Belka Games: “Charity event attracted 10% more audience than usual”

Charity and benefits

Mobile actions related to charity are in stores today, although they happen, but still not very often. For example, Apple periodically holds events in connection with World AIDS Day or Earth Day. In both cases, applications participating in the promotion donate part of the proceeds to the appropriate funds.

However, they not only save lives and the environment: such actions themselves are useful to those taking part in them. And it’s not just about increasing image capital or so-called brand awareness.

According to Yuri Krasilnikov, Director of business Development at Belka Games, participation in such activities also affects the performance of the project itself. In other words, the game itself benefits from charity in terms of business metrics.

However, Yuri talks about it as something accompanying. Based on his own experience of conducting such actions, he notes: “It is important for us, as a team, to reach a new level in our work. To start not just doing business, not just earning, but to take on something meaningful.”

Belka Games and charity events

Belka Games, located in Minsk, can already be called an experienced studio in charity events. Last year, the company, together with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), organized the action “Together we are stronger” in its game “Watchmaker”, which was timed to coincide with the World Charity Day.

The other day — in early June — the Belarusian team held its second charity event together with UNICEF. This time it was held as part of the International Children’s Day. And it also took place in one of the two central projects of the company — in match-3 “Watchmaker”, whose total cash only from mobile exceeded the $30 million mark, according to the analytical service DataMagic.

Dynamics of sales of “Watchmaker” (June 2017 — May 2019)
As before, the action in the game itself consisted of two parts.

Firstly, there was a content story event thematically related to the action (in it, the user helped the children save the holidays from the main villain). Secondly, the players were offered to buy an IAP, the money from which will go not to the developers, but to the children’s fund.

The key difference between the second Belka Games promotion and the first is Google support. The game during the event received a feature on the main in the CIS. And this process, as well as working with a charity company, according to Yuri, has its own specifics.

Partner question

It is impossible to arrange a charity event, whose money will go to the fund, “on click”. This is a long and multi-step process, even at the concept level.

“The first. The company must pass the audit of the legal service of the fund (in this case, UNICEF), — says Yuri. “The service will check whether the company is law—abiding, whether it is not connected with any banned organization, whether it has a trail of legal proceedings.”

This stage is called clearance in the legal field.

But the second stage is more understandable: “Here you need to provide the idea and concept of a joint action, to convey why you think it may be relevant to your audience.”

At the same time, the foundation checks the game itself. He looks at how the presented content correlates with his values. “If there is nudity, scenes of violence, murder in the game, then with a very high probability UNICEF will not approve such cooperation,” explains Yuri.

The third stage is the final one. On it, the developer must coordinate all marketing materials with the foundation. As for the content submitted for approval, it must follow the brand book of the charity organization.

If Google Play is involved, the work does not end there.

“Platforms need to provide copies of agreements with a charitable organization, letters of guarantee and be sure to indicate what the charitable in-apps will be called,” Yuri shares the details.

He also notes that getting a feature is not something out of the ordinary for the Watchmaker or other products of the company. They regularly deserve the attention of platforms. So when requesting a feature, the team did not focus on the presence of a charity event.

Stock feature on Google PlayPromotion and performance of the game

The audience of the “Watchmaker” on Google Play is about 8 million people, and MAU is about a million. Of these, 300 thousand people took part in the event. The conversion of the latter to those who paid for a special offer was about 2.5%: more than 7 thousand users turned out to be payers.

As a result, Belka Games was able to transfer about $40 thousand to the foundation for charity during the week of the event. However, the collected figure is, of course, more. The specified amount was obtained after deducting all fees and taxes.

As for the metrics of the game itself, they turned out to be higher than the standard ones within the framework of the event. 10% more players participated in the charity event than usually take part in events. Moreover, the percentage of those who passed it to the end turned out to be 40% higher than usual.

According to Yuri, such results show the keen interest of the target audience of the game in charity topics. Users are ready for such events, ready to join the problems and donate funds, among other things.

Art for a new promotionPlans

Taking into account last year’s event, the total contribution of Belka Games to charity today is about $ 125 thousand. The company does not intend to stop there. Already, she plans at least three more events.

“In total, even more will be collected in support of the program for the protection of vulnerable children in Belarus,” Yuriy says. And immediately notes that Belka Games is ready to work with other funds, moreover, she is looking for them herself.

However, the studio is not ready to cooperate with everyone. Transparency, openness and accountability of the fund are important to her. The same UNICEF, for example, shares with the company information about where exactly the collected funds went.

According to Yuri, this is important not only for the studio itself, but also for the foundation, which sees the partner’s participation and appreciates it.

“For us, the main goal of such activity is precisely help. If we can use such actions to help at least a hundred children who have something wrong in their lives, that’s great!” concludes Yuri.

Also on the topic:

• Charity in a gaming event — Belka Games experience”I was bribed by the fact that Belka Games are ready to spend profits on the team”