RPG REPORT Competitive Research and Actionable Product Recommendations - Rackcdn.com
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RPG REPORT Competitive Research and Actionable Product Recommendations
TABLE OF CONTENTS
REVENUE DRIVER 3
Club Challenge Events with Leagues
Guild Fest in Lords Mobile: War Kingdom
Product Insights
AUGUST
TRENDS 8
RPG Event Investment
Club Events by App
Apps with Club Event Releases
Club Event Investment by Genre
NEW CONTENT 13
Content Releases
MARKET WATCH 16
2020
Soft-Launch & Breakout Apps
Notable Releases
APPENDIX 21
Premium Partnerships
RPG Mechanics Taxonomy
REVENUE DRIVER
Revenue-boosting features and events with product data and recommendations
Club Challenge Events with Leagues
Guild Fest in Lords Mobile: War Kingdom
3
REVENUE ANALYSIS
During the most recent release of Guild Fest, Lords Mobile: War Kingdom's revenue was +16% and
downloads were +9% WoW. Revenue averaged +22% WoW for the past eight Guild Fest events.
Lords Mobile: War Kingdom
$300K Revenue Downloads 30K
Guild Fest
$240K 24K
Downloads per Day
Revenue per Day
$180K 18K
$120K 12K
$60K 6K
3/2/20 3/16/20 3/30/20 4/13/20 4/27/20 5/11/20 5/25/20 6/8/20 6/22/20 7/6/20 7/20/20 8/3/20 8/17/20
WoW = Week over week
4
Graph data is iOS U.S. only.
FEATURE TEARDOWN
Players select challenges that fill a club meter when completed. Clubs are 1
ranked in leagues based on points earned for each event.
Details
• The event is available to clubs with more than 25 members.
• Members claim challenges from a club-wide quest board with 20 slots (1).
• Challenges must be completed within a time limit.
• Members above level 4 can remove unclaimed challenges from the board.
• Claimed or removed challenges are replaced with new quests after 30 minutes (2).
2 3
• Each player has a limited number of challenge attempts per event.
• One additional challenge attempt can be purchased for 1,000 coins.
• Challenges award points that fill a club meter (video).
• Filling the meter advances the club to the next reward tier.
• Completed tiers allow each member to choose between three rewards (3 and video).
• A club leaderboard ranks members based on their contributions (4).
• Clubs are ranked in five leagues, called "gauntlets."
• Leagues unlock increasing numbers of challenge attempts and reward tiers (5).
• The top five clubs in each league move to a higher league and the bottom five drop to
4 5
a lower league for the next event.
• Clubs that had fewer than 25 members participate in the previous Guild Fest start at the
lowest league.
Additional Information
• See the Guild Fest library for more images and videos.
5
PRODUCT INSIGHTS
Liquid & Grit now interviews players to add more qualitative
insights to our reports. This week, we talked to four Lords
Mobile Guild Fest players who spend $10–$100 per month.
Offering a variety of difficulty levels helps players enter highly pleasurable flow states. 1
Balancing challenge difficulty with player ability is one of the key factors for enabling flow.1 Guild Fest achieves this by letting
players choose different types of challenges on the club board. As one Guild Fest player said, "Everybody's got their own
flavor for how they want to play... I didn't feel like I was cakewalking through everything. It was enough of a challenge but
also something that's attainable."2
Other genres have also driven revenue with variable challenges. In puzzle, Panda Pop! saw an average revenue increase of
+11% across 11 Panda Rescue events, which offered challenges at three difficulty tiers (1).
Customizable rewards are perceived as fairer and more relevant.
Each reward tier in Guild Fest lets players choose between three rewards (2). Research shows that people who are allowed to
choose their own rewards perform better and feel that they've been treated more fairly.3
2
These rewards are also more likely to be relevant to players' varying goals. A medium spend player said, "I like having the
option to be able to choose what I get. My husband may be working on one thing and I'm working on another."4
In another example of successful customizable rewards, Star Trek Fleet Command's Crucible of War let players use event
currency to choose rewards from an event store and led to a +88% 3Do3D revenue increase.
Contribution requirements and chat tools drive engagement by increasing social pressure.
Because each player only has a limited number of challenge attempts, clubs need contributions from a large number of their
members in order to succeed.5 And clubs with fewer than 25 participating members are automatically sent back to the lowest
league. As a result, clubs work hard to motivate their members.
