Brutally Honest #127 by Matej

Hey, FAM! What’s up? 🥃 Drink talk There are a lot of rumors coming from Gamescom. blablablabla.. Key headline: Survive to 25! Anyway, there has been much talk about CTV. I have been planning to try CTV for a looooooong time. Many different UA channels have this placement. Now, even Unity has come up with something interesting! Let’s see! 🦩Tip of the week How long should we be in the soft launch? There is no correct answer to this. The goal of the soft launch is not to be in a “tweaking mode” forever and, step by step, improve the game. Not every time it’s possible. How long your game can stay in the soft launch is influenced by multiple variables: CPI vs LTV or Dx ROAS goal hit Retention KPIs Monetisation KPIs Money in the bank account Kill the game, save your company […]

Matej Lancaric August 30

Journal

Rewarded UA: Incentivised Ad Platforms 2024

What's going on in this Rewarded UA Space? A big shoutout to Paul Bowen for writing on this topic! Cool to collaborate :) We're tracking a new company launch every week at this point. Especially gift card reward apps. What's causing the explosion of incentivized/rewarded UA channels recently?Is it because IDFA deprecation killed other channels? Or is it because advertisers are seeing great results from these channels? Or something else? Paul's main hypothesis is that most other ad formats have incumbents that dominate the 3rd party supply meaning there's little innovation available for new entrants. Rewarded video Banners Display OEM These are all 2-Sided marketplaces that are nearly impossible for startups to compete in.However, rewarding players for playing games is a 1-Sided marketplace. Once you've created value for the advertiser, you've got a viable business. The benefit for these new […]

Ömer Yakabagi August 29

Journal

Lucky Defense Scaled to $300K a Day

Daily $300K - just from IAP! 🤑 Launched on May 25th the game already did $20M+ revenue and 3,5M downloads. This is the same company that did Random Dice, the other very successful Tower defense game, which was later "westernized" into Rush Royale 😎.The main iteration of the game is in its core gameplay. It's a Cooperative game instead of PvP ⚔ (even though you can play the PvP event). Instead of monsters getting into some kind of a portal, where you lose lives, they just circle the map. The loose condition is based on the number of these monsters on the whole map, if it crosses 105 you lose the game. The random merging mechanic now continues into Mythic unit recipes, which are the main Damage units of the game + there is a gambling mechanic 🎰, where special […]

Jakub Remiar August 28

Journal

Adventure Island Merge: Mysterious Gift

I'm really impressed with this offer in Adventure Island Merge! The 35 guaranteed energy is a nice touch, but what gets me are the three mystery gifts—it's so hard to skip! This strategy is a great example of how to keep players engaged and excited about their next reward.

Michael Kopelovich August 26

Journal

Unlocking Insights in Match-3 Games

Curious to learn how top Match-3 games perform in a highly competitive market? Whether you're developing games or just passionate about the industry, understanding the key metrics and trends can make a huge difference.💡 Check out our latest insights into top Match-3 games like Candy Crush Saga, Royal Match, and others.🌍 Download and Revenue distribution across different regions📊 Retention Rates from Day 1 to Day 30⏱️ Average session lengths and daily engagement🎁 Common game features that drive user retention Average Install Distribution in T1 Countries Downloads in USA How About Other Countries? Retention? User Engagement? IAP vs. IAA Daily Login Reward Collectibles in the Game Events Competition Numbers by Sensor TowerVia Gaming Growth

Richard Kos August 22

Journal

Idle Outpost Scaled to $150K a Day in July

Idle Outpost 🧟‍♀️ by Rockbite Games Armenia published by AppQuantum already scaled to $150K a day in July 🤑. With more than 10 Million downloads and $6 Mil. IAP revenue behind it, (Ads are probably more than 50% on top of this 😅) we couldn't miss this very interesting iteration on 2 of our favorite games. Can you guess which ones? 😎 As seen in the images, Idle Outpost is a clever combination of Lessmore's Eatventure and JoyNet Games's Legend of Mushroom 🍄. Instead of food, you are selling supplies to other Zombie Apocalypse "customers" 💲 and you keep finding survivor gear with your trusty dog on the way through Zombie Wasteland. I keep saying this all the time, but the Zombie theme works with everything and makes your CPI low 🤣 "change my mind".Because you are playing 2 idle […]

