The Hitman Sniper mobile action movie launched 4 years ago on iOS. At the end of March this year, the title was recognized as the most popular game of the franchise by the number of copies sold. Project lead Dominic Allaire told how his team managed to ensure the game such a long-term success.
Real-time control as an alternative to DLC
Dominic noted that Square Enix Montreal decided from the very beginning to develop the game using live operations — real-time management of the game project.
This term refers to gaming innovations, for the implementation of which you do not need to change the product code.
According to Aller, such a system works faster and more flexible than the periodic release of DLC.
How it works
12 people are involved in the management and support of the project in the Hitman Sniper team.
They perform three types of tasks: expertise, business analytics and backend support.
Real-time control components, Square Enix Montreal
Experts monitor the behavior of players, business analytics assesses opportunities for monetization and the backend promptly introduces innovations into the game.
The project lead described such management as a continuous cycle of three processes — acquisition of users, analysis of their habits and monetization.
The cycle of processes in project management, Square Enix MontrealUser Acquisition strategies
One of the most difficult tasks for a premium game is to attract users.
To increase the audience, Square Enix Montreal selected different strategies for each of the regions.
In China, the price reduction worked well, and in the USA, the audience of the project grew due to events timed to seasonal holidays (July 4, Halloween, Christmas and others)
Download growth thanks to seasonal content, Square Enix MontrealResults
The work on attracting users has increased the average number of downloads per month from 60 to 240 thousand, and the DAU has grown from 30 to a stable 95 thousand players.
The analysis of user requests allowed to increase ARPU from $0.02 to $0.12, and the maximum possible spending increased from $17 to $1280.
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