Top News

#1: Huuuge Games gets a Co-CEO

A few weeks back, Huuuge Games revealed that it will be appointing Rod Cousens as its co-CEO. He is an industry veteran with 40+ years of experience and has previously held positions as:

1. Chairman and CEO of Jagex
2. CEO of Codemasters
3. COO and later CEO of Acclaim Entertainment
4. UK Managing Director and later President of International of Activision
5. Apart from already being a Huuuge Games board member, he is currently a senior advisor to the Raine Group.

According to various news sources, Cousens and Anton Gauffin (current CEO) will together lead the company’s strategy and focus on new projects, as well as supporting the firm’s existing portfolio of games. In Cousen’s own words - “Having worked with Anton and the company for the past few years, I have gained a good understanding of the business, the organization, consumers and investors. I strongly believe in the team and Anton’s vision. I look forward to working alongside Anton and the Huuuge team in delivering the company’s strategy and building a sustainable future.”

Whenever fundamental leadership changes like these happen in big companies, it is usually a sign of either something not going too well (and needing change) and/or a change in guard being required to unlock the next stage of the company’s growth. In Huuuge Games’ case, it’s probably a mix of both.

In terms of what’s not going too well, the slide below from the Q3 2021 earnings presentation is quite telling. Huuuge Games has a heavily concentrated social casino games portfolio, and needle-moving growth is directly tied to UA spending. But a -27% YoY dip in marketing spend (likely due to IDFA) basically means Huuuge desperately needs to find new avenues of portfolio revenue growth, which could come in many forms including M&A and new IP launches.

Luckily, Huuuge Games is doing both with its “Build & Buy” strategy. But has it been effective? Three points here:

• While Huuuge Games has definitely proven itself on the Build aspect, it doesn’t seem like follow-up Build titles from Huuuge’s internal studios have been able to make a significant contribution to portfolio revenues. The only one to really make a mark is Traffic Puzzle, an innovative take on match-3 developed by the fellow Poles at Picadilla. Further, learning the ropes of new game genres usually takes time, a successful acquisition, several key hires, or a combination of all three.
• The success of the Buy aspect also remains to be seen. Publishing is an inherently hard business to crack, and the industry hasn't really seen major publishing successes in a while. And while expanding beyond their core genre has been a trend that social casino companies at large have followed, so far the success cases have been all about acquisitions.
• The “New Initiatives” line item is purposefully sparse (we guess!), but is that an Ethereum symbol in the yellow circle? This growth path is a complete wildcard at this point.

Based on all the above, it’s pretty clear that something definitely needs to change at Huuuge Games to enable its next stage of business growth. On the organic growth side, this mostly comes down to: 1) continuing to successfully live operate the active portfolio, and 2) accelerating diversification out of social casino by launching new IPs in new genres that are less dependent on highly targeted UA activities. On the inorganic side, the publishing efforts really need to start clicking soon and/or M&A velocity needs to increase (in a highly competitive deal market) in a meaningful way. Cousens definitely has the track record and experience to support Gauffin and Huuuge Games with both! Whether Gauffin continues as Co-CEO (in any capacity) remains to be seen.

Game Launch Radar

#1: Crash Heads

• Publisher: Playgendary

• State: Soft-launch
• Territories: Australia, Brazil
• Classification: Casual - Arcade - Shoot/Beat ‘em Up

• Quick thoughts:

  • Playgendary has historically been a top hypercasual developer with hit titles like Hitmasters, Tank Stars, Tomb of the Mask and Kick the Buddy. The team has clearly been trying to increase the share of IAP-driven revenue in its portfolio with the launch of Design Masters: House Makeover. Crash Heads is another attempt in the same vein.
  • The game is a SHMUP at its core and is heavily inspired from Archero, especially in terms of its level/dungeon design, movement/evasion controls, and mid-round card drafting mechanics. However, it introduces a Clash Royale-style elixir system to the moment-to-moment gameplay that allows players to summon more attack characters during the battle. This meta is the standard Archero/Clash Royale design, which revolves around upgrading various hero cards through a 4-chest reward system. See the gameplay video here.
  • While the elixir system results in a player’s attack power growing during dungeon crawls, it also increases the size (and therefore attack surface area) of the player’s army, which makes it harder to evade enemy attacks. This can make for some interesting card drafting decisions, as the player needs to decide between majorly increasing power while taking on some risk (increasing unit count) or choosing minor power/speed/health/etc buffs without increasing the attackable surface area.
  • The pressure is on for Crash Heads’ core gameplay to prove itself as a fresh and highly retentive experience, since the graveyard for Archero-clones is definitely a large one. But if it does work, it creates an opportunity for Playgendary to scale the game to become a top 3 IAP-driven revenue generator in the portfolio.

#2: Super Spy Ryan

• Publisher: Amazon Mobile
• State: Soft-launch
• Territories: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland
• Classification: Midcore - Strategy - MOBA

• Quick thoughts:

  • The “Super Spy Ryan” IP originates from Ryan’s World, which is a children's YouTube channel for children aged 2–6 featuring Ryan Kaji (born 19 October 2011), along with his mother (Loann Kaji), father (Shion Kaji), and twin sisters (Emma and Kate). It currently has ~32.5M subscribers.
  • The channel announced that it will premiere a hybrid live-action and animated series titled Super Spy Ryan on November 27, 2020 at Amazon Kids+. It’s also not the first time that Ryan’s World is creating a gaming experience; they launched a virtual world in Roblox back in 2020. This mobile game is essentially another similar attempt by Ryan’s World, and Amazon’s attempt is looking to create a new and likely very strong touch point with the IP and its associated target audience.
  • The game itself is a less aggressive Brawl Stars-like MOBA. The live PvP matches pit two 3-player teams against each other to collect the maximum number of toys on the field. The metagame revolves around upgrading the hero characters and progressing up the trophy road and leaderboards. See the gameplay video here.
  • How will Amazon measure success for this title? We believe it might be a mix between the volume of installs they’re able to garner, how those installs convert into new Amazon Kids+ subscribers, and whether it will continue driving existing Amazon Kids+ subscriber retention through increasing the touch points across different media types. The IAP revenue driven by this title will likely be a cherry on top and not the key business goal for Amazon (or Ryan’s World for that matter).

