Read this month’s Headline Release, Market Watch, Breakout App, and Soft-Launch App
Level Events with Permanent Consequences Drive Major Spend
Game of Sultans’ Empire Succession builds on the app’s Harem feature to create a deep level event with significant consequences for players. In both Harem and Empire Succession, players create offspring to gain stat boosts. But unlike Harem, Empire Succession allows players to customize their offspring and keep them as a permanent hero. Allowing players to keep their upgraded heroes after the event is a significant incentive for players since these heroes play a key role in increasing their level in the base game.
In Empire Succession, players also upgrade their offspring by completing solo and collaborative challenges, participating in competitions and quest events, progressing a battle pass, and buying IAPs from an event store. By driving engagement and spend across multiple key systems, the event led to a huge 36% MoM revenue increase.
Level events are the top-performing event type in the core market—but are also very rare. Level events have almost quadruple the median revenue impact of the next most successful event type. Developers should consider adding level events that allow players to create and upgrade heroes, equipment, or buildings that they get to keep when the event ends.
Read this month’s Headline Release for our full analysis, which also explains how the event divides its progression into manageable goals to sustain engagement.
Breakout & Soft-Launch Apps
Puzzles & Chaos entered the top 100 strategy apps in November 2023, two months after its launch. The app combines match-3 battles with 4X and RPG gameplay, similar to 37Games’ Puzzles & Survival (a top-10 strategy app since 2021) and Puzzles & Conquest (a top-100 strategy app since 2020).
War Sniper takes a slower approach to FPS gameplay by having players shoot from stationary positions, offering multiple opportunities to kill targets, and including forgiving time limits. Developer Miniclip (majority-owned by Tencent) has another sniper app, Pure Sniper, that has hovered in the top 100 action apps since July 2022.
Read our complete teardowns of each app in this month’s Breakout App and Soft-Launch App sections.
Market Watch: Construction Puzzles, a Map-Based Expansion, and a Hello Kitty Partnership
In Last Day on Earth’s Hidden Ridge Farm, players complete challenges that include collecting items, defeating enemies, and decorating houses. In a puzzle mini-game, players lay pipes on a grid to build a path from a heating source to a house.
In Raid: Shadow Legends’ Cursed City, players complete battle stages to progress on a quest map. Certain boss battles award tokens that players collect to battle the final boss, and defeating the final boss awards resources to summon exclusive heroes.
In Identity V’s Hello Kitty’s Picnic Party, players complete daily challenges to draw prizes from a prize pool. Once players obtain all 21 prizes, they can choose one of two Sanrio-themed pets. Logging in three times awards a Hello Kitty-themed portrait frame.
Read our full teardowns of all notable releases in this month’s Market Watch.
