Metacore has been growing rapidly over the past two years. If in 2020 the studio’s turnover was only €3.5 million, then by the end of 2021 it has grown to almost €58 million. The studio’s CEO, Mika Tammenkoski, believes that by 2022 the studio’s revenues will reach €150-180 million.
- The studio’s business went uphill after the release of Merge Mansion. This is a mobile puzzle game in the merge-2 genre, where the player creates a new item by merging two things. For example, when swiping two towels, a bucket is obtained;
- to date, this is the most successful project of the studio with a DAU of 1.5 million. According to AppMagic, the game earns up to $7.5 million per month on IAP alone;
- The company has invested a lot of money in the development of Merge Mansion. This was made possible thanks to major investments in Metacore by Supercell;
- prior to the launch of Merge Mansion, Supercell invested about €25 million in the company. €15 was an investment in Metacore, another €10 million was a credit line. In May 2021, the studio received a loan from Supercell of €150 million ($180 million) to support and develop Merge Mansion. Most of this money was spent on marketing;
- Metacore has conducted an extensive and unusual for the mobile market advertising campaign Merge Mansion. In addition to investing in traditional advertising channels (they amounted to $ 60 million), she invested a significant part of the funds in promoting the game on television (about € 20 million);
- Hollywood actress Kathy Bates (known for the films “Titanic“, “Fried Green Tomatoes“, etc.) took part in the television advertisement. The video was broadcast during the Christmas season on the most watched US channels, including Fox, ABC and NBC;
- Due to such high advertising costs, Metacore ended the year with a loss of almost €60 million.;
- Metacore has analyzed the situation with advertising, but has not yet made specific plans for this year. According to Tammenkoski, it takes the company up to a year and a half to return the money spent on the purchase of traffic;
- The company also analyzed its prospects for 2022 and expects revenue to increase to €150-180 million. “We have big plans for the game. As for income, we expect to go into the plus this year. But possible losses are not excluded, as we are still investing a lot,” Tammenkoski said.;
- the studio also plans to expand the office and create a new game. Currently, about 70 people work at Metacore, some of them are working on an unannounced studio project. By the end of the year, Tammenkoski hopes to increase the number of employees to one hundred;
- If the company’s forecasts come true, it will most likely enter the top five largest game studios in Finland, in addition to Supercell, Small Giant Games, Rovio and Seriously.