#3: 3 Kingdoms: Siege & Conquest

• Publisher: VNG Game Studios

• State: Soft-launch
• Territories: Philippines, Thailand
• Classification: Midcore - Strategy - 4X Strategy

• Quick thoughts:

  • 3 Kingdoms: Siege & Conquest is a new rival in the highly competitive 4X subgenre. The bar to cross here is arguably Lilith’s Rise of Kingdoms, and this game’s production values and look/feel come pretty close. See the gameplay video here.
  • What’s more interesting is the company behind the game: VNG Corporation. This is a Vietnamese technology company that focuses on four main businesses, including online games, platforms, digital payments, and cloud services. It is Vietnam’s first-ever unicorn startup, and it’s also one of the top game publishers in the region. VNG currently holds the Vietnamese publishing rights to blockbuster mobile titles like PUBG, Call of Duty, and Perfect World. It seems like publishing an internally developed title within the broader (and very successful) “Three Kingdoms” franchise is the next point of focus.
  • That said, VNG will likely need to have an action plan to scale UA in a privacy-first (IDFA-less) world. This is especially important for the 4X subgenre, which is majorly dependent on targeted advertising for scale. While the Three Kingdoms IP is not big enough to drive large volumes of organic installs (and IDFA continues to wreak havoc across subgenres with whale-driven monetization), it will be interesting to see how VNG puts its other business units to use. For example, it could potentially go cross-platform with this game and integrate non-app store payment solutions.

Other Game Announcements

• Niantic unveiled its next F2P mobile AR game, Peridot, which allows players to raise digital AR creatures. Link
• Netflix announced the upcoming Exploding Kittens mobile game, which will be followed by an animated series. Link
• Zynga (finally) launched Farmville 3 in Japan. Link
• Project Castle, NetEase’s new idle RPG, launched its closed beta on Google Play in Philippines, Canada, and Australia. Link
• Dislyte, Lilith Games’ new mobile RPG, has pre-registrations open on iOS/Android in the US and UK; the open beta launches on May 10th. Link
• Just Cause Mobile, a Square Enix action shooter, is entering early access on Android in Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. Link
• Isle of Arrows, a tower defense and board game crossover, is scheduled to release this summer on iOS/Android. Link
• The Heroic Legend of Eagarlnia, Pixmain’s JRPG-style turn-based strategy title, released its official 1.0 version alongside a slew of updates. Link
• Puddink, a physics-based casual puzzle game based on pudding, is coming to iOS on June 6th. Link
• Destiny Girl, the fantasy gacha RPG, is now globally available on iOS/Android. Link

Company Announcements

• Rovio games surpassed 5 billion downloads. Link

• According to reports, Apple is working on building its own game controller(s). Link
• SuperGaming, behind games like Silly Royale and MaskGun, is opening a new office in India. Link
• Coda Payments, a digital content monetization platform, raised a fresh $690M in funding. Link
• Mokens League (started by Monster League Studios), a blockchain-based esports platform (which will feature a F2P mode), raised $2 million in funding. Link
• Saudi Arabia-based Spoilz Games raised approximately $693,000 in a pre-seed round. Link
• ironSource launched Luna Search Ads, a new feature that “allows marketers to automate and streamline their ad campaign creation, provides keyword management and discovery, and data analysis.” Link

Ecosystem Announcements

• Mobile games spending fell 6.3% year-over-year in March. The top 5 mobile games in terms of overall revenue held constant compared to last month. Link

• According to Adjust, hypercasual downloads represented 27% of total 2021 downloads. Additionally, the median CPI rose 25% year-over-year (from $1.74 to $2.18), but day 7 / 14 / 30 retention rates also increased. Link
• Tencent is updating its network acceleration app (which allowed Chinese gamers to play international games) to only let players play government-approved games. Others like NetEase, which offer similar services, will likely follow. Link

Content Worth Consuming

• Meet Ultimate Studio, the ex-EA Firemonkeys, backed by Supercell (MobileGamer): “You’d be forgiven for not having heard of Ultimate Studio, a Supercell-funded gang of senior ex-EA Firemonkeys staff. Until today, that is. The remote-first, but mostly Melbourne, Australia-based studio just launched its first game, the Trackmania-like premium racer Hot Lap League. It has been operating in stealth mode, until now – so why so quiet?” Link

• We Raised a $10M Series A | Game Studio Funding Mistakes! (GameMakers): “We talk about game studio fundraising and specifically Series A funding - what that means - and lessons, best practices, and mistakes based on my own experience with this current financing round.” Link
• Are Mack Growen — Helping Founders Build (Elite Game Developers): “In this podcast episode, I'm talking with Are Mack Growen, a General Partner at London Venture Partners, a VC firm focused on investing in founders in the game sector at the seed stage. In this discussion, we talk about Are's extensive background in gaming, his journey to VC, what kind of learnings he is sharing, and how Are approaches risks, luck, and other challenges in gaming.” Link
• Rovio CEO commits to future acquisitions (PocketGamer): “Following the acquisition of Ruby Games in 2021, Rovio’s Alex Pelletier-Normand is bullish about acquisitions remaining ‘an important part of our strategy moving forward.’” Link