Brutally Honest #141
Hey, FAM! What’s up?
🥃 Drink talk
Good people still exist. My daughter got flu last week and still has not recovered. We are still in the US. I wanted to buy some stronger meds, but since I don’t have a US ID, they couldn’t give them to me.
God bless Nick from tvScientific, who bought them and even delivered them to my house here in Santa Barbara. We met only once for lunch a few weeks ago. Good people still exist. Thanks, buddy!
Have you already filled out this form about the UA landscape? Could you please help me map the UA activities, spending levels, creative testing methodologies, and ROAS targets?
I will make a nice report out of it with anonymized data. From what I already see, there is some interesting shit.
https://forms.gle/wdutk2PvA7qTm84o7 ← Only 5 minutes of your time! Thats how quickly I can finish a margarita. Easy!
🦩Tip of the week
Winning TikTok with TTCC. Yes, again! Which of these videos do you think work really well on TikTok?
Exactly, the TTCC26 and the ones that don’t look exactly the same. I was always a big fan of leaving the brief really broad and letting creators do the creative job. (I am also way more creative when I have my freedom) but there are always boundaries/more info that you should add to your TTCC briefs:
This makes you really think about your audience – who, what, when, and why they play?
Still kind of broad, but way more specific than nothing. You should try. Remember my tip regarding audiences on Google Ads? Same thing. Now, think more about restrictions:
Creative freedom with some boundaries:
This will improve your TikTok Creative Challenge outcomes immediately. Then you can play around with it and go wild!
Cornelius: The Suspicious Investi-gator
True detective-like exploration of creative trends and historical influences. Delving deep into the world of creatives to uncover hidden patterns and inspirations:
𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭? Today, we’re diving into a particularly intriguing case: two (identical) games with virtually identical creatives—Triple Match 3D vs. Match Factory.
Getting inspired by other games is a key part of creative production. Yet, there’s often a fine line between drawing inspiration and outright copying. Why reinvent the wheel, right?
But here’s the twist: Triple Match 3D (Miniclip) vs Match Factory (Peak) are strikingly similar, both in concept and execution. So, what’s really happening here? Is one company drawing “heavy inspiration” from the other, or is this a case of parallel evolution in game design and creative strategy?
The big question remains: Who launched this creative first? 👀
Yours truly, Cornelius.
💀 Dr. Doom is not amused
One of my industry friends amused me with his direct and honest TL;DRs, so we agreed to share it here, too! My friend remains anonymous as Dr.Doom!
“The master of disaster, aka Elon, continues his roll in the gaming industry. After last’s weeks Diablo achievement, he proclaimed that too many gaming studios are owned by giant corporations, so he is going to start a gaming studio, by his giant corporation, duh!, to “drumroll” make games great again! Duuuuh!!!. In his visionary week, he also got pissed at the new D&D manual and hinted that he will gonna buy the owner of Dungeons & Dragons, Hasbro because of that. I wonder how much more time it will take for Elon to buy Ubisoft at this point 🤣 Fresh doom for everyone this week 😁” Sincerely, Doom (https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/elon-musk-hints-at-buying-hasbro-for-dd-after-announcing-ai-game-studio-2993666/)
🎉 “Ha-ha” moment
Because life is too short to be serious.
🎮 two & a half gamers – Dark War Survival
𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝟮 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 🚀 $𝟭𝗺𝗶𝗹/𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆. It has not even been globally launched yet, but growing like crazy in the Asian market to prove scalability.
The game is designed with a polished aesthetic similar to Supercell titles. The production value is insane. The game mechanics in Archero 2 have evolved when compared to Archero 1, the same as the whole Habby template. I will leave this part for Jakub to talk in-depth.
The interesting part of the whole Archero2 launch (and also the Capybara GO launch) is the staged “soft launch” or “global launch” when they slowly open up in tiers. What we call tier 1 is definitely not tier 1 in Habby’s eyes. IMHO, Habby is trying to scale as much as possible to project where it’s gonna grow after the US release (US+ other GEOS since Felix is in PT and still can’t play)
Archero had problems with CPIs based on how core the game was at that time and still is, so they came up with many different “Altered gameplay” creative concepts. Archero 2 will be the same, even though the low-poly art style is a good choice. This staged launch helps Habby test new creative approaches that combine different genres with their core. 326 pages with creatives in Sensor Tower for Facebook is just insane!
📺 Watch on Youtube
🎧 Listen on Spotify
🦄 Diary of a Dancing Unicorn
Today was a good day.
Hey! Here are some gameplay videos you requested.
Thanks a lot. Let me play around with them and use some of the recent AI magic I discovered and have been playing around with.
Yeah, please do.
Also, I’m checking the numbers. D1 ROAS 120% is not that bad, right? Also, the AdRevenue is going well, especially on those Purchase campaigns. Thanks, Meta!
Yeah, it’s such great stuff on Android. That is a strong Ad LTV. It’s very surprising you made it work. I worked with Hilting Joint before, but they were never able to get Android to do anything.
Hah, interesting. I mean, it’s not the first time I’ve managed UA after this company, and it’s the same story you just told.
Today was a good day.
🤺 Quote of the week
“You are close to reaching the weekly limit of new connections” – LinkedIn message.
Archero 2 Review!
💡 PS: The latest UA & marketing jobs for you prepared by Gamigion:
Regional Director Marketing EMEA Scopely
Performance Manager – Monopoly GO! Scopely
Product Marketing, Clash Royale Supercell
Live Ops Manager, Live & New Games Supercell
Advertisement Monetization Manager Playtika
Marketing Systems Analyst Playtika
Director of Growth PLAYSTUDIOS
User Acquisition Manager Lotum
Influencer Content Associate Voodoo
User Acquisition Manager Voodoo
ASO Manager Gameloft
Live Ops Specialist (Associate) Gameloft
ASO Manager Gameloft Vietnam
Product Marketing Manager Gameloft
Marketing Data Analyst Metacore
Head of User Acquisition Huuuge Games
Growth Specialist (User Acquisition) Fugo Games
Social Media Manager Hyper Hippo
Growth Associate, eCommerce AppLovin
Marketing Manager AppsFlyer
Product Marketing Manager AppsFlyer
Marketing Operations Manager AppsFlyer
Field Marketing Manager Sensor Tower
Monetization Manager Gamelight
Senior User Acquisition Manager Gamelight
Product Marketing Manager Verve
Non-Gaming Growth Lead Almedia
Influencer Marketing Manager Almedia
Growth Partnership Manager Unity
Social Media Manager Xsolla
Solutions Product Marketing Manager Taboola
Manager, Business Marketing Liftoff Mobile
Senior Client Growth Manager Nativex
Product Manager, Growth Amplitude
Senior Content Marketing Manager AppTweak
Mobile Growth Manager – ASO Phiture
Senior Product Marketing Manager OneSignal
Monetization Manager (Gaming) TyrAds
Head of Marketing (Global) iion
Growth Manager Moloco
