Tag Archives: Candy Crush

Kicking Pay Walls Further Down the Road

evcinnyc_jolly_jam_match_mechanic
Jolly Jam innovates with a new matching mechanic, but the interesting thing is how much content is available to a new user

Rovio Stars’ new app Jolly Jam has been getting attention – and rightly so – for a new match three mechanic: instead of dragging or swapping tiles to match three objects or more in a row, users select a rectangle where the two corners must be the same character and everything within that rectangle that matches those characters is removed from the board. 

It’s great to see innovation in match 3 puzzles. But the other thing that I noticed when I played through it last week was how much game play I was able to run through before getting hit with a gate – I easily played over 30 levels over an hour and a half.  That’s a lot of play time right out of the gate.  And games like Best Fiends by Seriously (a studio by previous Rovio execs) had a similar very easy early on ramp.  So what’s going on?

Getting You Hooked

This is a general trend I’m seeing with a lot of casual free to play (F2P) games: we’re giving players access to more unencumbered content to get them hooked and engaged.  When a user spends an hour playing your game, they are making a hefty investment of time.

Maps like this one in Jolly Jam are now in 20% of the top games, reminding users the amount of time they've invested in the game
Maps like this one in Jolly Jam are now in 20% of the top games, reminding users the amount of time they’ve invested in the game

In conjunction with this, we’re seeing more casual puzzle game adopt a visual map of progress.  (The success of Candy Crush bred a lot of adotpion). Besides providing a light leaderboard showing where you are versus other players, it also provides a strong reminder of just how much time a player has invested in a game.

I haven’t combed through the top app charts, but according to the speakers at the Year in F2P Games at GDC this week, over 20% of mobile games in the top charts now employ some sort of map overview that shows the user’s progress (and more importantly investment or time) in the game.

Time Investment and Monetization

I think that it’s pretty clear that showing a player’s investment in the game can definitely help retention, but can it also help monetization?

One of the biggest money drivers in these puzzle games is when a player is just 2-3 moves short of completing a level, they are prompted to spend currency to get an additional pack of moves (echoing classic arcade games prompting you to put in another quarter to continue your game). 

Can the "pay another quarter to continue your game" mechanic be further impacted by the time invested in the round?
Can the “pay another quarter to continue your game” mechanic be further impacted by the time invested in the round?

I’d argue the time spent in playing a round (some of the later rounds in Candy Crush can take over 15 minutes) is also a psychological driver (do I want to spend another 15 minutes and try again?)  in getting players to fork over that extra quarter.  I don’t have data behind this, but it definitely bears testing.

Raising the Stakes (and the Value)

Bottom line, the top developers are creating a lot more content for players in order to get them hooked, getting users deeper into the game and hoping the investment of time ends up driving users to stay (and pay) longer.  This increases users expectations (and I’d argue in a good way) that upon downloading a free to play game, there is not just five minutes of play and a pay wall, but a deeper initial experience to enjoy.  Monetization only really begins to be a conversation (an exchange worth considering) after players have fully realized the value from the game.

Can Katy Perry Learn from Kim Kardashian?

While I showed in my last post how some developers have integrated ads well to make them a seamless and even valuable part of game play, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood (iOS | Android) is a great example where ads came in as an afterthought.

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood grosses an estimated $100K per day in IAP revenues on iOS
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood grosses an estimated $100K per day in IAP revenues on iOS

Regardless of what you think of the Kardashians (E! thinks they are worth $100 million over four years), Glu’s Kim Kardashian:Hollywood game is well crafted with detailed story arcs and a fine tuned energy mechanic. That drive not to fail your date, your fans or Kim’s wishes has kept the app solidly in the top 20 grossing games list and generating an estimated $100K a day from in-app purchases on iOS.

The ad integration though is a bit jarring: sporadically when you leave a location, the screen goes white and a static overlay ad is displayed.  It competes a bit with other things that happen when you leave a location, like calls from different characters, and feels out of place.

A more interesting and integrated approach would be to insert the ads when you travel from location to location.  Rather than take the bus from LAX to Hollywood, take an upgraded Uber for free (or less game cash) by watching a video ad.  What a better fit for this game than a brand picking up the tab.

Ads in Kim Kardashian: Hollywood could be more elegantly integrated into the game flow, having brands pick up the tab for a ride in exchange for a video ad
Advertising could be more elegantly integrated into the game flow, having brands pick up the tab for a ride in exchange for a video ad

It’s  small tweak, but it provides a better integrated experience by giving value to the player and a halo effect to the advertiser.

In reality I know that for most large studios, the ad group is a different corporate function and not at the table during the design stage, but maybe Glu can add it to their new game featuring Katy Perry.

You and I Can’t Bank on Being Kim Kardashian

When your app is grossing $100K a day on iOS you have the luxury of not having ads.  Most notably King.com initially had ads in Candy Crush Saga but when the game took off they could afford to remove them and focus more on the user experience.  Kim Kardashian: Hollywood could forgo ads at this point and focus on in-game sponsorships of products that could be introduced in new quests and story arcs.

But for most of us, ads can be and are an integral part of the business model and as such should be part of every game’s core design.

25 Insights About Top Grossing Games on iOS

In my last post I noted that it’s naturally getting harder for apps to get noticed in the iOS app store as we went from 500,000 apps in the App Store in 2012 to over 1.5 million today.  So I decided there’s no better way to back that up then to look at the Top Grossing Games list for iOS – and after crunching the numbers a bit, here are 25 things I learned

Note about the data: I took estimates of revenue and downloads from ThinkGaming for February 19th and combined some meta data from AppAnnie.  Revenue we are showing is strictly from In App Purchase (IAP) revenues, excluding any advertising revenue.

