
Softlaunch Sonar #7: The Evolution of CPI Testing in Gaming
In this episode, we explore the gaming industry's evolving landscape, focusing on CPI testing, game mechanics, and market trends. We also explore the new games in Soft Launch, the impact of new game launches, the disruption of traditional genres like Solitaire, and the potential of branded games like Barbie.
The conversation also touches on the strategies of various game developers, including Century Games and Voodoo, and explores the future of mobile gaming amidst changing consumer preferences.
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Youtube: https://youtu.be/drc6KPJJlk4
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-2um8eguhf-c~H9idcxM271mnPzdWbipg
Chapters
00:00 The Evolution of CPI Testing in Gaming
01:09 Introduction to the Gaming Show
02:34 Christmas Gifts and Personal Anecdotes
03:30 Game Analysis: Merge Plaza and Innovations
06:10 The Disruption of the Solitaire Category
10:00 Soft Launch Insights and Game Mechanics
12:28 Exploring New Game Genres and Trends
15:07 Barbie Merch and Market Potential
17:21 The Domino Game Trend
19:38 Voodoo's New Game Innovations
21:33 Century Games and Their Strategy
23:23 Post-Apocalyptic Game Mechanics
26:07 The Forex Game Landscape
30:12 The Future of Mobile Gaming and Trends
33:50 Final Thoughts and Predictions
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Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
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Takeaways
CPI testing has evolved, with mini-games becoming the new standard.
The gaming industry is experiencing significant disruptions, particularly in the Solitaire category.
Branded games like Barbie have potential but face challenges in execution.
Voodoo continues to innovate within the casual gaming space.
Century Games is a company to watch due to their strategic approach.
The 4X genre is becoming saturated with similar onboarding mechanics.
Post-apocalyptic themes are gaining traction in mobile games.
The importance of user acquisition strategies cannot be overstated.
The future of mobile gaming will likely see more integration of successful mechanics from various genres.
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Full Transcript
they're doing this because even if you
do the famous
marketability tests, you don't
have the real CPIs.
You just don't because you don't have the
actual CPI optimization
because you don't have the game.
So
that's why they're doing this.
So you now have the game, but you build a different
mini game as a CPI test.
Exactly.
Mini games are the CPI test now. Welcome to the new world.
This is a no bullshit gaming show where we talk about games and their revenue in great detail, powered by our ad monetization, game design, and user acquisition triple threat expertise. Welcome to the Two and a Half Gamers, the unfiltered truth served with a side of giggles.
Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Tune in now and stay two and a half steps ahead of the gaming industry. Ho, ho, ho, ho.
Merry Christmas. And Happy New Year in Slovakia.
Happy New Year. Mate, what did you get for Christmas? Absolutely nothing nothing it's fine we don't do gifts anymore
i'm not a kid anymore so that's that's how it works yakub what did you get for christmas
uh cooking course for steaks that's actually a really good gift
that's pretty good pretty good what did you what did you get i got a pair of wood clogs hot yeah there is a blind woman living 30 minutes south of my house in sweden and she took on an apprentice and what she did to turn blind was she made wood clogs and that has some pigment that she turned blind so she taught an apprentice how to make wood clogs and I got one of the wood clogs what's a wood clog? it's wooden shoes it's like the Dutch have them but also we have them sorry Matthew put this in the end as a blooper and let started again. 3, 2, 1, go.
I think it's great. I think this is great.
Thank you very much, guys. My name is Mati Alancelic.
I'm woodclog Felix Braberg. Welcome to the premiere of Christmas tree.
Yeah, and we are your hosts. Oh my god, so this is going to be the episode.
We're actually going gonna talk about some games in Soft Lounge and I think the intro is great so we can just dive right in and yes, again now we have the fake background with the actual decorations on the tree which is now lighted up can I show you my Christmas tree? Yeah, sure, sure. Go ahead.
Missing a little bit of light, but okay. Yeah, I didn't turn it on.
That's on me. Okay, let's do it the usual funny way.
So I'm going to show you the games. Oh, there's Capybara.
Hello. Matty, did you really not get any Christmas gift? did you really not get a Christmas gift? well we usually give Christmas not Christmas but gifts to each other like the whole year and now we just buy Christmas gifts for Katarina not for each other and we are going to go to Maldives in two weeks so I, I mean, that's a Christmas.
