The Japanese role-playing battler Blood Brothers was a hit in Japan and the USA. At GDC, its authors from DeNA talked about what made the project so successful on the market.
“The secret of Blood Brothers is in special events,” said Yuji Shimizu, the game’s producer. According to him, they doubled the ARPU of the project. But it is important that the players participate in these events. Events without users will not bring money.
Gameplay
The task of the user in Blood Brothers is to create and upgrade a “deck” of five characters, which will be optimal for battles. In battles that take place without the player’s participation (skills are activated randomly), characters gain experience. Plus, as in any card game, in Blood Brothers you can combine two or more characters into one. Thus, either one of the characters becomes stronger, or you have a new character on your hands.
Events
“If you have only one event per month, even if it lasts a week, the user may get bored,” says Yuji. – “To be honest, this generally leads to the loss of users. Also, monotonous events lead to this. It’s boring.”
Events in Blood Brothers are different: from cooperative raids against giant bosses to ordinary PvP. Yuji says that PvP events are the most popular in the game. As in sing, the user collects a deck and fights it with the deck of another user. Players earn special points by participating and winning events. And there is a serious struggle going on for them.
“Everyone strives to earn as many points as possible before the victory whistle,” Yuji compares Blood Brothers to basketball.
The trick of the game is that events are held 3-4 times a month, last up to seven days, there are different types (competitive and cooperative). In addition, during them, players regularly encounter new content.
Key features
Yuji also highlighted five key chips that were included in the events: the leaderboard, the division into groups, the motivational component, daily matches and the encouraging component.
- There are several leaderboards. The user gets into the table that corresponds to the level of his skills
- The game rewards top players with special characters (motivational component)
- The more wins are made in a row, the more points the player gets
- A player can only participate in one match per day
- The player competes in the match only with a user of the same level with him
- Depending on how well a player performed in a particular event, he gets an increase in his position in the leaderboard
Progress
As Yuji noted, Blood Brothers topped the box office in 33 countries, was downloaded more than 10 million times, and its ARPU is growing from month to month.
At the moment, the game occupies the 13th position in the iPhone US box office top and the 2nd place in the Google Play US box office top.
The original version of the material written by Scott Reyburn for Inside Mobile Apps can be read here.