Brutally Honest #76 by Matej Lancaric

Hey, FAM! What’s up?

?? Drink talk

Busy weekend with wedding. Lack of sleep, but fun. Great to see friends getting married! Love it. Anyway, that’s why this one is going out on Tuesday!

??Tip of the week

?Which UA channel to use for early-stage F2P mobile games and selecting appropriate UA channels for each launch phase? This question appeared recently in our 2.5gamers slack channel.

I know I bitch about Facebook all the time, but I still use it for early testing and especially in Softlaunch. Obviously combined with Google and other channels like Unity, TikTok and Applovin.

Why Facebook? What gives you better targeting options?

Yes, still Facebook. Facebook is still very strong on the global launch day, but fades of afterwards. And this brings us back to the question, if we should not use other channels like Unity or Applovin?

First of all, for Unity or Applovin you need to implement MMP. With Facebook testing, you only need to implement Facebook SDK.

Second of all, as before mentioned, better targeting options and the ability to benchmark your KPIs with the games you’ve done before or with other peers that usually use Facebook too.

Am I missing something?

?? Dr. Doom is not amused

One of my industry friends amused me with his direct and honest TL;DRs, so we agreed to share it here too! My friend remains anonymous as Dr.Doom!

"It seems big bets are happening as Dark & Darker, which got sued by Nexon (claiming stolen assets, which got them taken down from Steam, duh!) got picked up by Krafton, which wants to publish it on mobile. This is most probably because the claim was dismissed in US and the lawsuit is moving to South Korea. Imagine the face of your M&A guy telling you that he bought this IP and already funded the mobile version of the game, but the court bet didn't go through so all is lost. Priceless” Sincerely, Doom (https://www.pcgamer.com/dark-and-darker-makes-a-deal-with-pubg-publisher-krafton-for-a-mobile-release/)

??? “Ha-ha” moment

Because life is too short to be serious.

?? two amp; a half gamers #77 - Hybrid casual 4X?

Empire takeover peaked in June 2022 with 1.3 million in revenues (again let's be generous and count with our 2x sadness multiplier - sadness because we are always sad to see the tools are letting us down). We could see 2.5 mil! After turning off the UA in June 2022, which is the month they peaked, the game is in decline but still makes 500k / month resp. 1mil a month, given the multiplier. Where is the money coming from? 50% of the revenue comes from the US, DE, TW, and other T1 countries..

UA channel mix

This is some old-school shit. Spending the most on Unity is very surprising to me (also because they buy traffic from sources like Monopoly Solitaire, Build a Bridge, and Solitaire Grand Harvest - I saw a lot of Boombit and BoomHits games which were basically all hypercasual. After Unity, they have Google Ads, some Facebook, and then Liftoff, Mopub (haha) very small Tiktok, and super small Applovin.

Tune in for more and find out what learnings we got from reviewing this game:

?? Listen on Spotify

?? Watch on Youtube

?? Diary of a Dancing Unicorn

Today was a good day.

Hey hey! It’s been a while.. We just soft-launched our new game. We have a really junior person. Would you be able to help him grow?

Yo, 100%. Great timing; we can start basically next week.

Oh, even better. Let’s do it.

Perfect..

..

..

Our junior UA person is absolutely thrilled! I guess you are doing a great job, but we don’t see you on our slack channels at all. Not making any comments or participating. You should be more active.

Wait, did you hire me for being active on your slack or work closely with your UA manager? I mean I don’t have a problem with both, you should just tell me that right away and not three months in.

You know what? We just decided to end the cooperation with you. It’s about time to see how our UA person does the job.

..

..

..

UA person after two months: Hey? How is everything? They just fired me too and said the UA is not important at this stage …

What the actual …

Today was a good day.

?? Quote of the week

“Is Thomas Petit your non-gaming identity?” Mithat, Slack DM

Empire Takeover - 4X Hybridcasual full review

?? Level up yourself

I launched a YouTube Channel. I'm putting a ton of energy into creating valuable content I think you'll like. Check out the latest stuff, and give me a like and subscribe.

??? Nostalgia games

Do you remember this game? What did you play when you were young?

??Before you go

We are opening up a Slack channel for everybody. It is the most inclusive slack for all of us in the gaming industry. Female, male, non-binary, juniors, mid-level, seniors, vendors, developers = EVERYBODY! We are waiting for you ??

Feel free to join here!

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter!

Please do me a favor and share this with someone in your network who you think would benefit from the insights and brutal honesty. It would mean a lot to me!

Take care, everyone! See you next Monday!

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