It's kind of a Christmas gift.
Okay, I don't feel sorry for you anymore.
I mean... You can cry on your fucking island.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
You can cry on Maldives.
Yeah, I mean, that's fine.
Make sure you don't get sand in your eyes while you're crying.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, fair enough.
Okay, let's start the usual way.
I'm going to show you the game,
and you're going to tell me which studio this is coming from. Ooh.
Merch Plaza. Jeez.
Merch Plaza. Look, it smells Turkish.
Really? Enough. But I guess that means it's Vietnamese.
I'm using my games. Don't start with Century Games again.
No, it's not Century Games no it's not Einstein it's a random AI guy I think is it from China no therefore maybe it's the AI but look at the mechanic this is not your typical merge game This is more close to something like Merch Town. Like original gram game.
Because you see? You hold the generator and then you produce the board. This is not your usual Travel Town copy.
No. Okay.
Great. See? So there are some innovations and stuff.
Interesting. See? You have the generators on the bottom, and then the board changes like levels.
Yeah. So it actually seems like it's a level-based merge game.
Ooh. Nice.
That's very interesting. How did you find this? As usual, I can find anything.
We have the renovation decoration meta, as we say. Any more tips who this is coming from? It's a very famous name in the merge genre.
In the merge? Is this merge mention? Yeah, this is Metacore. No, is it? Yeah, this is Metacore.
And this has been soft launched on December
11. So they're coming back
strong, huh?
I would say they're trying because it's not
their comeback yet.
That's why we're talking it on the soft launch
Sonar version 6, 7.
But it's definitely interesting
to see that they're trying some new things here. It's not just like hoping on the Travel Town trend.
And yeah, we'll see what's going to happen here. But it seems that there's the usual kind of build renovation meta, which is like Royal Match Carbon Copy.
But the core gameplay seems very, very unique. So let's see how this one goes.
Because it's basically Merge on the level-based setup with these kind of setups. But yeah, let's see.
Because you see that the levels get more and more complex and it's energy-based, actually. Like, there's no moves, there's energy.
So let's see how this one goes in. But it's very interesting to see.
Okay, next one. No.
Grandma Solitaire Secrets. Is Metacore just firing on all cylinders? Seems so.
I'm going to put more context behind this, but this completely confirms my prediction that I've been saying for the last three podcasts. Solitaire category is going to be really, really disrupted next year.
And this is another
kind of a nail in that
theory where we have this.
We have, by the way, fully animated
3D grandma.
Do you think that's AI?
I don't know. This is just like
a great 3D.
3D.
It's easy to do. It's not that hard.
She's the deck dealer, whatever, but we have the solitaire thing. And again, this is the new solitaire, which is the level-based kind of a solitaire, not the usual one.
Because solitaire category is currently divided into solitaires that are the actual solitaire game running on organics. And then games that are having these custom solitaire core gameplays which is occupied by who? Grand Harvest.
Exactly, which is making 15 million a month and it's completely wiping the floor with everybody. Yeah, because it's hard, it's really expensive and they have all the money in the world plus they have the knowledge from social casino as well.
Yeah, because it's play-tick. and it's really expensive and they have all the money in the world plus they have the knowledge from social casino as well and it's the same fucking audience I worked on this game for some time in the past so we have the we have the Grandmaster Litter Secrets which is coming which was initially launched December 3rd I can tell tell you it's not going to be live.
It's not going to be launched. We have this already for more than a year which is Candy Crush Solitaire.
We have this which is Disney Solitaire from Superplay that was just bought by Platika. Whoa, that's totally Disney.
Look at that. Yeah, that's totally Disney.
It is. And then we have Vuga also doing Journey metagame on Solitaire.
So there's already four big, significant names trying to disrupt Solitaire. You know what's going to happen? You think all will fail? Yeah.
Okay. Why do you think so? Because it's really expensive, and you need a very different kind of campaign structure.
And I remember the campaign structures they had, basically, and what I was running, and it was very different. It's just not easy, and if you don't't have the expertise this is exactly what is going to happen.
Meta core, Vuga, Platika and King against each other. This is UA play.
This is very, very big UA play. Each one of these games has pretty much the same core with this new level based Solitaire and a a little bit different metas, which is the renovation build.
