thousands of implementation examples from different social elements in the games. This is a great way to gather knowledge on how different games incorporate these elements into their game world.

If you enjoyed reading this post, here are a few more you should definitely check out:

• Genshin Impact Deconstruction
• Three Reasons Why You Should Consider Adding Social Elements to Your Mobile Game
• How GameRefinery Helped Ubisoft Find The Right Social Features

The post Tower of Fantasy – Is the Game Really a Genshin Impact With a Social Twist? appeared first on GameRefinery.

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We discuss the franchise’s background, what separates Diablo Immortal from its predecessors, the player experience, the monetization controversies surrounding the game, and whether they are justified.

Topics we will cover in this episode:

1. Introduction
2. The success of RPGs
3. IPs in mobile games
4. How Diablo Immortal fits into the Diablo franchise
5. Diablo Immortal’s monetization model and controversy
6. Developing Diablo Immortal for a Chinese audience

Read transcript

Introduction

[00:00:00] Jon Jordan: Hello, and welcome to the Mobile GameDev Playbook. Thanks for tuning in for another episode. This is the podcast all about what makes great mobile games, what is and isn’t working for mobile game designers, and all the latest trends. I’m your host John Jordan, and today we have a special episode. I think it’s the first time we’ve ever done an episode specifically about one game. That game is Diablo Immortal, and we have two experts in the scene to discuss that in great detail. Welcome, Erno Kiiski and Willhelm Voutilainen, from GameRefinery. How’s it going, guys?

[00:00:36] Erno Kiiski: It’s going great. Nice to be here. It’s been a while, actually, since I’ve been on the podcast. Nice to talk around again.

[00:00:43] Wilhelm Voutilainen: Good. Definitely nice to be here. It’s been a while for me as well, but yes. I am doing really well.

[00:00:51] Jon: Well, I think we’ll get a problem shutting up today. By the sound of things, I think there’s a lot to talk about regarding Diablo Immortal. Not many mobile games, I think, have generated as much interest just by their announcement, let alone the ongoing development. Before we get really stuck into the details of this game, should we have an overview of what’s been going on generally in the mobile RPG market because that’s where Diablo sits? As a franchise, it’s one of these seminal RPG games on PC, but how does it fit in terms of what we’ve seen with other mobile games up to this point?

The success of RPGs

[00:01:29] Erno: Yes, definitely. Well, we start thinking about, especially Diablo Immortal. It’s only launched at the moment in the West. They postponed the China launch because of some weird controversies that may be happening on their social media. Maybe we’re going to talk about it later. At the moment, it’s only in the West. If you look at the Western market on mobile, on the RPG market, what we can see, is the distribution of what kind of RPGs there are. Pretty much 95% of those games are turn-based RPGs.

First and foremost, pretty much every single successful one is a character collector RPG. The whole model, the whole core loop, is based on collecting characters. 

If we look at some games that have been successful in the Korean or Chinese mobile market, there are more MMORPGs based on singular characters. That type of game hasn’t really found success in the West, even like action RPGs haven’t had much success in the West until Genshin Impact. In Genshin Impact also, if you look at the meta side of the game, it’s a character collector RPG, and that’s how the game is monetized.

In that sense, Diablo sits in this category that hasn’t been successful on a bigger scale of things in the mobile market in the West. That is one interesting point. Then, something also quite interesting that we noticed is that everybody knows, especially on the iOS side, the ATT and the difficulty of scaling games and difficulties, especially scaling games for more niche audiences everybody is talking about. It’s definitely affected a lot of companies, a lot of massive dips in almost all gaming stocks, stuff like that.

If you look at the new entries, like the past 180 days, in the US charts, we have found that eight games have been released in the past 180 days are among the top-grossing 200 games. It is really interesting to me. Actually, six out of eight are RPGs because, especially if we are thinking about RPGs, they are not as widely appealing. If we think about the whole ATT thing that targeting and finding your specific audience is more difficult than ever, but there are those games that have entered the charts. A lot of them are actually RPGs.

Actually, if we look at the bigger scale of things, seven out of eight are mid-core, and one is a sports game. In the past 180 days, there isn’t a single crossover game that has been able to scale as a new game to the top-grossing 200 ranks in the US. About those RPGs, there are new RPGs. If you look at, we, of course, have Diablo, then we have Dislyte from Lilith, a turn-based character collector RPG. Then we have Ni no Kuni, which is also an MMORPG, but more like a classic MMORPG type of game.

IPs in mobile games

There was a game called Bloodline, which is more like the traditional action turn-based RPG than, for example, Disney Mirrorverse, which just launched, I think, last week. Again, that’s a game that mixes action RPG elements to this character collector meta. Also, if we will look at those games, three of those games have an IP. That’s, of course, a big thing in scaling these games and getting organic downloads in the current marketing landscape.

If you look a bit wider, I mentioned we have eight entries in 180 days in the top 200 charts and six across the genres, and all the categories have some kind of IP. There is Diablo, Ni no Kuni, and Disney, and then there’s the new MLB game from Glu. There’s Apex Legends, a shooter again with the PC/console one. In terms of new games, only two in the past 180 days have been able to scale to top-grossing 200 without an IP. 

[00:06:14] Wilhelm: Yes. We’re in quite a rare situation in the US market, which is usually a bit more casual-games-dominated. I’m not seeing any new casual games and only RPGs. It’s quite interesting. We’re in a really interesting situation. It feels that the RPGs are really back in the US mobile market.

[00:06:34] Jon: Interestingly, you point out that Apple is changing how people can market directly to players. You can’t really do that anymore with these ATT changes. Broadly, that does play into things like having big brands that you do not have to market directly to specific individuals, but you have a more organic approach. Certainly, I guess with Diablo Immortal, a game that’s been in development or been announced for a couple of years. There was just an enormous amount of interest around that, both positive and negative. 

I think they had up to about 30 million pre-registrations across iOS and Google PlayStore, just for people who were like, “When this game’s out, let me know,” sort of thing. It doesn’t really matter what UA – they’ve got 30 million out the blocks. I guess the other thing to point out, and I think we’ll touch on it as we go through, is the game is also available as a PC game. It’s interesting. The history of Diablo is a seminal PC game with three games released over the years.

Diablo Immortal is the first free-to-play one, but you can play it on PC, and you can play on mobile. It’s the same game. Probably an additional audience is playing on PC. Okay, cool. Where should we start? One of Diablo Immortal’s criticisms was that it will be a free-to-play mobile game, which PC players who like to pay for their games and play them on PC don’t like from the get-go. The other thing was there was a concern that it would be watered down and full of microtransactions.

From a very broad state, how do you think the Diablo Immortal fits within the Diablo franchise. If you’re playing on PC, would it be a very different game, or do you think it’d sit nicely within the current franchise?

How Diablo Immortal fits into the Diablo franchise

[00:08:24] Wilhelm: Yes. I have to say Diablo is a classic premium PC RPG. We had Diablo I, II, and III, and now we basically have this monetization-wise, completely different, so to speak, free-to-play MMORPG, and it’s on mobile. That way, it’s completely different from the older PC titles, but I have to say the gameplay itself because it’s made so well, it feels like this authentic Diablo III experience. 