Jakub Remiar August 22

Journal

🚀 BIG Update with +100% Revenue Uplift for Squad Busters

😑 Mega Troops removed and moved to Skins. Megas were one of the two kinds of battle consumables, but they weren't successful in fulfilling the role they were designed to fulfill. Most players didn't find them very satisfying as a comeback mechanic, and some even labeled them as unfair for certain game modes.Instead of adjusting these powerful troops, the development team has decided to discard the concept while reusing most of the content and ideas involved. For example, if you have unlocked the Dragon Chicken, you'll receive a Dragon skin for your Chicken. You can then select this skin for your Chicken in the Squad tab.✖ Chest MultipliersIf you liked Chest Doublers, wait until you see the 4x Multipliers!Chest Multipliers are getting a significant improvement. You will no longer be constrained by time and push to play at an inconvenient […]

Matej Lancaric August 20

Highlights

Brutally Honest #126 by Matej Lancaric

Hey, FAM! What’s up? 🥃 Drink talk Well, well, well. Isn’t this a Gamescom week? It is. There were a lot of survival guides last week flying around for Gamescom. Do you want to hear the ultimate tip on how to survive Gamescom? .. .. .. .. Stay home! 🦩Tip of the week Feedback is a gift! With creative feedback, it’s not always true. In my humble opinion, feedback for UA creatives should be ONLY between the creative & UA teams: no producers, no game artists, no CEOs, no janitors. Ideally, the fewer people, the better. Why? Because everybody has a fucking opinion about everything. Even when they don’t understand the context. I believe in a very straightforward creative framework and feedback loop. Creative framework: How to win in 2024? Me and the person who works on the specific video. That’s it. I […]

Matej Lancaric August 19

Journal

How did Azur Games get past 10 Billion installs?

How did Azur Games get past 10 Billion installs 😱? And how is their newly launched Hybrid casual title, Slime Castle scaling past $30K IAP a day? We got to talk to 🎮Sergey Marcinkiewicz, a Publishing Manager and head of Studio 😎.Sergey shared a lot 💡 about some of the unique strategies of Azur, such as launching Hyper casual (Not Hybrid!) games with a focus on long-term Roas and retention targets. Games that were rejected by other publishers were successfully scaled in Azur's portfolio 📈. Because of this "flexible" publishing strategy, Azur got an edge in different than "mainstream" markets.Slime Castle, which is published by Azur is actually developed by RedTail Games, a developer from China. It is a very clever iteration of Doodle Magic, (the rogue-lite tower defense without a road) which we talked about during our Christmas prophecy […]

Jakub Remiar August 1

Journal

Chrome Valley Customs: Male Match 3 Audience

Chrome Valley Customs by Space Ape Games is one year old and still dominates the male Match 3 audience. Already behind $35 Mil. 🤑 and 14 Mil. downloads, we are joined by Dmitry Gubanenkov to live review the game 😎.The core gameplay is a match3 puzzle, but the metagame is a story-based restoration of vintage cars 🚗. And this fantasy is executed perfectly. During onboarding you are restoring 🛠️ cars much more time than playing match3.Usually, match3 games have a 70% female audience. This game however has a 70% male audience proving an underserved niche. Truck Star from Century Games is already following this same use case with the Trucks theme 🚛.🦩 Matej Lancaric also talks about UA strategy, where the game used rapper Xzibit from the TV show 📺 Pimp My Ride to integrate into the creatives successfully. Thanks, […]

Jakub Remiar July 29

Journal

11 Tips For Killer Mobile User Acquisition Q1

#1 Creative Level ROAS is Important For some reason, I have been talking a lot about creatives. Oh, wait. I know why! Because it makes or breaks your ROAS. You can see below the power of a creative iteration. How can you iterate? Or else, what exactly changed in the videos above? hook slightly different perspective pace we speeded up the video a bit urgency added a sense of urgency (e.g., running away from the enemy visible right after the hook fail oh, the main hero died in the creative. Could you do it better? *wink wink* I added these video examples to the paid newsletter – visit this link to check out the hybrid casual playbook and upgrade to paid! #2 Global Launch Spend How would you distribute a $1M a month spent for a Casual Puzzle game in a global launch […]

Matej Lancaric February 20

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