Maybe Superplay. Superplay already did this with Domino Dreams.
Exactly. We'll have it later today.
Because there's another Domino game. But we're talking about card games and Solitaire.
Maybe Superplay it because it's it requires different thing in terms of the UA and they already did it with Dice Dreams and Domino Dreams as well so maybe they have like I guess that the best chance it's them and also you know the new owners kind of make sense yeah because they have the top game in the category exactly exactly so exactly. So they have probably the biggest chance.
By the way, VUGA is also owned by Platica. Don't forget about that.
Oh, yeah, that's true. So there's actually...
Two against one, not four against each other. Exactly, exactly.
So, there you go. But it's really bad then.
I mean, you have like i mean like you have the disney solitaire from super play against the wuga claire's chronicles sounds like tencent tactic it's just uh well i mean i think uh the super play game was in the preparations for longer than before the acquisition yeah before the acquisition so i mean it's just like evolution of like how it's how the things played out the solitaire from vuga as well i mean well just guys it's gonna be tough it's gonna be very tough it's gonna be super tough yeah anyway let's move on wait wait what do you think platica would do if they saw a contender competing in this market? They would just outspend anyone, right? They're already outspending everyone now. They're spending more than all of those games together.
Honestly. Yeah.
If you look at Grand Harvest, he's doing like half a million a day. Which I think it was way more before.
20k a day.
Yeah.
I guess the DAU is still super strong. The bad revenue in this game
is insane.
Very stable, I would say.
400k users in that category.
It was way more.
I think I was on these projects for a couple of months in 2019 or 20 yeah but this is a COVID bump yeah it is but anyway it's just we'll see as I said it's been a very interesting look at what's gonna happen with Solitaire category next year moving Moving on. Mob Takeover.
Let me zoom in. No.
Supercent. Wow.
I wasn't able to find the actual gameplay of this, but it seems that guys are trying some new tricks with Mob Control gameplay. I really want to talk to Supercent when we are in South Korea in a few weeks so yeah you mean next week? yeah basically next week, it's true, tomorrow for me tomorrow for you so yeah it's interesting, as I said wasn't able to find this but my guess is this is more on a play just by these screenshots on something like uh the tower game uh the one that uh tower one tower tower you see the towers here but you still have the mob control-ish kind of uh not straight lines but these kind of soldiers so basically it kind of re-rotes itself back to Mushroom Wars, it seems.
But yeah, whatever. We'll see.
We'll keep an eye on it. Yeah.
This one's pretty interesting. Ooh.
Jesus Christ. Exosword.
Okay, nice. So.
so interesting any idea who's this we can see from your writing with homer games but um i wouldn't have guessed it otherwise yeah so this is this is soft lunch on homer's portfolio um and it's from november 2nd and i was looking into this it CoinStack puzzle. And it literally looks like pretty much block jam meets hexa sort.
That's what it is. But if I was looking a little bit more deeper into it, there's actually this other puzzle.
Again, called same CoinStack puzzle by Rolex, which was sitting on the Rolex portfolio for more than a year. For some time.
Yeah, for some time. So what both of these companies are doing, they're using this new kind of coin core, which is basically hexa-sword.
Hexa-sword, yeah. But very important, the coins can only go four ways, not six ways as our favorite hexagons, vestagons.
So it's a little bit different. And then I
guess because of the level design
and everything, it's not
that simple, especially the HOMA one
where you can see that you actually
are smashing the coins from the bottom
to the top, which is even more
hard now.
Yeah, it is.
We'll see. It's very
interesting, but yeah, as I said,
this again proves
the point that we were talking about, that
Thank you. yeah it is we'll see it's very interesting but yeah as I said this again proves the point we were talking about that hexa core hexa sword core basically will be innovated and iterated next year to some point definitely because that core is just too novel and too new to just leave standing there okay barbie merch mystery by Rlic again that is gonna make us so much goddamn money so october 21st i wasn't able to find the gameplay but i found the screenshot and it's basically travel town yeah from the from the screenshot so yeah Don't know if we can find the gameplay
or if you can or somebody can.
You know why I said that, Mate?
Honestly, because Rolik
and Barbie, who's never given out
their IP before, it's going to get
a lot of organics and Rolik knows exactly
what to do with that.