One club leader said that her club got 69 out of 96 members to contribute to the most recent Guild Fest using the in-game
chat.6 However, she also noted that her club uses outside services to communicate with international members due to poor
in-game chat translation. The most competitive clubs go even further by imposing mandatory contribution requirements.7
1 Cognitive Flow: The Psychology of Great Game Design 5Subject C; age 33 male, $15/month spend, 5 hrs/week playtime: "We're always talking about how we're
2 Subject A; age 36 male, $10/month spend, 10 hrs/week playtime going to get more people into the process of the game."
3 The Performance Benefits of Reward Choice: A Procedural Justice Perspective, p. 18–19 6 Subject B ($50–$100/month)
4 Subject B; age 45 female, $50–$100/month spend, 40–50 hrs/week playtime 7 Subject D; age 43 male, $100/month spend, 40 hrs/week playtime: "They make you get at least 1,000
[points]... They'll kick you out for a couple days or they'll charge you for resources."
6
PRODUCT INSIGHTS (CONT'D.)
Visible contributions reduce freeloading. 1
Guild Fest's club leaderboards rank members' individual points, creating additional social pressure. The visibility of
individual contributions is strongly correlated with increased engagement in group tasks.8 One study showed that
identifying individuals' output increased effort by 46%.9
Apps can add even more visibility by highlighting and rewarding top performers, like Angry Birds 2's Clan Leaderboard
(1).
Offer high-value challenges and plenty of attempts to keep the most competitive clubs from
hitting a ceiling.
Two medium spend players we interviewed both said that mid- and top-level clubs remove all low-value challenges due to
the limited number of attempts per player (2).10, 11 When combined with the 30-minute refresh timer, however, this practice
often forces players to wait around for hours or even days to find a worthwhile challenge.12 "We spent several of our days 2
where our board was just empty waiting for things to refresh. If you have an empty board, it's very frustrating."13
This can also create social tension as members race to claim valuable challenges in order to meet club contribution
requirements: "If everyone's been waiting for half an hour, you gotta be quick or it's gone... Lots of times I have to wait till
the last couple days so that they're almost done so I can get to [challenges]."14
Make sure highly engaged players don't get stuck behind bottlenecks by scaling
challenge values and attempt limits to keep up with top clubs.
In advanced leagues, consider reducing the prevalence of low-value challenges or increasing the number of attempts per
player to boost engagement from these high-value players.
8 Social Loafing: A Field Investigation, p. 298–299 12Subject D ($100/month): "Sometimes I'll get on and I"ll have to wait three hours or even a couple days to
9 Identifiability as a Deterrent to Social Loafing: Two Cheering Experiments, p. 306 come up with a quest."
10 Subject D ($100/month): "They delete quests that are less than 100." 13 Subject B ($50–$100/month): "We counted one day, I think we refreshed it six times before we found
11 Subject B ($50–$100/month): "We want our members to at least do 100-point [quests] or above, most guilds anything we could even do."
14 Subject D ($100/month)
are that way." 7
TRENDS
Investment trends for event and feature releases
Tracked RPG Apps: AFK Arena, BLEACH Brave Souls, Dragon Ball Legends, Empires & Puzzles, Epic Seven,
Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire, Fire Emblem Heroes, Guns of Glory, King of Avalon: Dragon Warfare, Last
Shelter: Survival, Lords Mobile: War Kingdom, MARVEL Strike Force, RAID: Shadow Legends, Rise of Kingdoms,
Star Trek Fleet Command, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, Summoners War
8
REWARD AND CLUB EVENTS LEAD RPG INVESTMENTS
Club events were the second most released event type in tracked RPG apps over the past three months.
RPG Event Investment (Past 3 Months)
90
75
60
Number of Releases
45
30
15
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C
FINAL FANTASY DOMINATES CLUB EVENT RELEASES
Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire released 57 club events in the past 12 months, making up 45% of total
club events. Lords Mobile: War Kingdom is tied with Star Trek Fleet Command for the fourth most club
events.
Club Events by App (Past 12 Months)
Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire
Rise of Kingdoms
Last Shelter: Survival
Lords Mobile: War Kingdom
Star Trek Fleet Command
King of Avalon: Dragon Warfare
AFK Arena
BLEACH Brave Souls
Guns of Glory
MARVEL Strike Force
Dragon Ball Legends
Empires & Puzzles
Epic Seven
Fire Emblem Heroes
Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes
Summoners War
10 20 30 40 50 60
Number of Releases 10MORE RPG APPS RELEASING CLUB EVENTS
The past six months saw an average of 5.5 RPG apps release club events per month, up from 4.3 in the
previous six months.