THE LIST IS A BIT TOP HEAVY

  1. The top 200 grossing games generate about $10.4 million in IAP revenue a day
  2. The top two games – Clash of Clans and Game of War – generate about 27% of the revenues
  3. The top ten games represent over 50% of the top 200 grossing games
  4. All of the games in the top 200 make at least $10,000 a day in IAP revenue

 

The Top Ten Make Over 50% of the Revenue Generated by the Top 200 Grossing Games on iOS

 

VIVA LA FREEMIUM

  1. Over 93% of the titles in the top 200 are free to play
  2. Only two paid games cracked the top 100 games: the ad-free version of Trivia Crack for $2.99 at #16 and Minecraft for $6.99 at #26
  3. Freemium games average more than 2x the daily revenue: $55.4K vs. $24.1K
  4. Removing the top 10 freemium and top 2 paid which skew the results, the ratio is relatively similar with freemium games making 1.8x the daily revenue of a paid game: $26.8K vs. $14.9K
  5. The more you charge, the fewer the downloads. It’s a terribly small sample size for paying apps, but if you remove Trivia Crack and Minecraft plus the top 10 free games, the rate of downloads has the reduced velocity you’d expect
  6. The daily downloads for $1.99 is one-third of the downloads at $0.99, but the difference between $1.99 and $2.99 is not as big a drop, suggesting that if you are going to go above $0.99 you should just jump to $2.99

The higher the price, the lower the downloads

 

OLDER TITLES REAPING THE REVENUES

  1. While the Top 200 Grossing Games on iOS is skewed towards newer titles (40% released since 2014), the biggest money makers are apps that were released in 2012 which average nearly $100K per day compared to 2013 releases that average $46K per day
  2. Half of the top ten grossing games were released in 2012 or earlier
  3. Remove the top ten games, and the average revenue by release year is actually relatively similar.  Those EARLIER than 2012 average $33K and those including and since 2012 average around $25K

 

Apps released in 2012 make 2x the revenue of those released in following years

 

BIG COMPANIES vs. LOTS OF LITTLE GUYS

  1. Just over 100 companies are represented in the top 200
  2. Two-thirds of the companies have a single title in the top 200 but make up just 25% of the revenue
    • Nearly half of that is Machine Zone’s Game of War, meaning that two-thirds of the companies have a single title and make up less than 15% of the revenue
  3. Those with multiple titles in the top 200 average 3.6 apps each and take in just over 75% of the revenue
  4. Parent company Storm8 (which also has the TeamLava and Shark Party brands) has the most apps in the Top 200 with 14 titles averaging $15.7K per day for a net take of $220K per day
  5. The other two companies with double digit apps in the top 200 are Electronic Arts (11) and Zynga (10) making $433K per day and $248K per day respectively
  6. The top money makers are all well known
    • Supercell: 3 titles in top six, generating $2.2 million per day
    • King.com: 8 titles generating $1.7 million per day
    • Machine Zone: just Game of War, #2 overall, generating over $1.1 million per day

 

Lots of smaller developers have a single title in the top 200, but a third of the companies have over 3.5 games each in the list

Two-thirds of the companies have a single title in the top grossing list, but they earn only 15% of the total revenues from the Top 200 Grossing Games

 

GAMBLING LEADS THE WAY

  1. Our fixation with gambling is well represented in the app store’s Top Grossing list.  When you exclude the top ten apps that, as we noted above, really skew the numbers, the best performing genre of game by far are the seven Casino/Poker titles which are averaging $57K per day.  And we excluded the biggest Casino App, #7 Big Fish Casino which generates an estimated $188K per day.  The second best performing genre among those with at least five titles are Slots games – there is a crazy 16 different slot apps in the Top 200 grossing apps list and they are averaging $31K per day
  2. Puzzle Games also do really well.  Again excluding the Top Ten which includes some of the biggest money makers in Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga, the match-three game genere has 20 titles and averages about $30.5K per day.   The three bubble shooters in the Top 200 are averaging $38K per day
  3. Other top genres with at least four titles in the top 200:
    • People Sim (including Kim Kardashian naturally): $35.2K/day, six titles
    • City Sim: $28.4K/day, 6 titles
    • Bingo: $25.8K/day, 4 titles
    • RPG: $24.2K/day, 42 titles
  4. Excluding Hay Day, there are three Farm Sim games in the Top 200 — and twice as many Dragon (Farming) Sim games.  On average, those games make about $17-18K per day 

OTHER FUN STUFF

  1. Only half of the free games are ranked in the top 200 free game charts, meaning half of the list is not making their money on volume, but very solid average revenue per user (ARPU)
  2. With AppAnnie you can track the difference between the first tracking of a game and the official wide release date.  Practices have changed over time (some studios now release on a non-branded publisher name in another country and then when things look good re-release the game on the main brand), but you can get some basic insights nonetheless.  Some of the biggest companies on the Top 200 Grossing list are testing for two to three months before release:
    • King.com — 88 days
    • Supercell — 79 days
    • Storm8 (inlcuding TeamLava) – 59 days
    • Kabam – 49 days

So some conclusions

  • Money is indeed being consolidated into the top few players, with a third of the companies in the top 200 grossing games list driving 75% of the money for the games on that list
  • Many games released in 2012 or earlier were able to cement their first-mover advantage and are making on average nearly 2x that of games released in subsequent years
  • Freemium games tend to out perform paid games in total grossing revenues
  • While gambling and puzzle games dominate the apps in the list and the revenue, there will be some non-standard genres that have a break out hit like Trivia Crack – but again this is more an outlier and very hard to bank on