Barbie's never given out their IP before.
Really? Not for games, no?
For in mobile. Don't quote me on that, For in mobile? There's Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures.
There's definitely some Barbie games. It's just that most of them aren't that prominent, I guess.
Yeah, exactly. That's the problem.
And I think there's also the second movie coming in. I don't know when, but I know that the second movie is coming in.
Yeah. That's probably it.
There are some army, but they are super small, I think. You don't feel your dollar signs tingling here for this? Not really.
I mean, the problem is, Ben, guys, it's a merch category. What do we know about merch category? It's a merch category.
What do we know about merch category? China. Exactly.
Yes. So you can be Barbie, but I don't think so.
You can take on the Chinese. Yeah, you are not China.
You can be Barbie, but you are not China. Absolutely.
You are not the microphone. You are not microphone.
Yeah. Yes.
I don't know if this will be the best play
but let's see
Look, if the second movie
mentions microphone
I'm fine, I'm okay
Those dollars will be
tingling absolutely
Let's see
Okay, moving on
So there's this Domino to Go
fun board game
Thank you. let's see okay moving on so there's this domino to go fun board game which is if I understand correctly the same thing as domino dreams the thing that I'm bringing up that it's actually guess on whose portfolio yeah I don't see I don't see it's Voodoo it's on BeachBum actually the company they bought these cars in that case that makes way more sense yeah it makes way more sense because again if you look at Dom Dreams, how this is currently faring is doing something like more than 200k a day already.
And if you look at it, like, I don't want to say the Domino category, I think it's board, but there are multiple games in it. Stuff like Yahtzee and Ludo even and stuff like that.
What is chess in the Domino category? Because it's board.'s bored it's bored domino isn't that big yet to like have it own category but it's still the biggest here and makes seven and a half million a month still so yeah this is this is another like one of those kind of casual card games horses that are getting innovated similar to solitaire story that people are trying to kind of get into, I think.
So we're going to see more of these probably.
Because we're running out of the categories, to be honest.
Because keep in mind that the good
point about these categories is that they still
are powered by these huge organic numbers
that are coming from the classic board games that people
know, which is both Solitaire, Domino,
and even Yala,
Ludo, I mean, Ludo, and a few more of these other games I wouldn't be surprised if we can see something like Cheekers or Checkers and Chests and stuff like that I'll bring my Cheekers Can we play some Cheers with you? As usual. Okay, let's move on.
Jakub, I love you. Merry Christmas.
Yeah, Merry Christmas. This is my gift for Christmas.
Thank you very much. I love it.
Another interesting spin in the voodoo portfolio is the junk wheel game game which seems that it's making the play on the doodle magic blob invasion it seems it's making the play on doodle magic with the backpack hero they had something similar as almost doodle magic it was fruit Ninja or something. Fruit Ninja?
I can find it.
Fruit Ninjitsu.
They had the backpack something.
Backpack game thing
that we talk about
how it...
Fruit Ninjitsu is Lion.
Sorry, guys.
Okay, so it's Lion Studios.
But this is interesting because if I understand correctly instead of skills you are selecting the the weapons to be merged in your inventory basically but again wasn't able to find the gameplay i guess we'll see it later down the line but again interesting iterations when was it launched uh this was launched november 21st oh yeah as usual everything on the sonar is soft launch after we finish the last sonar so it's last 2-3 months that's it, everything is kind of super new nothing's more older than that okay, there's one who's this? this is Speak no, Century Games no yes yeah yeah yeah you know what my new answer for everything is this is going to be century games yeah that's why i say that's why i scream always century games and i'm 50 chance of being right so i don't know which one or like is this but i think it's like either seventh or eighth casual game that we've seen from them yeah they're like still trying to kind of get into uh this seems to be like classical take on uh tomb last i don't think so tomb last or toy boss yeah it's like it's the same it's like it's the same let me let me try to find the main menu uh yeah yeah it seems like a typical static image yeah that's it basically I wonder Dragstar is doing fine fine but not amazing I know but if you have seven Dragstars then it's microphone basically on steroids I think'm fine I think if we would ask Century Games guys they would still tell us we're learning and this is still part of our learning I can understand that it's not nowhere near White House Survival but one thing I've learned in this industry is never bet against century games. Speaking of century games, what do we have here? Oh no, which one? This one? So this one was a prominent one.