[00:09:08] Erno: Yes, definitely. I would agree with that. We come to the big, big problem that it’s never easy to bring an old premium series known for ages and had always been premium with no microtransactions at all. How you transform that into an actual free-to-play model it’s not an easy task, especially for that audience, the fan audience that has always existed for those games. It can be hard to sell to that specific audience that is used to paying something up-front and not having any microtransactions. 

If you look at the mobile market and these games with the PC/console IPs that have come, pretty much shooters are the only ones that have been able to find big success on mobile. One thing is that that model has also found success on the PC/console side. We already have War Zone and Fortnight, and that type of cosmetic model seems to be or at least doesn’t generate as much backlash as games with free-to-play models that allow you to pay for progression or a pay-to-win type of a situation.

[00:10:42] Jon: I’ve just played a couple of hours. I’m not a big Diablo fan. It’s not the sort of game I would play. To me, I felt that it was a surprisingly good experience. Maybe I’m a cynic and expected it to be a bit more ‘not so good’, but it certainly felt like a PC game. From that point of view, that was different from what I expected. It was very smooth from a user experience. Obviously, it’s a big download, but they handled that in the background quite nicely. I felt the first experience was very well-crafted.

You knew what you were doing at any period of time, and it was all those typical things you like to see. You run around, you feel really strong, you’re killing loads of bad vampires, and you’re just leveling up all the time. It was great, and obviously, I’ve not played that much of it, but I felt the user experience was really good, and obviously, the monetization doesn’t come into it at that point. There’s certainly not a hard sell into it. To me, who’s not a big Diablo fan, it felt very authentic, which is a word I think you use too, Wilhelm. 

[00:12:00] Wilhelm: I have to say, first of all when you start the game at empty stats, you will play through the main campaign. I have to say that it felt like a AAA console experience. It was so well-made. The controls, smoothness, and response of when you use your skills, I would say pretty much comparable to Genshin Impact. Similarly, they were able to find it. On top of that, at least for me, I have not played too many Diablo games before. I don’t know about the store that much, but it was really well done. 

Honestly, it was just a good experience, all the effects on the bosses and everything; it felt really good. About the controls themselves, I have to say it’s similar to Genshin, when you have this action/MMORPG, at least in the US mobile market, that has these super smooth controls and that being more of this core game-play-focused game instead. There have been lots of action RPGs and MMORPGs in the Western markets, but they have not been able to find that much success. 

For example, one of the newest ones was Marvel Future Revolution. I feel those games have been more meta-game-focused where the core gameplay, at least in the Western market, should be more of a focus, has not been at the same level as in Diablo or Genshin. In those games, you usually just put autoplay on and grind it. Then you focus on the metagame, but on Diablo and Genshin, it’s the other way around. 

[00:13:56] Jon: I think, as you say, that is a real focus for a developer who’s spending an enormous amount of time just honing that gameplay software. As you say, mobile games are basically “here’s an auto button.” It doesn’t matter. You’re collecting, leveling up, or whatever you do. When I was playing the game, I was only going to play for half an hour, and two hours later, it was like, “Oh, it’s time to go to bed,” sort of thing, which never happens with me with those action games. Okay, it’s very early on. Just running around and shooting things was really good fun; probably 10 hours in it, maybe it becomes a little less fun. 

The other thing I guess that Diablo is known for is you’re basically getting all this gear all the time. You’re killing some enemies and getting some cool gear. It’s not as if it’s even better gear than I already had in leveling up. That was an ongoing, probably slightly hectic experience to get people into the game, but I felt it worked. The criticism people, I think, originally had about the game was that it was going to have really heavy monetization and be a really bad version of Diablo for mobile games. It was absolutely not. I felt it was actually top-notch. Also, Blizz is the publisher, and NetEase, a Chinese company, did most of the development as far as I understand it.

I think that was another concern: “Oh, it’s going to be a Chinese version of Diablo.” That’s the game side of things. Should we get into monetization? This is the biggest concern people had: monetization. I never bought anything in the game. I didn’t feel I needed to. How does Diablo Immortal compare with other mobile games, RPGs, or monetization and to other free-to-play RPGs?

Diablo Immortal’s monetization model and controversy

[00:15:49] Wilhelm: First of all, the monetization, of course, it’s completely different than the Diablo PC games before us. They had no microtransactions. But, compared to other mobile games, especially RPGs, it’s similar in terms of its pay-to-win as other RPGs. However, as Erno mentioned, they’re more just character collector RPGs, while Diablo is more single-player-focused, where you have your own one character. You’re developing that true gear and everything. 

I’m not going to go too deep into the different monetization elements because I could spend one hour explaining them. Basically, in short, you have two different premium currencies, eternal orbs, and platinum. Then eternal orbs are the leading premium currency. That can only be gained through purchases with real money and is used for different things in the game, like cosmetic items and materials to reforge your gear, awaken your gear, and so on. You can also purchase this platinum with that as well.

The main thing, actually, and I would say this is probably one of the things that caused some controversy in the monetization, especially for the hardcore Diablo fans who are not used to this microtransaction mobile monetization. The biggest thing and I would also say the main monetization mechanics in the game, are the legendary crests that you purchase with the eternal orbs. What you do with the legendary crests then is that you use them to enter this Elder Rift gacha.

This Elder Rift is a quick and easy dungeon you enter into. You basically cannot fail there. Let’s say you somehow manage to die there; then you get your legendary crests back, though. Those Legendary crests are these gacha tickets like in usual RPGs. Anyway, you complete the Elder Rift dungeon, and then basically, in the end, you kill the boss, and then they gacha. The loot that you would normally get from opening a gacha in an RPG game, that loot is the end loot of the dungeon. If you inject the Elder Rift with those legendary crests, you get one of the main meta things in the game. 

One of the biggest things that affect your character’s powers is these Legendary gems you inject into your gear. The main way to get these legendary gems, especially the highest tier legendary gems, and again, this is one of the things that caused some controversy: the only way to get these highest tier legendary gems is through purchasing these legendary crests. In short, there are legendary one-star gems, two-star legendary gems, and legendary five-star gems. The legendary five-star gems are incredibly powerful. They do not just, for example, give you passive boost and passive practice skills. 

They also increase your stats, but the game has a resonance system. What that does are the legendary gems you have in your gear. Of course, the better legendary games, the more they do increase your resonance. The resonance then basically increases that stats from your equipment items. It doesn’t matter how good equipment items or anything you have after the game, but you have to have as high a return as possible. Those get boosted by your legendary gems. The big thing here is that the only way to get these legendary five-star gems is to purchase eternal orbs and then use them in the Legendary Crest.

They are not really available for free players. That’s the main monetization of the game. Of course, there’s the platinum premium currency, which is then used to purchase items from other players in the open market. There are some other use cases for that. There are also lots of these different monetization mechanics, these really trending ones that they have been talking about for years. Like, as you have your pedal pass, succession plans, paid progression plans, and these kinds of bundles. Still, the biggest thing, if you want to increase your player power, you want to be purchasing these legendary crests to run this Elder Rift to get those big legendary gems. 

