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- Games 📡 1. Ni No Kuni: $100M in 11 days, 2. Clash Royale Biggest Spike in 3 Years, 3. Impact of IDFA
Games 📡 1. Ni No Kuni: $100M in 11 days, 2. Clash Royale Biggest Spike in 3 Years, 3. Impact of IDFA
Happy Games Radar Thursday,
Here is an I. game alert, II. word on the street, and III. question to consider this week…
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I. Game Alert
Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds reportedly became one of the fastest games to $100M in gross revenue beating both Genshin Impact and Pokemon Go to that mark in just 11 days.
To learn more about this game, I spoke to Junde Yu, VP of Sales & GM Gaming for App Annie, who specializes in games in Asia.
Key takeaways:
“It’s basically a Kingdom builder wrapped in an action MMO RPG, the ultimate goal is to build a capital city and you can compete with other players as well.”
Super high production value integrating rich characters and rich storyline enables the sales of gacha
Changes to IDFA make IP based games a good alternative to typical user acquisition
IP games do well in Japan: Naruto, Dragon Ball, Fate Grand Order, Yu-Gi-Oh, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.
Trend to watch: Also following Genshin Impact, industry going towards monster productions and further consolidation
II. Word on the Street
Clash Royale Mega Spike
Overheard:
Clash Royale just had the biggest spike in revenue that they've had in the past 2 years, with a bigger spike on iOS, does anyone know why?
Actually looks like it may be the biggest spike in over 3 years.
Downloads have also increased. Is Supercell ramping up UA?
Could it be an impact of IDFA deprecation? For those of you who listened to me before on the This Week in Games podcast last year (e.g., at 61:10 and 63:35), I predicted that IDFA deprecation will benefit Supercell and games like Clash Royale that have favorable payer bucket characteristics: higher conversion and lower ARPPU. This would logically follow based on the inability to target high LTV whales.
What do you guys think is driving the spike? 🤷‍♂️
Let me know…
King of Avalon 5 Year Anniversary
Heh. 5 Years strong! đź’Ş
The development of King of Avalon was a pretty rough time in my life but great to see the result… Now, I gotta do it 1 more time. Let’s go!
III. Question For You
Y’all gotta check out one of the few posts publishing real data behind the impact of IDFA deprecation. Great interview by VentureBeat with Consumer Acquisition’s Brian Bowman:
On revenue decline:
Based on Consumer Acquisition’s analysis of $300 million in paid social ad spending, IDFA has had a devastating impact, Bowman said in an interview with GamesBeat. In a report issued today, Bowman said that iOS advertisers are experiencing a 15% to 20% revenue drop and inflation in unattributed organic traffic.
Certain clients are down 30% to 40% percent in revenue. Others are feeling less of an impact. It’s a mess.
On ATT opt-in:
Only 20% of consumers are saying yes to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt, which means they will enable apps to personalize ads by tracking their personal data. For the traffic Bowman’s company evaluated, performance has faded. Across paid social platforms, downstream event optimization and “lookalike audience performance” is also eroding.
Question: Who will be the winners and losers of IDFA deprecation?
My initial predictions on the TWIG podcasts from last year were as follows:
Winners:
Midcore and hardcore games that could shift to friendlier monetization. Ability to shift payer buckets down and go for higher conversion and lower ARPPU
Brand/IP games
Losers:
Hypercasual games as ad monetization declines
Over time: Incumbents in high LTV game categories like social casino, 4x, and others
This is happening in real-time so start paying attention right now!
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