I wanted to cover this one. October 29th, it was soft launch, and it's actually...
Let me maybe play the trailer. Again, I wasn't able to find the gameplay so this was not out there there was a beta actually or something so let me just stop it here because if you see it here you kind of know what this is about so this screams basically some kind of iteration of Legend of Mushroom.
But wait a second, there's a very
interesting catch here.
We have the inventory and
probably the autoplay with some auto skills.
There's auto-off button right there
immediately. So this is basically
Legend of Mushroom stuff. But then if we move
on forward in the trailer,
there's
some epic boss fights and stuff. It's epic Godzilla.
looks like the Ziorimo but this is what we also got here oh, what a Fallout shelter yeah, so there was basically a Fallout shelter interface where you have different rooms with different stuff and then you could see the water kind of... It's almost like Sea of Conquest.
I think Sea of Conquest has this part. I think Sea of Conquest has this only creative.
Really? We need to play that. Or do they? We need to play that.
So many AI creatives that they're throwing at me. I know, I know.
I found out nobody cares about the AI about the ai creators that much yeah so what these guys are doing they're having a pre-registration for the game uh seems to be like a very nicely polished go on the website if you want to kind of get more info about that uh as said it's it's pretty much this kind of a post-apocalyptic battleship that's running. It seems like Snowpiercer to me a little bit, if you know the series.
Oh, come on. Yeah, for sure.
Why not? That was the same exact principle. Okay.
Different rooms on the train that's running in post-apocalyptic world. That's it.
I'm with you. It's exactly like Snowpiercer.
See? So we have this. And then on top of it, we have also these epic bosses and the battle part, which you saw in the trailer, which is the inventory screenshot right here.
Yeah, I'm super interesting how this kind of, let let's say what i'm thinking they're trying to do here is that they're trying to add more management into a game that's kind of fully automated because legend of mushroom is really like there's so much automation that you can just leave it kind of running where you even sort the gacha for you like you just filter it and like only stop if there's like epic whatever something.
You don't even need to play.
Yeah, you don't even need to play.
But if you saw the thing here in the trailer
with the shelter part,
you could already see that there was this kind of,
this is pretty much a mechanic from Fallout Shelter
where there's like some kind of energy system
or whatever you run out of electricity
or water room stop working.
There's these like invasion of bugs or whatever. I guess the same mechanic will be done here.
So it takes a lot of maintenance. You need to kind of go and play with it, blah, blah, blah.
Like Tamagotchi. Exactly like Elder Scrolls Online or Mobile or whatever was that.
Yeah, Elder Scrolls Castles. Yeah, Castles.
It's exactly the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that was a lot of grind, basically.
It was a lot of grind.
The plus one there was the Reigns game, the card game.
Yeah, yeah.
The Twitter stuff, kind of a moral decisions.
These have Legend of Mushroom plus Fallout Shelter.
So we'll see.
We'll keep an eye on that.
We'll definitely cover it when it goes out.
Because my guess is it could be very good.
I think it's going to be super high CPIs, but then also
super high LTVs.
With Century Games, UA,
I wouldn't be against it.
I really want to see the creatives.
Oh my god. That would be amazing.
It's going to be so interesting.
Look at how much money Legend of Mushroom
is making.
I think this is going to be kind of similar.
Oh, we can still check.
Yeah, let's check.
Legend of Mushroom, I think they went a little bit into decline after the peak, as usual.
The podcast curse, when we cover someone, they went into decline.
Yeah, but look.
Jeez, Louise.
So at their peak in March, I think that's when we covered, they were doing 55 million a month. Now they're doing something like 10.
Yeah, that's still okay. That's still okay, let's say.
Yeah, download-wise, they're... Check the countries, please, because if Japan is still the top, then...
What are we talking about? South Korea? There you go.
Japan is top revenue.
Oh yeah.
US is 7% of both downloads and revenue.
It's still like very Asian.
It is very Asian.
I mean we were sitting next to them
at one table in China.
We'll see. It's super Asian.
I think the high seas hero could be more appealing to the west definitely based on these kind of fallout shelter visuals and post-Napol character stuff and everything keep in mind at the beginning of the trailer this literally looks like World of Warships. Yeah, but look, man, it's still
Chinese characters, the first thing.