[00:21:12] Jon: People who have looked into the game, as you probably understand, it does get quite complicated. I read that in a whole bunch of different materials. I think once you get into it and start playing the game, it becomes a bit more clear. Before you’ve played the game, there’s a bit abstract. You got orbs, platinum, stones, crests, gems, and gear, and somehow it all comes together. As you say, there’s been a lot of focus on these rare high-end items that boost you the biggest. 

A lot of focus for people like YouTubers and influencers has been to focus on that because that’s the leverage they get to their audience who don’t like monetization. Then they’re saying how much money they have to spend to get them, then destroying them and deleting the game and all this performance art stuff, which is fine. Do you feel these very expensive, rare, random items are in the game for a normal player? Do you think that reduces their enjoyment that there are these things they’re never going to get? Or does a normal player just go, “Well, I’ve got a Toyota; I’ve not got a Rolls Royce in the world. Nice to have a Rolls Royce, but I haven’t got one. That’s fine, and my Toyota is fine.”? Does it impact us apart from when people try to use it as a stick to beat Blizzard? 

[00:22:34] Erno: I will start with that being a no. Not like a normal player not yet in the end game. Yes, definitely one thing that separates Diablo Immortal from most of the rest of the mobile game market is that depending on your player type; if you’re just a casual player, you want to play through the story, you can do it without spending, and that’s an exceptionally high-quality experience. But, of course, for the hardcore audience, for the big, big Diablo audience, the end game is where the actual game is.

It’s when you complete the story; that’s just the start. The actual initial experience, I don’t know how long it takes like 20, 30 hours to complete, something like that, you can get a lot of value. But if you are that player who wants to go for the endgame, that’s where the monetization kicks in. I understand the controversy, especially players that have been coming from the old Diablo games, because then it becomes this pay-to-win game because the competition kicks in. You’re not able to compete at all against those who are spending a lot of, lot of money. 

It depends a bit on your player type and, I would say, how it affects the experience. For the more casual player, I would say Diablo immortal. Compared to at least many of the other mobile games, it gives quite a bit of value, but for the long run, for the endgame, that’s where things really, really kick in and start to affect the experience. Then if you’re similarly going into the endgame than with the old Diablos that I’m going to be able to compete, that’s not going to happen, and that’s going to piss a lot of people off.

If you are playing the endgame with “Okay, I’m not looking to be the best, I’m not looking to be on the top of the leaderboard, or so on,” I’m sure you can find the enjoyment there as well. Something that’s, well, we’re going to talk about the future maybe a little bit later on. But if we compare Diablo Immortal’s monetization to some of the other games like Genshin Impact, that also has a lot of value for the free player for just playing through the story, enjoying the world, and so on. 

Diablo’s monetization model focuses a lot on the high-spending users because it’s all about improving, getting those gems and getting those better, better stats, and so on for the individual character. There isn’t as much value for the low spender; why would I spend anything if I’m not going to be spending a lot. I don’t feel the sense of progression that much, or I don’t feel a lot of gains compared to, let’s say, Genshin Impact, which I think has a bit wider spectrum for different types of players in terms of monetization.

First, there isn’t that much competition, even in Genshin Impact, but some events tap into that. Anyways, if I had everything, I would have to spend a lot, but if, let’s say, I just want to get one new character, then I start to grind that up and so on. Again, as a low spender, I feel the value; I can get this new cool character that I want, and I can spend a little bit and get something.

In Diablo, it feels more that you need to really spend a lot to feel the sense of actually getting something for your money. That’s one of the key issues at the moment that I see for Diablo in the future and will be. Of course, they haven’t ticked in the live operation. That will be interesting to see where it goes. To wrap up my thoughts on that, the initial experience was really player-friendly, to be honest. If you are that casual player just looking for the story, play through that, but then the endgame, but then the endgame, it supports that whale player quite a bit.

[00:27:22] Wilhelm: Yes, I absolutely actually agree with Erno. I can open up the endgame. My thoughts on that, I’ve actually, because I’ve played the endgame quite a bit already. Absolutely accurate, Erno. For a casual player who just plays them through the main story, you do not need to spend any money because the game is relatively easy to complete while still being fun. Still, I will say then, when you get to the endgame, as Erno mentioned, it depends on your player type. 

For free players who just want to play the game for fun, who do not care about making their character as strong as a whale’s character, they will have a really good time. There’s so much stuff to do for free players. You always get to broker something, and you don’t feel you need to pay. But then the thing comes if you are competitive, let’s say you like the PvP a lot, you play in the battlegrounds, there’s going to be a lot of whales who are going to be so much stronger than you because they have those high Legendary gems and high resonance increasing their gear that you are not able to get as a free player.

I would say there are no better/best plans and lower price points for quiet and mid-spenders once you get those nice cosmetic skins and everything. That can be enjoyable for those too, but let’s say you are a low spender and still competitive. You’re going to get demotivated when you realize that the only way you’ll get those highest-tier Legendary gems is by spending a lot of money.

That’s when I would say the player experience might lack a bit. Of course, for the whales, if you want to spend a lot of money on the game, you can do so. Also, there is this, I’m not going to go too deep into it, but there’s this immortal system, which has spots for 100 ‘highest’ or the ‘coolest’ players on the server and just highlights the whales even more. If you’re a whale or a non-competitive low-spender or non-spender, you will have a good time, but in the middle, it might feel like an unbalanced experience. 

[00:29:58] Jon: Diablo III is a PC game. I think it sold about 30 million copies. In a couple of years, $1.5 billion of revenue, broadly speaking. Suppose you think Diablo Immortal is an expensive project, if not more. If you’re looking just to raise that amount of money, then, as Erno pointed out that it’s where you place those monetization pain points. You can try and monetize the entire audience. Roughly, it’s always going to be more towards the end. You can try and get a bit of monetization out of people. 

It seems like they very much maybe because of the controversy they’ve had about making it free-to-play, “Let’s just not worry about the majority of players, obviously, about battle passes and stuff, but let’s really focus it on those people who can spend, and let’s make that very competitive.” The idea of having 100 slots, if you got 101, you’re like, “Oh.” You get to spend a bit more to get in there. Broadly speaking, in commercial terms, that’s what they have to do.

Do we have any idea how it is monetizing at the moment? I think I saw some numbers saying about 24 million in the first month. That’s an estimate, I think. That seems pretty competitive for the first month? Do we think it will be a billion-dollar game in its first year? That’s the highest level, isn’t it, that we would look to for like a Genshin Impact, which did a billion dollars in its first year? 

[00:31:25] Erno: At the moment, of course, we don’t know yet much about how the game is going to be, actually, live-operated, how it’s going to evolve. I mentioned earlier the big difficulty for that model compared to Genshin. If you look at the revenue models of Genshin, always, there’s a big, massive new event, new characters, then a new gacha, which then monetizes. There’s always a massive spike, which keeps the game alive. The live operations are insane, how MiHoYo is putting in from their level and operating, the quality of the events, new types of stories, and everything, which keeps the players engaged.

