Editors be aware: This text was written by Matej Lancaric, consumer acquisition specialist and cell video games guide. You possibly can learn his unique model right here.
A city-building simulation recreation set in an ice and snow apocalypse. Because the chief of the final city on Earth, it’s a must to collect sources and rebuild society. Acquire sources, assign employees, discover the wilderness, conquer robust environment, and use varied strategies in an effort to survive.
Let’s begin with introducing the corporate Century Video games. They’ve over 1,000 workers in 8 nations throughout 4 continents. Century Video games is a world recreation developer and writer. Really fairly attention-grabbing case. From $1 million/month in 2020 to $20 million/month now. Holy shit! What a trip!
Is that this even attainable within the submit IDFA world? However UA is useless?! I should be dreaming..
Since 2010, they’ve launched quite a few well-liked on-line and cell video games starting from informal to mid-core genres. You possibly can see just a few of those within the image under. How did I discover this firm? I used to be doing a little faux advertisements analysis and one in all their video games Valor Legends was utilizing the Save the canine icon.
We already recorded a podcast in regards to the international launch of Frozen Metropolis some time in the past:
I additionally prefer to look into the numbers post-global launch, and it appears now its an excellent time. In the course of penning this, I acquired an thrilling message from Jesper Gustavsson a few new recreation that was simply international launched, and it appears similar to Frozen Metropolis – Whiteout Survival. Let’s discuss each video games!
two & a half players
Frozen Metropolis overview
It’s a fairly good & enjoyable recreation!
Frozen metropolis consists of character well-being, city/metropolis/settlement improvement, and the flexibility to create and personal settlements. As quickly because the participant enters the sport, they’re launched to the sport via a dialog between survivors. The gamers see the dialog about how they should arrange a hearth and survive.
When the participant enters the sport, they see a dialog between survivors. The participant has to assign and use the survivors and assign duties to them to assist them survive and maintain life of their newly constructed group.
As quickly because the participant enters the sport, their first activity is to search out wooden and use it to ignite the hearth. Then the gamers will transfer on to different duties whereas they be sure that to maintain the hearth burning, whereas they construct their group to meet their varied wants.
The participant has to do the duties whereas taking good care of the well-being of the survivors. Every survivor wants relaxation, meals, and heat. When any of the survivor’s want for requirements is on the decrease facet of the bar, the participant can revive them utilizing the amenities constructed in the neighborhood.
Because the participant retains taking part in and bettering the group, it’s going to attain a most stage. The participant can transfer onto one other metropolis/city on the map to seek for new sources and improve their life-style otherwise. As soon as the participant reaches the utmost stage of a group, the assistance of that place will develop into a limiteless supply.
USER ACQUISITION & NUMBERS
Once we mentioned the High 10 income nations on the podcast, the UK and Germany earned greater than South Korea. However that modified in the previous few weeks. Income per obtain is wanting fairly good in US & in KR.
When international launching a recreation, it’s vital to have full workforce on the UA, analytics and artistic facet. When you don’t have it, you both work with writer/companion or an company/guide. Let’s get to the precise UA operation:
Channel combine
Applovin is probably the most intensive channel when it comes to spending on each iOS and Android.
- Not shocking in any respect. I keep in mind speaking to Mr. Felix about Idle video games scaling exceptionally nicely on Applovin on AdROAS campaigns each on iOS and Android! That is what is occurring right here!
- We will see each movies and playables of their artistic combine. However 50% of their general spend goes to playable on Applovin!
Fb
- What’s shocking is the truth that I’ve downloaded the sport instantly after our podcast and I nonetheless see Frozen Metropolis creatives! As Mr. Jonathan Winters talked about, this may very well be a world launch tactic to get extra eyeballs and remind gamers in regards to the recreation.
- I don’t know. Appears like such a waste of sources. In my world, it’s known as excluding present gamers.
- They began scaling on Youtube fairly closely in the previous few weeks.
- Utilizing primarily 30 second movies + some static photographs.
TikTok
- It appears tiny, they usually run solely Korean creatives, nothing else!
Unity
- Began comparatively large, however now scaling again
We will see they’re using all large UA channels: Fb, Ironsource, Google, Applovin, Vungle, and Unity, and began operating some assessments on TikTok!
Diversifying the UA portfolio effectively is just not a straightforward job. Right here, we are able to see an excellent baseline of loads of channels and appears like they’re optimized. I did some publisher-level evaluation once more, they usually appear to be in wonderful form.
They’re displaying their advertisements in video games like Idle espresso store tycoon, Tiny island survival, Bitlife life simulator, earth, and a few hypercasual stuff. Not dangerous!