What do you mean, like the chibi small ones?
No, but you see the first ones in the trailer.
Like, you know.
Oh, these ones? Yeah.
Because of the Chinese trailer.
Yeah, but like, no, but it's like a Chinese trailer
and also with letters, like, come on.
So are you arguing that it's a problem that they put
Chinese characters into a Chinese trailer?
Come on, man.
It's not going to be big in the West.
You know it.
I mean...
No ad revenue.
It's great, yeah.
It's perfect.
Thank you very much, Santa Claus. It's just crappy Claus there won't be any I'd revenue in it speaking of Legend of Mushroom one more update from these guys not really an update I would say another kind of bold move so looking at their portfolio how can you read that portfolio man I can as usual so the last thing we covered was zombie IO but the interesting part is this game is finally coming from WeChat into mobile stores and this is our favorite oh Jesus Christ our favorite which I can't even spell but I just use free google translation what is What is the Western name? Fingertip Warriors.
That's Google translation. Oh, but that's something like what Lemon said, I think, very close.
No, but we've got to play this on our dinner. Yeah, we've got to play this.
It's a top five WeChat game. Constantly top five WeChat game.
And it's an idle arcade plus Forex. like top heroes kind of I would say even more complex but you see that idle arcade is pretty amazing I feel like this is a game you would love Jak Jakob.
Of course. I'm playing it instantly.
This goes out in the English translation, you're playing it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Me too, actually.
Until the 4X.
I don't think so there ever was
Arcade Idol plus 4X thing.
No, no, no.
This is the first time.
So we'll see.
So as I said, this was soft launch
in December 19, actually.
So just last week ago.
Yes, two days ago.
Yeah.
And yeah, I'm just waiting when this goes into English translation.
Because a lot of their games, even though you see their own portfolio with no English translation, they actually went into English translation.
Like Zombie.io for instance.
Yeah, yeah, Zombie.io.
We'll get there.
If it's already out of WeChat, I guess it's just closed. So we'll see.
Okay, moving on. We have...
Yeah, there we go. Oh, fuck.
Oh my God, is this a 4X game? Yes. So now, dear listeners, we entered the new segment of Softland Sonar, which is called, what's the new onboarding in Forex? Man, guys, guys, we'll stop here.
Like, seriously, Forex has turned into, like, the bubble shooter of, like, six years ago. Remember that time when there was just so many bubble shooters on the market? This is the Forex now.
But this is amazing. This is Fun plus for sure yes this is fun plus but you can see you can see it in the art where you see the iteration like this is raw iteration because nobody cares about the 4x meta game everybody cares about the onboarding that's it yeah and you can see the the visual style it's it's basically the art style and they have, all the characters.
It's just, it's absolutely fun plus. And I'm really curious to see all the different top four fun onboardings as well.
Because I'm pretty sure we will have more. Because this, look, I think Jakub said this in the previous episodes where we were discussing match-free UA.
This is exactly the same. This is actually going to come to match-free very soon.
Different onboardings. Because then it's going to be the UA play again.
And this is only to get the best possible CPIs. And everybody else will copy it.
I just posted this on LinkedIn yesterday. Where is the inspiration from Creatives coming from? And I was actually looking into the pull-to-peen, where it began.
And it was obviously Hero Wars, but then it's very close to each other, the Fishdom, Gardenscapes, Homescapes, and Evony. And now what's happening, it's Evony, Royal Match, and then Fishdom, Gardenscapes, Homescapes in terms of the UA and Inspiration.
It's just everything is coming from Forex. Why? Because everybody needs to decrease the CPIs.
And Forex is already working on this for years.
Basically, since 2019, when everyone actually put...
They invented it.
They invented it.
No, no, Hero Wars.
Hero Wars did.
Oh, yeah, Hero Wars.
Hero Wars did.
Hero Wars.
But I could see literally how they went from 50K downloads for in a month here we go two million there you go chained female character so it's it's insane it's insane and we definitely need to cover evony at some point please let's do it actually because because that history is so interesting and how they went from, let's call it normal 4X, then pulled the pin in the game, which increased the downloads insanely. And now they have the gates mechanic, which is, again, changed the whole game.
So, yeah. Yeah.
