We continue to summarize the results of 2021 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with Alexander Enin, head of IT Territory.
How did 2021 go for the company?
The year 2021 passed for us under the banner of Rush Royale. For the first time, we managed to make a product that claims to be a global hit. When it became obvious that the project was “taking off” (and this happened in January), we realized that we could not miss this opportunity, so we focused all our intellectual and production resources on Rush Royale. As a result, during the year we managed not only to bring the project to multibillion-dollar revenue, but also to earn a significant net profit. This is a very serious achievement for young projects that are aggressively gaining an audience. To achieve this, we have carried out work in three areas: marketing, management and production.
Marketing
Rush Royale’s advertising budgets are quite substantial, and we launched the project practically without any historical data that allows us to build reliable predictive payback models. In order to scroll through these budgets and monitor payback with a lack of historical data, we used our author’s methodology of “individual LTV”. Unlike cohort analysis, this forecast is more flexible and accurate, as it is based on each individual user. Its complexity lies in the fact that it requires machine learning and a deep understanding of the relationship between marketing metrics and product metrics.
In addition, we needed a lot of punchy creatives to promote the game. The problem was compounded by the fact that in 2021 the advertising network market became even more fragmented. If earlier there was the hegemony of Google and Facebook, then this year budgets were also distributed to Unity, ironSource, Vungle, Moloco, Liftoff, etc. Accordingly, expert knowledge was required to work with each of these networks, especially in terms of the specifics of testing creatives. But where to get such a comprehensive expertise? And here the structure of MY.GAMES helped us a lot. Combining many studios, it concentrates knowledge that a single team cannot accumulate. With this help, by the middle of the year Rush Royale was successfully promoted in most major networks.
Management
At the launch, the project team consisted of 30 people. Now there are more than 130 of them. Such aggressive growth in such a short time is a serious challenge for managers. The management models of teams of 30 and 100 employees are completely different, and in order to move from one model to another without losing efficiency, you need to understand in great detail what we are doing, why we are doing it, and where we should end up. To do this, we have studied a lot the existing principles of organizing large creative teams, especially those that are used on successful mobile hits. When we realized which model we needed, we described it in detail, backed up by a two-year hiring plan. The most difficult thing was to learn how to delegate and “let go” comfortable areas of responsibility. On the one hand, we understood that growth was impossible without it. But it is very difficult to quickly change the usual way of working, which led you to success. However, we coped with this, largely thanks to our friendly and well-worked team.
Production
Rush Royale is not only our first major project, but also our first mobile game in PvP format. We worked a lot with PvE games, but we had no actual experience in the development of PvP games. We also had to learn this. One of the key insights was waiting for us at the level of the game balance. It turned out that the balance is not just once (albeit ideally) selected figures, but a process that has its own phases and mechanisms of turnover. The second insight concerned defeats. Unlike PvE- in PvP games, users often lose, on average, half of their fights end with this event. Accordingly, in order to keep the user’s interest for a long time, a PvP game should be able to turn this obviously negative event into a stable neutral one. This can be achieved if, when losing, the player sees his mistakes and understands how they can be corrected. In fact, this is what our game designers had to learn — to create a lot of mechanics that combine fascination, depth, transparency and predictability.
We should also mention monetization. PvE games are simpler in this regard, because you can easily sell power there and also easily devalue it. In PvP games, it is very dangerous to sell power, as competition will break down and the game will quickly lose all its appeal. Therefore, in order to earn money, you need to make a lot of content and invest in its uniqueness. As I said, you can’t sell more and more powerful heroes every time, so in order to be bought, they must be emotionally vivid, with different situational benefits and meta potential. This is an extremely difficult production process, in fact, we needed a large team to ensure it.
What event or trend of 2021 do you consider central within your niche?
I have considered the problem of finding new ideas to be such a trend for several years. At some point, the market was sated with experienced developers and people who are ready to finance the development of new games. That is, there are hands and money, but what to do is unclear. The problem is compounded by the fact that every year it becomes more and more difficult to create competitive products. There are technologies and a theoretical basis that allows you to quickly produce good games, but the problem is that it is not enough for a game to be just good to become successful. At a time when the CPI is only growing, and the number of projects on the market is also rapidly increasing, only a project that perfectly meets market expectations and has mechanics in its base that allow you to keep the audience for a long time (from two years) can claim revenue of $ 100 million per year. And it is very difficult to find an idea that contains this set of features, and every year it becomes only more difficult. Either you will get into a highly competitive niche with a CPI of $ 20, or you will do, as we say, something “left-threaded”, where there will be neither an audience nor money.
So I consider the aggravation of the problem of finding new ideas to be one of the most basic and important trends both for individual niches and for the industry as a whole.
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2022?
We have no revelations here. We have been living within the framework of a product strategy for quite a long time, which relies on the launch of a large number of new games. As a rule, we launch two games every year. And 2022 is no exception here. Our first new project in the coming year will be released in just a few months. This will also be a PvP game, but with elements of auto chess. We know that many attempts have already been made to master this niche in the mobile segment, but so far they have not been too successful. I hope we can do it after all. We expect the second game in the third quarter. We now have several prototypes that have passed the stage of retention tests, but we have not yet decided which one we will take into work.
And of course, Rush Royale, which we will be developing all next year. Our common task is to increase the project performance several times.