Product Overview: Homa Games, GSN Games, Mobile Deluxe, Jufeng Studio
Weekly digests 41 & 42 have brought us a lot of interesting deals.
Let’s look at some of the biggest products from the perspective of core & meta gameplay, and monetization mechanics.
Homa Games going casual, Scopely & Murka enriches their casual portfolio by acquiring solitaire game developers. On the other hand, Embracer Group enters the Asian mid-core market.
Homa Games, GSN Games, Mobile Deluxe, Jufeng Studio
France-based Homa Games has been known as Hypercasual publisher (540M installs since February 2018), but they announced that they’re going to release more casual games in such genres as idle games, and puzzles & board games.
They have three hybrid-casual games so far with $1.5M in-app revenue and the biggest game is Idle world ($700K total revenue since 2018) – idle clicker game with 60% of paying audience coming from the US, Australia, and the UK.
- Core gameplay is a linear-based clicker where upgrades and clicks accelerate the creation of the planet.
- Monetization is based on boosters (rewarded ads) and currency for upgrades (in-app purchases).
Two other games, Farm Land and Craft World ($900K total combined revenue) – idle arcade games with a similar core loop, monetization and 50% of paying audience coming from the US, Canada, and Australia.
- Core gameplay is a mix of traversal arcade and simulation. We travel through the island to harvest/cut down the crop, sell it on the market, and upgrade our equipment.
As additional core loop mechanics, we see klondike-like island exploration and production building upgrades. - Monetization is based on crop boosters (rewarded ads) and the currency for upgrades (in-app purchases).
US-based mobile game developer GSN has a few valuable assets ($865M total revenue since 2013) – a casual solitaire game, social casino games with 84% of paying audience coming from the US.
Their biggest game is Solitaire TriPeaks ($327M total revenue) which has the main value for Scopely as they’re diversifying their casual product portfolio.
- Core gameplay is removing the entire deck of cards from the playing field by clicking on a card with a rank higher or lower than the current active value. We also have the bank (5 additional cards) and the wild (joker) where we can get additional cards when we don’t see any matches.
- Monetization is based on the currency which we pay to the bank, and the wild.
US-based mobile game developer Mobile Deluxe has their biggest game Solitaire Deluxe 2 (17M installs since October 2013) – a casual board game with 97% of the audience coming from the US.
- Core gameplay is 20 different solitaire games, but the main ones are Klondike-like solitaire and Pyramid solitaire. The game’s aim is to build up four stacks of cards starting with Ace and ending with King, all of the same suit. The player can use cards from the columns (piles) or take them from the bank (foundations)
- Monetization is based on banners ads, and currency to buy skins for boards & cards (in-app purchases).
China-based Jufeng Studio ($102M total revenue since 2013) has 6 mobile core games but 4 of them are main revenue drivers with 40% of their audience coming from the US. We can’t calculate the revenue from chinese android markets so we only calculate Apple & Google data:
Kingdoms of Camelot and Dragons of Atlantis ($60M total revenue) – midcore 4X strategy with 60% of paying audience coming from the US, and Japan.
- Core gameplay – travian-like strategy where we build & upgrade our castle, and we send our armies to enemies’ castles on the map. The battle happens automatically where the army’s power compares.
- Meta gameplay is an RPG-based warriors-cards mixing to increase the overall army’s power.
- Monetization is based on the currency which players need to buy time-boosters (create armies quicker), energy (send armies more often). Also, players can buy an exclusive warrior directly.
Underworld Empire ($32M total revenue) – midcore RPG-clicker with 64% of paying audience coming from the US.
- Core gameplay – midcore narrative-based clicker, where we explore locations and attack enemies using the clicker-mechanic.
- Meta gameplay is an RPG-based weapons system where players can collect & upgrade weapons with different strengths, power.
- Monetization is based on the currency which players buy to restore energy (movement on locations) and chests with different weapons. Also, players can buy an exclusive weapon directly.
Heroes of Camelot ($22M total revenue) – midcore RPG-battler with 36% of paying audience coming from the US and Germany.
- Core gameplay – card-based battler where players mix 3-5 warriors with different skills to beat the enemies which they meet on the battlefield.
- Meta gameplay is narrative-based map exploring where players find currency and chests with cards.
- Monetization is based on the currency which players buy to restore energy (movement on locations) and chests with different warriors. Also, players can buy an exclusive warrior directly.
Written by Artur Davydenko,
Venture Partner at Flyer One Ventures, CRO at HoneyLab
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