Apps with Club Event Releases
10
8
Number of Apps
6
4
2
Aug '19 Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan '20 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
11RPGS INVEST MOST HEAVILY IN CLUB EVENTS
During the past six quarters, club events made up an average of 11% of quarterly event releases in
tracked RPG apps.
Club Event Investment by Genre
16% RPG Casino Puzzle
12%
Percentage of Event Releases
Average
8%
4%
Q1'19 Q2'19 Q3'19 Q4'19 Q1'20 Q2'20
12NEW CONTENT
New heroes, equipment, and abilities
13CONTENT RELEASES I
1 2
RPG > Content > Abilities, Equipment, and Heroes
7/8 Balance Changes — AFK Arena abilities
7/22 Balance Changes — AFK Arena abilities
7/22 Daimon - The Forsaken Child — AFK Arena hero (1)
7/8 Cape Fastener — BLEACH Brave Souls equipment
7/23 5th Anniversary — BLEACH Brave Souls heroes
7/31 Thousand-Year Blood War Round 10 — BLEACH Brave Souls heroes
7/1 Awakened I'm Gettin' Excited! No. 1 — Dragon Ball Legends equipment
7/8 Saiyans don't do limits! — Dragon Ball Legends equipment (2)
3 4
7/15 Awakened This Ki. It's gotta be... No. 1 — Dragon Ball Legends equipment
7/29 Awakened What Futile Efforts No. 1 — Dragon Ball Legends equipment
7/1 EXTREME Krillin and Tien — Dragon Ball Legends heroes
7/8 2nd Anniversary Rising - SSGSS — Dragon Ball Legends heroes (3)
7/29 Legends Rising The Crusher — Dragon Ball Legends heroes
7/1 Noor — Empires & Puzzles hero (4)
7/16 Seshat — Empires & Puzzles hero
7/23 Lady Loki — Empires & Puzzles hero
7/9 Two New Exclusive Equipment — Epic Seven equipment
7/16 Circus Fantasia — Epic Seven equipment 5 6
7/23 Tamarinne: Starlight Concert Skin — Epic Seven equipment
7/26 Arena Endeavor Season — Epic Seven equipment
7/30 Champion's Trophy — Epic Seven equipment
7/16 Mui — Epic Seven hero (5)
7/30 Holiday Yufine — Epic Seven hero
7/24 FFXV Anniversary Equipment — Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire equipment
7/5 Weapon Refinery Update! — Fire Emblem Heroes abilities
7/8 Overseas Memories — Fire Emblem Heroes heroes (6)
14CONTENT RELEASES II
1 2
RPG > Content > Abilities, Equipment, and Heroes
7/9 Lorenz: Highborn Heat — Fire Emblem Heroes hero (1)
7/10 Minerva: Red Dragoon — Fire Emblem Heroes hero
7/20 Heroes, Light and Shadow — Fire Emblem Heroes heroes
7/21 Eremiya: Bishop of Woe — Fire Emblem Heroes hero
7/25 Robin: High Deliverer — Fire Emblem Heroes hero
7/30 Hel: Death Sovereign — Fire Emblem Heroes hero (2)
7/20 Lv.5 Airship Skin — Guns of Glory equipment
7/20 R8 Trance Gemstone — Guns of Glory equipment
3 4
7/6 Seductress Milady de Winter — Guns of Glory hero (3)
7/6 Vampire Hunter Jacob Van Helsing — Guns of Glory hero
7/1 Sanguine Gemstone — King of Avalon: Dragon Warfare equipment
7/14 Updated Characters — MARVEL Strike Force abilities
7/1 X-23 — MARVEL Strike Force hero
7/15 Squirrel Girl — MARVEL Strike Force hero (4)
7/24 Beast — MARVEL Strike Force hero
7/22 Champion Fixes — RAID: Shadow Legends abilities
7/22 Bazaar-exclusive Accessories — RAID: Shadow Legends equipment
7/13 Kantra the Cyclone — RAID: Shadow Legends hero 5 6
7/22 Daily Login Rewards Extension Heroes — RAID: Shadow Legends heroes
7/29 Chandragupta Maurya — Rise of Kingdoms hero
7/7 D'Vor Improvement — Star Trek Fleet Command equipment
7/7 Stella — Star Trek Fleet Command equipment (5)
7/16 Threepio & Chewie — Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes hero (6)
7/27 Mon Mothma — Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes hero
7/10 5 New Transmogrifications — Summoners War equipment
7/31 Artifacts — Summoners War equipment
15MARKET WATCH
New apps and notable releases from established competitors
16SOFT-LAUNCH APP 1 2
CATAN — World Explorers by Niantic
App Details
• This multiplayer app is an AR adaptation of the popular board
Our study of 1,415 mobile RPG players
game The Settlers of Catan.