It will be really interesting to see. For example, as I said, at least all of the other games in the West have been character collectors. If you play Genshin, there’s always an event story when they bring a new character into the game. They also get that emotional connection to the characters, which makes you more likely to purchase it. 

Or like Marvel Strike Force, when they bring a new character, of course, in this turn-based RPG, there’s the power creep to give a reason why especially for the high spenders, want it instantly because it’s a really strong character that then comes into the meta. It’s really important for those, bringing this new character. It will be really, really interesting to see how well it can sustain. If you look at Diablo revenues, it comes together with the downloads, but both are going down. The trend is already going down.

But, if you look at the revenue per download metric, it is still quite steadily rising. In the US, based on our estimations, it’s about $4.5 at the moment in terms of revenue per download. I would say I was a bit, maybe, even surprised. I was expecting, perhaps, a little bit lower. It’s doing quite well. If you compare, let’s say, Genshin was about $6 in one month after the launch. Then, as I said, we talked about, or Wilhelm mentioned, Marvel Future Revolution, the MMORPG launched last year. They had only $0.9 after one month of the release.

I would say at the moment; the performance is surprisingly good. The model has what kind of game it is and what kind of the end game loop is compared to all the other games in the market. I’m a bit hesitant to predict that it will sustain. I’m expecting a shark fin type of craft, but we’ll see. The live ops will tell us because that’s how you keep the game engaging, alive, and keep the player spending. At the moment where the game is, without knowing how they’ll operate it in the future, I will say it’s going to be more of a shark fin type of entry, but what we’ll see. 

[00:34:50] Jon: As you’re just saying, they don’t introduce new characters, so you don’t have that easy, “Oh, I want that new character.” It’s hard to sell around, “Get better gear.” It’s just a different monetization. We’ll have to see if the monetization is coming from the whales, then the live events stuff will have to focus on the whales and keeping them engaged in new things. One interesting point, when you start the game, you choose a character class to play through. You can go back and choose a new character class. 

For people just playing the game without paying, you can almost play it several times by using different character classes and playing through it again. It’s interesting from that point of view. 

[00:35:33] Erno: Yes, actually, one thing about the multiple characters also, Wilhem mentions, it’s quite interesting that, at the moment, they don’t have any connection or account-wide stuff. When you start a new character, it’s always just the new character. It doesn’t combine into anything else. Even these single-character games usually have connections and benefits for leveling up the other characters and incentives. Wilhelm can correct me if I’m wrong, but there is no alternative ecosystem account-wide built into the game.

[00:36:07] Wilhelm: It was common in other mobile RPGs to have more account-wide stuff. Suppose you want to try or start a new class over. Even Elder cosmetics, you must purchase them again, the legendary gems, and everything. It’s going to be really interesting to see what they will do from now on. Because there have been lots of feedback about the legendary gems being too powerful, will they balance them out more? If they would bring their power down, it could appeal more to the medium spenders, as you’re required to try to get the highest legendary gems. What live ops will they do in the future? Because there’s no way, they can start bringing new classes in the same amount as for actually Gensin and is bringing new character. Will they, maybe, like to try to call it let’s say, the World of Warcraft rules where they bring in really big expansions. It’s going to be really interesting to see what they will do. We will be following that closely here at GameRefinery. 

[00:37:29] Jon: There’s a certain amount of visibility on the mobile side, but we can’t really see what’s going on for the PC side because that’s all, obviously, on Blizzard’s infrastructure. We have no idea whether mobile players’ monetization is higher or lower. Also, there’s a big unknown around that. Cool. Okay. We could talk for a bit longer, but we’re ending. What are the headline takeaways? Broadly, for me, I think it’s been a successful launch. I think it’s a very exciting product.

I imagine it will probably be, at the top of many best mobile games of 2022, maybe even in the best game lists, I would think. I’ve been quite surprised about it. Any other things you want to highlight before we finish?

[00:38:19] Erno: My viewpoint would be that, like I said, as a free-to-play mobile game, it gives an exceptional campaign type of experience that we rarely see, even for the free player and so on. Then, as a second point, I would say, the longevity of the end game, longevity of the game, how well it can sustain, how well it will be able to monetize in the long run, with that type of model that they have, that’s a big big question mark, to me at least. Those would be maybe the two. It combines two birds because we have that almost AAA core gameplay-focused experience with Genshin. 

When Genshin came out, when I started to play, it was exceptional how good it felt, how much they had put effort into the core gameplay side, how that feels, and the production values of that. I think Diablo goes into this category that, in terms of core gameplay, it stands out how enjoyable it is to play. As Wilhelm said, most games have this meta-focused, just grinding simulators, where the enjoyment comes from the slow progression and getting further all the time. But now, the core gameplay is, really, action RPG-focused. Those are my viewpoints. I don’t know; what do you have, Wilhelm, to add?

[00:40:00] Wilhelm: I would just like to add that I feel that they are considering the challenge of bringing this PC title to mobile. For example, getting Gensjin, like Genshin didn’t have any PC audience, would be like, “Oh, there are microtransactions.” There’s not going to be as much controversy in, let’s say, Genshin’s microtransactions as Diablo Immortal’s. That’s a huge challenge, first of all, bringing its IP to mobile. On top of that, as it’s not a character collector RPG either, it definitely is not an easy case.

Considering those two factors, they have already managed to pull it off well. All in all, I think it’s a fantastic game. Absolutely. It will be interesting to see where it will go from here.

[00:40:56] Jon: I guess you mentioned it at the start; the big unknown is if and when it gets released in China. It’s developed mainly by Chinese company NetEase, one of the enormous great Chinese game publishers, and you’d expect it to double its player base, if not more.

Developing Diablo Immortal for a Chinese audience

[00:41:14] Erno: I would also say even more about knowing the Chinese market. Not an expert on that, but of course, we have people here in the company. When it launches in China, I believe it will be like 70% of the revenue, though I don’t fully know. It will be big in China. It is developed with China in mind. Yes.

[00:41:42] Jon: Also, it goes to prove I think what we’re saying is the excitement of it as a product is one that it’s had to cover a lot of things. It’s had to take a PC premium franchise beloved in the West, make it free-to-play, give everyone a good experience, and cover the Chinese market, which is quite different from the top end. It is much more a play-to-win than western markets, I think, in general. Thanks to NetEase and Blizzard for coming up with such a great product. Thanks, guys, that was good.

[00:42:16] Erno: Thank you.

[00:42:17] Wilhelm: Thank you.

[00:42:18] Jon: Thanks to you for listening and watching in the various forms in which you consume this podcast. Every time we talk about the mobile games industry, by far the biggest sector in gaming and the fastest growing. I think it’s always great to see genre-defining products and maybe even market-defining with Diablo Immortal. If you haven’t downloaded it, you know what to do. Go and check it out, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Other than that, please subscribe to the podcast. Thanks for tuning in, and see you next time. Goodbye.