Where did we see this road with the rescue, the female character? Well, it's Last War. Yeah, exactly.
So, and you see, this is the part of it that, like, all of these forks, they, like, take out of each other and, like, always iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate, and then in the end you get, like, nuclear bomb on onboarding. Which looks hyper-casual almost.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, the last war is making three and a half million a day. That's the big difference.
So, yeah, there's I think there's like the typical thing there. She's getting no bomb this time.
I guess she's getting drowned now by something like water there needs to be some pirate uh characters as well which what do you think about the buildings there's been there's been those famous buildings so far there's been the sale uh and then there's like the patronus towers and you're bombing them yeah there's this one this one. Oh, yeah, the London Bridge.
Or Tower Bridge.
Tower Bridge, yeah.
I don't know if there's one more.
Look at the visual of the low, kind of almost low poly.
We'll not hear about the buildings.
It needs to be low poly because the physics wouldn't work.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
But yeah, that's fine.
So we have this one.
And then we have this one. Yeah.
So, but yeah, that's fine. So we have this one.
And then we have this one. Ooh.
Which is, guess what? That looks really fun. I'd play this.
Please don't tell me it's a 4X. Of course it's a 4X because everything is a 4X from this point on.
We're in the 4X section. Yeah, 4X section.
We're in the 4X segment already. I feel so stupid.
So this is Crown of Bones and it's a 4X. It's a 4X, but why is it? By who? By FunPlus.
Really? Okay. Interesting.
So this was soft launch November 1st, and the Boom Blast one was November 30th. And the last one that I pulled from their portfolio is this one.
Hello. Let me introduce you to our favorite.
Last War Creatives with Barrels. Basically.
Is it just weird that they're running forward and the road is not moving no I think no I think at this point everybody's okay with that at this point nobody cares to be honest it's just a soft launch whatever and state of, okay. Yeah, there we have the girl, and I think
some point later down the line.
Jesus, even the latest
creatives from Last War, okay, with two roles.
Everything, everything.
Just take everything.
The dog is there, okay.
And this is
really fascinating.
It's literally, what will you
release tomorrow? No, what will you release tomorrow
no what will you release today
will be copied tomorrow
that's the
way of life
you should put watermark on the onboarding
I think
at some point these guys
I think at some point these guys will start to
release like games that didn't
work but they will actually pump your way into it so everybody else will kind of copy the shitty ones I mean the reverse psychology I'm sure it's already been done man like I'm sure it's been done already I think we're like very near this point I mean honestly, yeah. I mean, honestly,
I was actually thinking about this
because other podcasts copy what we do
and then I was like, okay, let's just do shit
and then I was like, no.
Yeah, that was that guy who copied your post the other day as well.
It was ridiculous.
Like one to one.
Yeah, and then
he said, it's completely
different because you have different videos on the screen. You're like, no, she's Sherlock.
So funny. Okay.
So that's there. Then we have...
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is as usual, our favorite fun yeah this is as usual
our favorite
so as usual it's a new onboarding
on the stuff that we already seen
we've seen the cinematic
before yeah we've seen that yeah
yeah but guess what they bring out
now
this this it's like
Brawl Stars type of thing
oh man come on
this is 4X again but we're in 4X section
Thank you. this it's like Brawl Stars type of thing or what is it? oh man, come on this is 4X again, but we're in 4X section it's your Hero Wars minigame with consuming numbers yes, but we've seen these monkeys before I can't remember when though it's like the last sonar basically yeah, the last sonar, there was two APs but yeah, the visual is different yeah, okay, fair enough this is It's Hero Wars.
Yeah, it is. So in the meantime, when you play Hero Wars, there's the thing that we already saw.
So it's again, like Apes something, whatever, two other different games. I can't even say.
Monkey Control and Monkey Clash. Those games actually had these exact images, these exact same characters.
Everything's basically the same. So what they're trying, they're just using the different minigame in the beginning.
Again, typical 4X, just like, again, new onboarding. Does it work? No, it doesn't.
Switch onboarding. Yeah, goodbye.
Yeah, and you know why they're doing this? Because even if you do the famous marketability tests, you don't have the real CPIs. You just don't because you don't have the actual CPI optimization because you don't have the game.
So that's why they're doing this. So you now have the game, but you build a different mini game as a CPI test.