Additionally, in February, they already made $5 million in revenues—a fairly thrilling story since they international launched the sport on the finish of December.
two & a half players
CPI vs. LTV? – omg not this image once more!
Sure. Once more! Scaling a recreation is just not solely a perform of a killer consumer acquisition operation. It is usually a perform of an LTV. You possibly can solely scale your finances till the LTV permits you. Eg. In case your LTV is $5, you may run worthwhile campaigns till you hit $4.5 CPI (or some other CPI that you just calculate primarily based in your margins). Why does Frozen Metropolis accomplish that nicely? I labored on some Idle video games earlier than.
Usually, they’ve decrease CPIs than different classes. What’s vital right here is the LOW POLY visible design.
Lastly, somebody realized why hypercasual video games use low poly on a regular basis. It drives low CPIs. I used to be in loads of dialogue about how “fancy or extra high quality” visible model drives larger IAPs, due to the premium really feel of the sport. Critically WTF?
The visible model doesn’t have any affect on IAP. When you’ve got a distinct opinion, please message me, and let’s focus on it. Why would it not have? BUT! There’s this recreation known as Whiteout Survival, which is Frozen Metropolis however with larger high quality visuals, already making the identical amount of cash in a shorter time! I’ll look into it in a while…
Frozen Metropolis is making round 200k USD/day from IAP (in-app buy), and a further 15-20% Advert Income as Felix calculated. The day by day income remains to be rising fairly properly since launch.
Monetization
The sport is closely impressed by FrostPunk – by 11bit studios. Equally, as in Frostpunk the sport is a survival idle simulation with RPG auto battler ingredient.
Within the idle simulation half, you may see a clear connection to Journey communist or Gold & Goblins – the place the brand new normal for an idle recreation is that the useful resource multipliers are was heroes which might be upgraded via shard gacha (Conflict royale model).
This time they took it one once more one step additional and never solely you multiply useful resource technology by upgrading the heroes – however you additionally struggle with them in auto battles (Animal struggle/ Artwork of struggle legions)
There’s additionally an journey mode to struggle with (roguelike model sequence of battles)
The attention-grabbing innovation to the idle style is that now once more equally to Gold & Goblins the useful resource generator will not be anymore in a 2D house on a sheet however in a 3d house, which is now a complete properly themed metropolis across the winter survival – equally to the development in a mine with Gold & Goblins.
As in Frost Punk, the town generator (this time it’s a big bonfire) is controlling the temperature of the town and all constructions are constructed round it.
It continuously consumes a useful resource both wooden or coal and you could keep watch over the move of sources in any other case your employees will freeze or starve or you may even overwork them
As with all idle video games the reset mechanic not solely advances the story however provides you a brand new city with new sources or a brand new mechanic. At present, there are 7 cities on the saga map.
There’s very distinctive useful resource move – one of the best earlier useful resource of the final metropolis is given in infinite amount as the primary useful resource of the brand new metropolis to shortly construct up the fundamental setup.
There’s additionally an occasion mechanic the place you might have a distinct themed momentary idle recreation (fishing occasion) that’s recurring from Friday to Monday.
The monetization of the sport is fairly tight. Already within the third city, the progress just about grinds to a halt should you don’t have the right hero within the useful resource chain of the multiplier.
Not solely are you getting the useful resource very slowly – Hero upgrades unlock slots for extra employees subsequently, not having a hero of a selected useful resource actually stops you – the one option to get him – open gacha bins and pray.
Advertisements are additionally very underutilized in comparison with different Idle video games. Due to this fact solely 15-30% further income on Advertisements. In different video games, this could go 50%+
The sport provides free lesser high quality gacha bins for advertisements each 8 hours or a random useful resource as a small UI button on the backside of the display screen – which could be very small, doesn’t transfer/animate, and you’ll simply miss it.
There’s additionally no standard doubling of offline sources – as a substitute, there’s solely a 2-hour cap for offline features which you’ll be able to extend to 4 hours with a 16.99 subscription – which additionally does extra development queue, auto-battle pace, and survivors auto placements.
CREATIVE STRATEGY
Trying into the Cellular motion advertisements gallery for a artistic analysis. These are the kinds of creatives they run:
two & a half players
- Consideration-grabbing movies
- altered gameplay
- Gold&Goblins „impressed“ movies
- hypercasual mechanics
- gameplay with selections
They’re utilizing primarily gameplay footage, centered on amassing sources (wooden chopping, which a number of the different 4X video games use too) similar to what gold&goblins are doing.