The post Episode 30: Diablo Immortal or Diablo Immoral? Discussing the Monetization Controversy Behind Blizzard’s Latest Mobile Game appeared first on GameRefinery.

In this blog post, we take a look at how The Ants: Underground Kingdom differentiates itself from its competitors.

General data on The Ants

The Ants has performed decently since launch. The game has cemented its position within the top100 games, and its revenue per download numbers are steadily increasing.

The motivations data for The Ants indicates that the game puts slightly more emphasis on the social elements than the average 4X game. It is also much more management and resource optimization heavy. This is likely due to the game’s varied upgrading system but also due to the way the daily gameplay focus shifts from one mechanic to another. This type of shifting requires players to be mindful of spending their resources at the correct timings.

Gameplay loop

The lone Queen uses its remaining strength to establish a colony underground, and that’s where the journey begins. As in 4X titles generally, the player is first familiarized with the base (called anthill in The Ants) and its construction mechanics and is soon introduced to the core gameplay map for some resource collecting and enemy fighting.

The rough core loop is as follows:

We’re playing a game about ants, so it would be strange if the main characters of the game were not ants. Special Ants are ants of varying species, each of which has its own specialties and abilities. Insects are creatures that lead armies and provide them with boosts. There are various ways to upgrade and develop these creatures, opening up a myriad of IAP monetization possibilities. They provide several boosts for the player’s troops in battle and are also commonly used in most PvE and PvP modes.

Armies wouldn’t be anything without troops. The Ants has three different troop types (Guardians, Shooters, and Carriers), each of which has its own specialty and strengths. Troops can be generated in designated buildings and upgraded to their stronger versions, much like troops in most 4X games. 

Mutation Flora is a building inside the base that, after being built and leveled up, unlocks a series of Troop enhancing upgrades. Each of them requires materials collected from various side modes of the game. The Mutation Flora is partly a way to encourage players to participate in the side modes daily in order to get stronger over time.

In the vein of having a solid collecting meta, collecting and upgrading characters is monetized heavily: upgrading materials and speed-up items are sold in multiple packs throughout the game, and gacha pulls can be purchased. However, The Ants’ monetization does not differ significantly from other successful titles on the market and is, frankly, nothing special. 

Where The Ants really shines is how the game’s social gameplay has been structured.

The Ants’ social elements

4X titles are very social at their core, with a huge focus on guild interaction. The Ants is no different. Very early on, the player is introduced to guilds (called Alliance) and is required to join if they wish to benefit from the various guild perks the game has to offer. Even daily quests are locked if the player is not part of a guild, so joining is one of the top priorities in the game.

Guilds provide plenty of boosts, some familiar to those who have played 4X titles before. The guild research, donating, and helping other guild members with their personal research and constructing are all there. Some monsters in the core game map can only be attacked with guild mates, and Alliance Gifts from those monsters are distributed to all guild members.

While many 4X titles limit the social interaction to that within the guild, The Ants has taken a slightly different approach by expanding it for the whole server. The battle for the ruling spot on the server is still there, but the whole server benefits more if it starts to work together as a unit.

Warzone Construction

Early on, players can choose one of the three classes for their Ant Queen. Each class gives various boosts to the player: Cultivator specializes in resource production and gathering, Raider specializes in fighting, and Herder focuses on supporting allies by efficient resource distribution. 

In Warzone construction, each player can complete tasks appointed to their chosen ant class and contribute to the construction. With each completed task, the player gains class experience and earns Privilege points for the server. The King of the server can turn on Warzone buffs with the Privilege points, which benefits all players.

The King is appointed through the War of Kings event, during which all Alliances fight to claim the throne (the tree pictured above). The server I’m active in does not really have a proper War of Kings because the ruling Alliance is so far ahead of everyone else. That’s why the ruling Alliance does not change, and they just reclaim the throne without much opposition. 

The objective of the ruler is not to overpower everyone else but to help everyone to succeed against other servers. This seems to be the case in many other servers as well, which makes the gameplay feel more cooperative compared to other games of the same genre.

Server versus server

Server versus server events are one of the driving factors of the game. The focus is mostly on defeating other servers and rising in the ranks for precious rewards.

During Strongest Warzone, two servers are pitted against each other. The winner of the event is the server that has managed to collect more points than the other. Every player can contribute by completing a series of tasks daily, gathering points for their server with each completion. 

Even a more casual player can contribute to the daily challenges and be of use. The challenges change daily, but the rotation is the same week in and week out. That way, the player can plan their gameplay because they know exactly what the focus of the day will be. Strongest Warzone has a ranking system, which motivates the servers to do their best.

Closing thoughts

Visual elements and theme

The theme of the game is certainly very intriguing. While 4X titles have mostly based their settings on the zombie apocalypse or historical themes, ants (or animal themes in general) have never been on the top of the list. The ant theme is so out there it’s brilliant — and it fits the sub-genre and the gameplay perfectly, too!

Another thing that really differentiates The Ants from its competitors is the general visual look of the game. The Ants looks crisp, and its colors are vivid. Many 4X games tend to look a bit murky and even a bit low quality, so this feels like a refreshing approach.

One area where the game’s visual appeal really shows is the decoration. Like in many 4X games, The Ants has implemented decorative skins for the bases. But the decorating doesn’t stop there: Players can furnish the inside of their base with ornaments (collected mainly from events) which give small boosts as well. Decorations inside the base are something we’ve seen pop up in a couple of 4X games lately. The beautiful skin designs and cute ornaments are nice to look at and make even the core game map look better and more refined.

4X or a farming simulator?

Because the day-to-day playing is generally very peaceful, the game feels a bit more casual compared to other titles of the same genre. Shield usage does not seem that critical (at least if you’re part of one of the top guilds) when in most games, you would certainly be annihilated if caught without your shield up. When the focus is on the server battles, other guilds are seen more as allies than enemies.

The downside would obviously be that for those who enjoy the PvP element of 4X, The Ants can get a bit boring and feel a bit like a farming simulator. The server I’m in does not face many conflicts, and the ruling guild is so strong that there’s no way to challenge the throne. The Ants has introduced several PvP modes and server versus server battle events to combat this.

The new addition to the game, the “Race of Champions – Lost Island” seasonal event, is a good way to bring some variety to the game. The mode is essentially a seasonal playing map, a feature we’ve seen implemented in multiple 4X titles as of late. It enables players to have a fresh start without losing their existing progression in the main game and have a healthy competition against others at the same time. Seasonal maps give the same vibe as resetting maps in many Chinese 4X titles, giving a fresh feeling to a game that might otherwise get a bit stale over time.

If you enjoyed reading this post, here are a few more you should definitely check out:

• Hybridization Is the Key for the Latest 4X Strategy Success Stories
• Top War: Battle Game – a Quick Glimpse on the 4X Strategy Hit
• What Drives Success in 4X Strategy/SLG Games? Part 1

The post The New 4X Strategy Hit, The Ants, Stands Out With Its Unique Theme and Heavy Emphasis on Social Elements appeared first on GameRefinery.

