In June, Nordeus introduced a new functionality – associations – into its Top Eleven football hit. We asked the developers how this affected the project’s performance.
For reference, associations are analogous to clans from non-football games. Thanks to the innovation, players have the opportunity to create associations with four to six friends, communicate within the framework of associations in chat rooms, as well as participate in team tournaments regularly held by developers.
He answered our questions in connection with the introduction of associations Alexander Alexik (Aleksandar Aleksic), producer of the company.
Hi! Let’s start with the main question: why did you introduce associations?
Alexander Alexik Hi !
By introducing associations, we wanted Top Eleven managers [players] to be able to be closer to each other. Another of our tasks was to give them a platform where they could discuss tactics and results. We wanted to give a feature that would be really cool, but at the same time would cost nothing.
Look, usually people (friends) watch football together, usually on weekends. And we wanted to set them a task for which they needed to compete as a group of players against another group. Also, by the way, during the weekend. By doing so, we wanted to evoke feelings of shared success or disappointment.
If we talk about metrics, has there already been an increase in any business indicators?
We have already seen significant improvements in UA since the introduction of the new social functionality. There are also improvements in other performance indicators, such as DAU, session length, number of sessions, and the like.
You mentioned an increase in the length of the session. Can you reveal specific figures?
We see significant improvements in the length of sessions at the start of the championships (on weekends) – up to 30%, but in relation to the weekly average, the increase is 10-15%, which corresponds to our forecasts.
The first analogy that arises when getting acquainted with the functionality is clans in MMO. Were there any specific projects that you focused on when introducing the feature?
Yes and no. Of course, we looked at other games and projects, like Clash of Clans, as well as other successful games to understand what made them successful. But we had to adapt a lot of things for our genre. With such social mechanics, there are no more projects within the football niche (we are talking about the competitive mode of clans in real time).
If we continue the analogy with clans, they are usually quite numerous in MMO projects (even in mobile ones). Why did you limit associations to 6 players?
We studied the data and found out that our players do not have a large number of friends. This is the first reason. The other is that we wanted the players to be close to each other. If there were more players [in associations], this proximity would be more difficult to achieve.
And the last question, which leads a little to the side. The fact that in fact today Top Eleven has no competitors on the market – is this a plus or minus for the project itself?
Top Eleven is a niche game. And within this niche there are games that we consider our competitors. There are other football managers for mobile devices.
It’s cool to be the best in our class, but we need to work hard to remain the top game in the genre. Anyway, we are much more ambitious. We want to conquer the entire football segment on mobile, where there is, for example, FIFA today.
I consider both circumstances as advantages, because they make us work harder to improve the product.
Thanks for the interview!
The editorial board thanks Roman Goroshkin for his help in organizing the interview