Creatives are additionally centered on a survival theme (DUH!) with loads of emojis (that is kinda impressed by hypercasual creatives, you may see loads of emojis in there as nicely) to underline the feelings. There’s additionally a component of selection in creatives, and guess what? Normally, the selection you (or the hand) make within the artistic is incorrect, and everyone dies, ehm starves, or freezes to demise.
A few of the creatives even have an finish card with Pre-register now headline.
Altered gameplay – utilizing supervisor constructing and queue of individuals making an attempt to develop into one of the best supervisor of the camp/metropolis (additionally stuffed with emojis)
There’s a artistic with fishing – boats, upgrades, extra boats, extra fish = once more, Gold&Goblins proper there.
Hypercasual gameplay – creatives similar to snow race which was on the highest of the ranks for a while.
All in all, there’s heavy inspiration coming from the superb recreation Gold&Goblins, nevertheless it’s really a fairly intelligent copy. Additionally they use a number of completely different attention-grabbing intros of their creatives the place you see the earth being frozen by aliens. (Fairly enjoyable stuff)
We will additionally see static photographs showcasing progress. A fairly attention-grabbing mixture of all codecs. Operating playables on advert networks, statics, and movies on Fb.
Frozen Metropolis Video Examples
Frozen Metropolis Static Photos
Anatomy of a well-performing video
Producing a artistic winner is not a straightforward job. Thanks captain apparent! So let’s take a look at the anatomy of a well-performing artistic:
The hook:
The primary 1-4 seconds of your advert are crucial half. Take advantage of this time window by fascinating your viewers with a strong, attention-grabbing hook that attracts them in to maintain watching. Make sure the hook is said to your recreation at the least not directly. This can guarantee a easy transition from the preliminary hook to the next key message of your artistic.
Meat
Points of interest of the sport itself are extremely efficient promoting factors of the sport. Present gameplay recordings and share methods, extraordinary characters, and your distinctive creative model. Reveal the weather inside your recreation that make it memorable and distinctive to new audiences. Additionally, you should utilize altered gameplay in your creatives. Not each stage you present within the artistic must be within the recreation.
Name-to-Motion
Don’t overlook so as to add a compelling call-to-action on the finish of your video advert. Use your recreation slogan, a catchy slogan, and a transparent button to direct customers to the following step. Sustain the momentum and switch your viewers’s consideration to the following motion – strive subsequent stage, obtain stage XYZ, buy?!
two & a half players
I’ve to confess, I’m actually impressed by their artistic idea’s depth. They’re continuously bringing new concepts and testing them on Fb, the place you may see at the least 120 creatives dwell. Hats off!
Time introduce the Whiteout Survival
Let’s begin by wanting on the creatives earlier than I clarify their genius transfer. That is simply fucking genius. I used to be already speaking about this in a few of my earlier articles.
Frozen metropolis vs Whiteout Survival artistic comparability
Extra Whiteout Survival Artistic ideas
What will we see right here besides the best-performing Frozen Metropolis movies:
- Consideration-grabbing movies
- Loads of altered gameplay
- Hypercasual mechanics
- Gameplay with selections
Whiteout Survival
Whiteout Survival international launched on February 12 (a month in the past). Whiteout Survival is a method recreation centered on a glacial apocalypse theme. Fascinating mechanics and complicated particulars await you to discover!
Since you bought right here, you already know what we’re seeing right here, proper?
An exhilarating 4X recreation developed by Century Video games. Discover the epic story and lead your survivors via a world of ice and snow. That is what their Fb Fan web page description says. We’re once more seeing an excellent transfer leveraging an Idle recreation, Frozen metropolis, within the onboarding move to ease up the funnel.
When you zoom in on the earlier screenshot, you may see Whiteout Survival was within the softlaunch for a while and getting revenues. Right here comes Jesper once more together with his sensible perspective.
This recreation is simply beginning to get loads of consideration, they’re bombarding me with advertisements on Fb and different channels. Once more, I see Applovin as a prime spender. They appear to know what they’re doing!
- I’ve to confess, I completely forgot about how nice Frozen Metropolis UA operations are they usually hold proving they’ve constructed a strong post-IDFA UA technique
- Superb artistic depth, all the time testing a number of completely different ideas. From hypercasual mechanics to altered gameplay and competitor „inspiration“
- For profitable international launch and scale, you want each killer UA & killer monetisation technique. It’s not simple to do it with out one or one other. On this case, they examined their low poly Idle recreation first after which when noticed it was working, they added it to as onboarding move to the brand new 4x recreation Whiteout Survival