In this blog post, we want to take a closer look at one of such stories, GungHo Online Entertainment’s Puzzle & Dragons (パズル＆ドラゴンズ). Even after hitting its 10th anniversary on 20th February, the game has kept its original aesthetic almost intact but has seen some improvements throughout the years, which we will go through in this deconstruction. In this post, we also take a brief look at the Puzzle RPG genre in Japan and peek at how the game has fared in the international market.

What is a Puzzle RPG exactly?

Puzzle RPG is a Midcore subgenre that combines the addictive and satisfying match3 core gameplay to a heavy collecting and development meta. Motivations data for the subgenre showcases that players who like to pick up a Puzzle RPG title tend to prefer collecting and exploration combined with progression and completing milestones over social elements, customization, and resource management.

The subgenre is much more popular in Japan than in the US or China, which is logical: Games that have found success in Japan tend to have very heavy meta progression, and a lot of the gameplay is built around that, rather than the meta being the supporting element to the core gameplay. Additionally, the subgenre is in a bit of an awkward spot between casual game-like core gameplay but heavy midcore-like meta progression, which could be a “best of both worlds” situation or a repelling combination for both casual and midcore players.

The puzzle RPG subgenre makes 7.44% of the total revenue in the Japanese market (Q4 2021) and is the 4th largest subgenre on the market. Top-performing games on the market are Puzzle & Dragons, with over 65% of the subgenre’s revenue, Dragon Ball Dokkan Battle, and Youkai Watch Punipuni. In the US, Puzzle RPG is the 15th largest subgenre with 1.77% of total revenue. In China, the subgenre is the least popular, with only 0.07% of total revenue.

Puzzle & Dragons’ performance in different markets

In Japan, Puzzle & Dragons has performed undeniably well, maintaining good numbers even against newer entries to the market. New Puzzle RPGs have not been able to match its success, and the game has maintained its spot in the top 50 quite well. However, the revenue numbers have been gradually dropping in Japan as well, and the game has had to keep adding new things to keep the loyal player base invested.

In the US, the game has not performed as well at all. There could be a multitude of reasons why this is the case: maybe the brand is not interesting enough for the Western audience, or maybe the character selection is just too overwhelming for a regular player. The puzzle levels are uncommonly long, and the gameplay is a bit frustrating at times, which might alienate some. In comparison, a Japanese Puzzle RPG that has performed well in the US and Japan alike is Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle. Dragon Ball Z is a familiar brand in both markets, and the game has rather accessible core gameplay. 

Lastly, the collaboration events seen in Puzzle & Dragons are very Japan-specific. Many of the manga series that are featured in the collaboration gachas are not necessarily familiar to the larger audience and hence not that relevant to them.

What is Puzzle & Dragons like?

Puzzle & Dragons is, first and foremost, a Puzzle RPG. The game features match3 mechanics, where you move a single orb across a board trying to make as many combinations as possible in one sweep. The board can be affected by various effects caused by the enemy or the player’s own characters. The goal is ultimately to bring the enemy’s HP down to zero. The core gameplay requires slightly more skill and strategy than your regular match3, giving the game a midcore feel.

The player brings a team of characters to each battle, and each combo affects the damage the player’s characters deal to the enemy. Each character has skills that either deal damage to the enemy, affect the board in some way, or provide boosts or heals for the whole team. A huge part of team composition is to choose characters that synergize with each other the best. In other words, just choosing the characters with the most attack power is usually not enough for later stages of the game, but a lot of strategizing is involved. The good old internet is full of different team composition suggestions that players can try to copy – only limited by their gacha luck. Character upgrading is a major part of the game, and there are multiple ways of making the characters stronger.

Puzzle & Dragons has in no way been immune to power creep. Making the characters more and more powerful has led to a situation where a lot of the event content has had to be made so difficult that it can not be completed with a regular, haphazardly made team. This is good for those seeking a challenge, but for a more casual player, it might not be as motivating.

All in all, the gameplay is very satisfying when mastered, and especially in the more challenging stages, the game really shines. It is arguably also the game’s biggest downfall: it is not necessarily very beginner-friendly in terms of content and seems to cater more to players that have already played for years.

How the game has changed over the years

Puzzle & Dragons has relied on its recipe for success for a long time, but as the competition has inevitably become tougher, the game has had to answer to it as well. Hence, there have been some changes in-game that might have maintained Puzzle & Dragons above the surface – or led to its decline in ranks.

Upgrading

The game has really built upon the character progression aspect throughout the years. The character upgrading was initially very simple with straightforward level-up mechanics, evolving, and skill-level upgrades. It got changed gradually to a more complex system, where characters could evolve into various end-evolution forms, and the player had to choose which one suited their playstyle the most. Some can even be turned into weapons that can be equipped for other characters!

For a hard-core collector, this is a dream come true, but it might feel overwhelming for new players. A lot of time is spent reading a wiki and finding out which evolution is actually good and worth investing in – only to find out it has become obsolete by the time the materials for that evolution have been collected! On the other hand, boy, is it satisfying to finally get your favorite character fully evolved and see your team flourish when you get that perfect team synergy going. Ultimately this is definitely something that caters to the late-game player more than a person just starting their journey in Puzzle & Dragons.

Lately, the newest ultimate evolutions have been given a light animation, which is an upgrade for the admittedly a bit outdated still 2D pictures the players have been used to. All in all, the art in the game has improved throughout the years. While the general outlook of the game is still the same as when the game was launched, the characters look much more vibrant and stylized than before, especially in their more evolved forms.

Monetization

The Japanese mobile games market has counted on gacha mechanics for monetization for the longest time. Over 92% of the top fifth of mobile games in the Japanese market have implemented some kind of gacha mechanics. However, the market is seeing some variety in this regard, and Puzzle & Dragons, too, has started to experiment with new monetization schemes.

Character collection elements have been vital for the game since its launch. The character selection has become a massive monolith with thousands upon thousands of collectible monsters, dragons, deities – and collaboration characters. During the course of its existence, the game has hosted over 150 collaboration events with brands like Final Fantasy, Duel Masters, Hello Kitty, Attack on Titan, and Marvel, to name a few.

Characters can be collected from various places: farming dungeons hoping for character drops, purchasing them from shops, or – mainly – through gachas. Gachas can be quite impactful in Japanese mobile games. For example, in Puzzle & Dragons, a gacha that showcased the winners of a character popularity vote generated a massive spike in downloads in 2018. Another similar vote was arranged in 2020, again with good results. Even today, gachas with a favorable selection tend to move the masses.

While the largest download spikes of recent years can be dated back to significant gacha events, Puzzle & Dragons’ interesting aspect is the fact that the game is VERY generous with free premium currency gifts. The player is practically showered with currency and free gachas, and it almost feels like the game is not primarily monetizing with that at all. However, with new monsters dropping left and right and evolutions requiring more and more materials, the player is frequently faced with the bottleneck of having no inventory space, which can be solved by – you guessed it – purchasing more inventory space.