Exactly. Mini games are the CPI test now.
Welcome to the new world.
Yeah, I was going to say,
welcome to the software.
That's our bumper for our little shorts, like that right there.
That's the voice
of mobile gaming for this last year.
Yeah.
And for next year.
For next year.
Let me finish that
with the last game which is called
Brutal War
and guess what
who it is
I need to watch more of it before I can figure out
it's Chinese obviously
Top War
creative lookalike
point system
River game
oh no okay nice it is exactly the same what you just showed us honestly it's definitely Chinese right so it's the top for fun again of course how many top performers? I mean, all of them. All of them, yes.
I mean, Stan told us like, hey, so we have some new games coming. He didn't mention we have some new games like every month.
This week on Top War Review Radar. It's this week on 4X, basically.
This week on 4X.
This month on 4X, because it's just... Because exactly like what you just said, Jakob.
They have the game. They have the 4X, which is working super well, obviously.
Once you get into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you need to get into it, and they need as many players to get into it as possible so that's why this is this is happening and this is then your usual kind of loop which seems like a prehistoric something theme it reminds me of actually the what's the game by Malesoft Family Island a little bit Family Island yeah. The visual of it seems like.
Oh yeah, Family Island or Cologne, I don't know, not Cologne, like Family Island for sure, yeah. So, but other than that, it seems like your typical kind of 4x loop here later down the line.
And then maybe some little bit of iterations with I think your map and your unlocking of the map and unlocking of the town it seems that's there. But it's interesting because you see that they already are testing the two same minigames within both their monkey game and this game.
Yeah but it's different visual style kind of. I've seen.
We'll see. But again, for these 4X games, it's always just like you just change the onboarding.
Like Fred Flintstone 4X. Fred Flintstone 4X, exactly.
So, yeah, it's going to be, again again very interesting next year I'm still annoyed at the 4x genre after they bastardized my childhood with Age of Empires Age of Empires was just one more head to roll, nothing yeah it's just like an item in the exosheet, nothing Don't cry too much. I'm sure like a Banjo-Kazooie.
That was my first, like, gaming love, so I'm sure that'll be a 4X soon enough anyway. So my two most favorite games from this kind of set was the merch MetaCore innovation.
This is also going to fail so much. We'll see.
No, seriously. I haven't seen a level based merch game but yeah of course merch is as tough as it gets I get that if this was released 5 years ago very close to after merch mention was on the top maybe now Travel Town,fun.
Thank you very much.
Bye. Seriously.
This is not going to be anywhere
close to Merge Mansion.
You can put seven Pedro Pascals
behind you.
Seven Pedro Pascals.
The one from Game of Thrones.
Pedro Cube is not going to save you.
Last of us.
All of them.
Or you can do Pedro Pascals from Wish and that's going to be cheaper and more effective thank you very much for listening guys guys I'll do it for free yeah the last one which I think we're going to cover and it's going to be a big blast will be the high seas hero by century it seems like very very good I'm still guessing that it will be mostly driven by Asian revenue. Yeah, it's not going to work in the West.
I can watch the Godzilla throwing that flame ball, whatever it was that, 10 million times. Oh, this is so amazing.
How much royalty have they paid for that? Well, absolutely zero. Zero.
What's even there? What they're talking about? Yeah, giant robot. Yeah, exactly.
Godzilla wasn't a robot. Come on.
All right. Let me take it home.
Let me take it home. Okay.
Okay. Okay, go.
We value our viewers a lot. And at this time of Christmas, we have toiled.
And we know that not all of you are in countries where you speak English. So if you are in Turkey, South Korea, Russia, what are you laughing at so much? No, no, no.
I watched the whole episode without knowing that you could turn all subtitles. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. So you are a very loyal fan.
Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm a very loyal fan.
So now go check it again. If you're listening to this, Maji will send you a free t-shirt.
Absolutely. Please reach out and join the Slack channel.
Reach out on Slack channel. I will send t-shirts.
So you're a loyal fan.
You should do merch like loyal fan
without subtitles.
I watched the episode without
subtitles.
And everything I got was just the subtitles.
So this is an Easter egg.
Yeah, this is an Easter egg.
Thank you very much.
Good night. We'll see you in korea in two weeks
happy new year
thank you much Thank you.