• Players explore an AR map of real-world locations to collect
found that exploration is the most
preferred type of gameplay in RPG
resources and build settlements (1).
• Special cards trigger unique abilities (2).
apps. This includes not only exploring
the game world but also character
• Players can customize and level up avatars (3).
customization and story development.15
• NPCs allow players to build relationships, trade, and complete
quests (4).
• Other features include daily bonuses, mini-games, and regional
team vs. team competitions (5).
3 4 5
Launch Information
• Soft-launched 6/29/20 in New Zealand
• Average daily revenue since launch: $29
• Average daily downloads since launch: 157
• View CATAN — World Explorers on the App Store
15 Liquid & Grit RPG Personas Report, p. 3–4 17BREAKOUT APPS 1
One-Punch Man: Road to Hero 2.0 by Oasis Games
App Details
• This idle RPG is based on the popular One-Punch Man manga and anime franchise.
• Gameplay focuses on hero collection and turn-based combat (1).
• Clubs grant access to club boss battles (2).
2
• Other features include co-op battles and replayable levels.
Launch Information
• Released worldwide on 6/29/20
• 59th highest-grossing RPG app as of 8/1/20
• Average daily U.S. revenue since launch: $23,595
• Average daily U.S. downloads since launch: 8,077
• View One-Punch Man: Road to Hero 2.0 on the App Store 3
Guardian Tales by Kakao Games
App Details
• This retro 2D dungeon crawler has players solve puzzles, engage in action combat, and defeat bosses (3).
• A PvP mode includes ranked team vs. team combat.
• Collections consist of over 50 heroes and 100 weapons (4).
• Heroes live and interact in a customizable home base with buildings that improve hero morale.
4
Launch Information
• Released worldwide on 7/28/20
• 76th highest-grossing RPG app as of 8/1/20
• Average daily U.S. revenue since launch: $14,675
• Average daily U.S. downloads since launch: 4,732
• View Guardian Tales on the App Store
181
NOTABLE RELEASES I
App Library Description
• Players unlock multiple series of bonuses by completing challenges.
Field of Stars
• Unlocked bonuses can be purchased with secondary currencies (video). 2
mission feature
• An unlockable feature lets players replace elite heroes with heroes of their choice (1).
AFK Arena • Players can move high-level heroes into an inn (2).
• Challenges award furniture and feature-specific currency.
The Oak Inn
• Feature currency is used to buy furniture to decorate rooms (video).
accelerator feature
• Furniture provides heroes with new abilities and stat boosts.
• Completed furniture sets award additional boosts. 3
Brave Souls • Two monthly subscriptions offer players extra quest tickets or character summons (3).
Passports • A $4.49 monthly subscription includes quest ticket bonuses.
reward feature • A $26.99 monthly subscription includes Spirit Orbs and Summons Tickets.
• Six players team up to defeat a boss by correctly answering lore-related questions.
BLEACH Brave Quiz Raid Kon's 4
Souls • Colored sections of the battle arena correspond to answers.
Challenge
• Players attack the boss by moving their hero to the correct answer's color (4).
club event
• Answering incorrectly prevents the hero from moving during the next question (video).
Tapjoy • Players earn Spirit Orbs by completing offers through Tapjoy (video).
bonus feature • Offers include ads, surveys, purchases, podcasts, quizzes, and more.
191
NOTABLE RELEASES II
App Library Description
Amazon Prime • Amazon Prime members can claim free rewards over a series of two-week events (1).
Login Event
reward event
• Players must log in to their Amazon accounts through the app. 2
• Challenges award wanted posters.
• Wanted posters are used to launch boss battles (2).
Expedition • Players choose between three difficulty levels.
Epic Seven
club feature • Higher difficulty levels are unlocked by beating the previous level.
• Up to five friends and club members can be invited to join the battle (video).