Stamina used for dungeons can be extremely costly as well. As many monsters needed as upgrading materials tend to drop from specific dungeons, and some even limited-time, the player soon finds themselves spending their currency on stamina refreshes. One playthrough of a dungeon can cost a whopping 50 stamina, so a player with a stamina pool of 100 does not get many chances before having to wait another couple of hours. As each dungeon also takes a lot of time to beat, failure is definitely not the desired outcome. This means that sometimes relying on retry mechanics (again with premium currency) does feel justified.

Stamina can also be refreshed in one other way – by watching ads. Puzzle & Dragons has recently increased its ad count, introducing an ad-linked gacha, inventory expansion, and a stamina refresh chance. Japan has historically been slow to adopt ads in their top-grossing titles, but instances have been increasing as of late, and more and more successful games have been introducing light ad monetization to the mix. 

As is with Puzzle & Dragons’ case, the ads are usually linked to something tangible the player can get in exchange. It makes sense that the ad instances here are linked to three of the most valuable areas in the game.

Puzzle & Dragons seems to try to get the player to as high an account level as possible as quickly as possible. This is understandable because most early-game characters and dungeons are just too weak in comparison to most of the characters the player can get from the gacha. Leveling up an account also guarantees a stamina refresh and increase in team cost limit, so it’s vital for progression. Experience dungeons are very common, where an easy boss monster can be defeated for a massive amount of account experience.

The newest addition for experience-hungry players has been the game’s new monthly subscription plan (first of its kind in Puzzle & Dragons), which multiplies the experience gained from dungeons for a month at a time, assisting in fast account level progression. Interestingly, contrary to what monthly subscription plans usually look like in the Japanese mobile games market, it does not give players daily currency at all.

Expansion of social elements and content

Puzzle & Dragons started as a single-player game with a rather straightforward progression, but it was bound to evolve over time. A lot of changes were made to the social aspects of the game, which at the beginning were limited to borrowing other players’ characters to battle.

One of the biggest improvements to the social interaction in the game was the implementation of co-op dungeons in 2015. The player could match with another to challenge a dungeon together and gain a lot more rewards than with regular solo play. Later on, another mode where players could form a team of three players was added as well.

Some were hoping for a good old PvP mode where the player could truly match their skills against others. A few spin-off titles experimented with 1-on-1 PvP, but the titles weren’t that successful. In 2021, a PvP mode called 8-player mode was finally released to the main game. As the name suggests, the mode is played against seven other players in a synchronous setting.

Notable about the mode is that it is not played directly against other people but against a series of monsters in a score attack fashion. The teams used in the battle are pre-determined instead of the player’s own, but the characters have been modified so that some of their skills can hinder opposing players instead of the monsters.

What’s next for Puzzle & Dragons?

GungHo Online Entertainment celebrated Puzzle & Dragons’ 10th anniversary with a new release by bringing the game to Nintendo Switch on February 20th. It is the good old Puzzle & Dragons with updated graphics, but there are some new elements as well – it enables co-op playing with a team of up to four people, and the PvP mode is divided into local and international play. 

The biggest addition must be the new Edit Mode, which enables the player to craft their own Puzzle & Dragons dungeon all the way from choosing the enemy monsters to selecting the background music. The self-crafted dungeons can be played by other players as well, which can make the game even more fun for those players who might have completed all the official content and want more challenge. Can this be something to be expected for the mobile version as well?

Indeed, what could lie in the future for Puzzle & Dragons? The game can bloat the characters to infinity and make harder and harder dungeons that newer players can’t realistically beat without years and years of playing… Or they could take another direction and let players themselves challenge each other. PvP is obviously one option here, and the Edit Mode function introduced with the Nintendo version sounds interesting. Of course, the pressure to keep the current formula might be strong as it has worked thus far, but will it be enough in the long (or should I say even longer) run?

While the game is already very feature-rich, it can always be spiced up a bit more. One idea could be collection-linked boosts, where you could get buffs for collecting certain combinations of characters. Another could be expanding the lore of the characters a bit by adding synergy boosts between characters that are somehow related to each other. Some story has already been implemented, so there are already signs of wanting to expand the Puzzle & Dragons universe within the game.

One of the things that lacks in Puzzle & Dragons almost entirely is social communication. People can add friends and join a co-op, but there are not many ways to actually converse with other players. A feature that has seen a lot of increase in the mobile game market, in general, is the guild feature, and I can’t see why it couldn’t be added to a game like Puzzle & Dragons as well. The sense of community and chances of showing off their hard-earned teams might make players even more invested in the game and keep it fun and engaging for them for another ten years.

If you enjoyed reading this post, here are a few more you should definitely check out:

• Success Through Localization – A Look Into the Japanese Version of State of Survival
• Three Reasons Why You Should Consider Adding Social Elements to Your Mobile Game
• Four Ways How Mobile Games Re-Engage Lapsed Players

The post 10 Years of Puzzle & Dragons – Evolution of a Mature Game appeared first on GameRefinery.

To everyone else: “auto chess” refers to strategy games in which players battle each other on a gameboard similar to a chessboard, using a team of characters which they organize on the go from a pool of characters, which they purchase for the duration of the match from a random selection of a few characters, which refreshes between rounds. Purchasing characters between rounds costs in-match currency, and the player must use strategic thinking to decide whether to use that currency to buy new characters, upgrade their existing characters, raise their team size limit, or re-refresh the selection of characters on offer. The player also needs to consider the tactical placement of characters on the game board, as well as the optimal distribution of equipment items between characters.

TFT is a staple of the auto chess games in the West, and its in-game characters and game world stem from the hugely popular MOBA game League of Legends. However, TFT has not been doing that great on the US iOS charts since its launch. The game usually momentarily jumps into the top-grossing 200 when a new season of the Battle Bass is launched, after which it sinks back into the top 1000.

But when TFT was released in China, something surprising happened: the game immediately jumped into 3rd place of the iOS top-grossing charts – a highly contested seat usually reserved for the likes of PUBG Mobile, Honor of Kings, or whichever 4X strategy game or MMORPG happens to be in fashion that day. Worth noting is that TFT was released under a different ID in China: “Battle of the Golden Spatula” (a direct translation of the game’s Chinese name 金铲铲之战) with Tencent as its publisher. After its launch, “Golden Spatula” has still been doing quite well in the top-grossing charts, usually ranking around 10th place depending on the day.

Overview & gameplay

Although released under a different ID than the original TFT, “Battle of the Golden Spatula” is at its core the same game as TFT. The biggest differences lie in content volume, LiveOps, and monetization – Tencent has big resources, and it operates its games in a big way.

However, when you start “Golden Spatula,” the first thing you notice is the high-quality visuals. The graphics have received a slight facelift, and the game features a high-quality 3D opening animation. The menu design is simple, modern, and visually pleasing, with an interactive element to it, which increases the feeling of ownership of decorative items for the player – the focus of the view is whichever character skin the player has currently in use, flying in the air in 3D and viewable from all angles by swiping the screen in any direction. Following the player are a bunch of other characters, which are, in essence, clickable ads for the current in-game event gacha from which you can purchase the skin in question.

When it comes to game content and gameplay differences, “Golden Spatula” featured a large variety of different game modes from the get-go. Apart from the standard version of TFT gameplay called “Dawn of Heroes” at the time, the game also featured the “Crack in Space-Time” game mode, which had similar in-game mechanics to TFT 1.0, which according to netizens, was easier for new players to get into. In addition, the game also included a “Quick Mode,” which used Dawn of Heroes mechanics but with shorter matches, as well as a “Duo Mode,” which divided the players into two four-player teams fighting each other. Furthermore, the game also included two different event-only game modes: a PVE boss challenge mode and the “Equipment Carnival” limited-time-only PVP mode with slightly altered game mechanics.

Apart from the great variety of gameplay content, player engagement was also enhanced with the presentation of the most central progression and reward system of the game: the dynamic PVP league seasons. The player’s ranking in the league is presented in a separate menu with a clear, linear representation of all the tiers in the league and the corresponding rewards for advancing in tiers. The menu also included a hard-to-miss preview of the PVP season’s main reward, as well as the reward for each tier-specific mission. Two separate tier systems existed for the main game mode and the quick mode.

Player engagement was further increased with a lively LiveOps schedule, ranging from various smaller task-based events and new player’s events to limited-time-only game modes and their related reward systems. In its LiveOps calendar, the game also featured not only one, but two Battle Passes: the main Battle Pass with a 10-week duration and a longer progression with various cosmetic rewards, as well as a secondary Battle Pass which lasted only seven weeks, but was both cheaper and easier to complete.

Apart from the Battle Passes, another LiveOps feature increasing both engagement and monetization in “Golden Spatula” were the various limited-time gachas containing exclusive “Little Legend” skins available only for a certain period. The gachas of the game included impressive 3D visuals and various special mechanics, such as the box gacha mechanic, the pity system, and in-gacha shops, making for a more compelling purchase than just buying a boring “chest” from the same old in-game shop. The “FOMO” of the limited time gachas combined with the enhanced feeling of ownership of skins due to the menu/UI design of “Golden Spatula” further increase the overall attractiveness of the cosmetics system as well increasing the sense of value for the player.

Why is it so successful?

When answering the question about the reason behind “Golden Spatula’s” success in China, apart from looking at the compelling gacha design, high variety of gameplay, enhanced ownership of cosmetics, and vigorous LiveOps, one also needs to consider that the brand value of League of Legends is extremely high in China, even higher than in the West. For a number of reasons, ownership by Tencent being one of them, League of Legend has been a national favorite of PC gamers in China for decades at this point (yes, decades), with around 75 million monthly unique players in the country still today, dwarfing any other region or country in comparison. That’s a big and highly potential fan base to market “Golden Spatula” based on the same IP as League of Legends.

Another China-specific factor in play here is the fact that, for various reasons, the Chinese mobile gamer audience is a lot less “casual” than in the West, meaning that a mobile game like TFT/”Golden Spatula” is far more likely to make it big in China. The Chinese iOS Top Grossing chart is living proof of this, as the top ranks are almost completely saturated with extremely time-consuming and complex mid-core games, like 4Xs and MMOs.

Another factor in the Chinese mobile gaming space that probably influences the success of “Golden Spatula” is the fair gameplay experience it offers. The Chinese mobile game space is chock full of “pay-to-win” games, and Chinese gamers are often described in the West as being “more tolerant” towards pay-to-win elements than Western gamers. Looking at the Chinese iOS top-grossing chart, this is probably at least partly true, but it is not the whole picture. There is a constant demand for fair games also among Chinese gamers, and this can be deduced from the one true constant of the Chinese mobile games market: Honor of Kings is (practically) always number one of the top-grossing charts. Honor of Kings is a MOBA game that has been the favorite of Chinese mobile gamers for years, with a fair gameplay experience and monetization mechanics that do not affect the balance of PVP gameplay. The same can be said of the games that have a tight hold of the 2nd and 3rd places in the ranks at the time of writing: League of Legends: Wild Rift and PUBG: Mobile. The fact that all the top 3 positions of the Chinese charts are held by fair, high-quality games should speak volumes. And that is also exactly what “Golden Spatula” is – a fair, high-quality game.

However, even if you have a fair, high-quality game in your pocket ready to be released in China at a moment’s notice, I wouldn’t get too excited. Acquiring the necessary publishing license in China is notoriously difficult nowadays, with waiting times for foreign publishers being counted in years according to the internet. This is where Tencent comes in. Tencent’s connections and local know-how obviously play a big role in the successful release of “Golden Spatula” in China, not even mentioning the sustained success of the game on the charts. According to Chinese netizens and online conspiracy theorists, the fact that the release was even possible at this schedule was thanks to Tencent cunningly publishing it as a completely different game – “Golden Spatula” instead of Teamfight Tactics. The fact that the game was published under a different ID made it possible to claim it was actually a Chinese game that was only utilizing the official LoL/TFT IP, meaning that as a domestically produced game, it could skip the year-long queue reserved for foreign games applying for publishing licenses. Yep, life’s not fair. However, if you compare the two games using our “Compare Games” tool, you will notice that the differences are mostly superficial, and the core game remains the same.

Another way that Tencent’s local know-how undoubtedly helped “Golden Spatula’s” monetization was the way the cosmetics in the game were localized. TFT and “Golden Spatula” completely rely on cosmetics when it comes to monetization, and the most important of them are the “Little Legends” or player character skins. In addition to selling the same Little Legends as the international release of TFT, “Golden Spatula” featured a wide range of new, localized Little Legends available only in China. These included, for example, pandas, mythical Chinese creatures, and cool warriors designed according to Chinese esthetics, which were all sold through the hard-to-resist gacha systems described at the beginning of this article. Another good example of a game that found success after being localized to the market is the Japanese version of State of Survival – see our Japanese market analyst’s analysis of the game here.

Blueprint to success

Although “Golden Spatula’s” high-quality graphics, rich gameplay content, impressive visuals and complex design of gachas, high-frequency LiveOps, and so forth are all good features on their own, they are nothing unprecedented at the top of the Chinese iOS charts. It could be said that they are almost must-have features in the Chinese mobile game space full of vast, content-rich games not that common on mobile in the West. This brings us back to the importance of the League of Legends brand in China, the resources and local know-how of Tencent, and the fairness and high quality of the gameplay of “Golden Spatula” in a gaming landscape full of money-grubbing titles wishing to squeeze the player and only offer a re-skinned variation of the same old turn-based RPG or MMORPG gameplay in return. “Golden Spatula” is just a good fit for the Chinese market, with the necessary features to make it profitable, period.

If you enjoyed reading this post, here are a few more you should definitely check out:

• Common Cultural Differences When Publishing Games In China
• Success Through Localization – A Look Into the Japanese Version of State of Survival
• League of Legends: Wild Rift – Soft Launch Deconstruction & Competitor Analysis
• Episode 23: 2021 Retrospective with the GameRefinery Analysts

The post Teamfight Tactics Is Making a Killing in China – How? appeared first on GameRefinery.