• Defeated bosses award points that can be used to buy rewards from a feature store.
Rank Up Pack 1 & 2 3
• Account levels provide rewards at milestones.
Renewal
• $29.99 and $49.99 passes unlock second reward tiers for players above level 10 and level 40.
purchase feature
Daily Login
RAID: Shadow • The daily login rewards calendar has extended from 180 days to 270 days.
Rewards Extension
Legends • New 4- and 5- star heroes are awarded at 210, 240, and 270 consecutive daily logins (3).
bonus feature
• Players choose five troops to advance through a series of tile maps covered in fog (4).
• Clearing fog reveals bonuses, hazards, enemies, healing stations, reinforcements, rewards, and 4
The Golden
Rise of an event store.
Kingdom
Kingdoms • Enemies must be defeated before adjacent fog can be cleared (video).
quest event
• Defeating a map's boss unlocks the next map.
• Completed maps fill a progress bar for rewards at milestones.
Quickly review all features and events
Filter the Library Tool by month and year to see all new releases. 20APPENDIX
21PREMIUM PARTNERSHIPS
Liquid & Grit partners with these premier market research and analytics companies to infuse our
reports with the most relevant and detailed gaming user personas, data, and statistics available.
Quadrant Strategies Kinrate Analytics Sensor Tower
Market Research Player Personas Mobile App Store Intelligence
Quadrant Strategies Kinrate Analytics Sensor Tower
Quadrant Strategies is a market research Kinrate Analytics offers game developers, Sensor Tower is relied upon by financial analysts,
consultancy that uses research to help the world's consultants, publishers, and cloud gaming VCs, and publishers who need to leverage data to
most prominent technology, gaming, and operators the best cross-platform game identify the fastest-growing apps, emerging
entertainment companies develop strategies for recommendation engine for targeted marketing, as markets, and more.
building their user base, increasing user well as a novel profiling-as-a-service solution for
Clients harness Sensor Tower's suite of app
engagement and spend, and strengthening their intelligent market segmentation and social
intelligence tools to:
marketing and brand plans. networking.
‣ Evaluate app economies and app vitality.
We do that using a range of quantitative and Other services include advanced market prediction
‣ Drive organic growth with the leading App Store
qualitative methodologies, including gamer analyses for identifying emergent gaming trends
Optimization platform.
segmentation and persona development, feature and access to unique AI-enhanced data of 140
‣ Get the best global download and revenue
testing, message creation, and loyalty and thousand game titles and 48 million game players.
estimates for the App Store and Google Play.
engagement modeling. The work of our senior
The products of Kinrate Analytics have been ‣ Discover top creatives and better shape user
leadership goes back many years, and includes
developed in university-led research projects in acquisition strategy.
long-term engagements for console and gaming-
collaboration with economists, psychologists, game
PC hardware-makers, individual games in a range
scholars, and data scientists.
of genres, and across consoles, PCs, and mobile,
and for some of the top game franchises.
22RPG MECHANICS TAXONOMY
Family Definition Family Definition
Accelerators Increases the power, impact, or efficiency of play Hazards Level elements/blockers that make levels more difficult
Banks Saves a % of spend that can be unlocked later Interactions Social features with direct or indirect interaction
Bonuses Free bonuses given to players (e.g., retention or W2E) Leaderboards Stand-alone leaderboards
Challenges Goal-oriented tasks for players to complete
Levels Anything to do with leveling
Clubs Groups that accomplish goals or compete with other groups
Mini-Games Smaller, shorter games within a game (e.g., scratcher cards)
Collections A set of items players collect (often for a completion prize)
Missions Linear sets of tasks that players must complete
Competitions Players competing against other players
Notices Feature or product announcements
Conflicts Players engaging in battle with their characters
Other Miscellaneous features and outliers
Cosmetics Improvements or updates to the app or a feature
Profiles Players' setups, profiles, settings, and controls
Currencies Changes to currencies, economies, stores, and items
Purchases Anything to do with purchases
Custom Design Options to customize aesthetics
Quests Tasks that players complete to progress along a map
Expansions Additional rooms, worlds, play modes, VIP lounges, etc.
Rewards players receive for engagement or spend (other than
Flows Specific flows, like the NUX, ratings, and surveys Rewards
those in the bonuses family)
23"Shhh. My common sense is tingling."
— Deadpool, Deadpool #26
LiquidandGrit.com
Brett.Nowak@LiquidandGrit.com
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