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#1: Star Wars: Hunters Delayed Until 2023

A tweet posted on the official Zynga Star Wars account announced that Star Wars: Hunters (SWH) has been pushed back till 2023. This is the second time that SWH has been delayed, as in Zynga’s Q4 2020 earnings call, SWH was expected to soft launch SWH in mid-2021 with a potential release at the end of the year. Instead, the release of SWH was quietly delayed to 2022 and only revealed via an announcement in the trailer for the Switch version of the game. SWH was finally soft-launched in November last year in India, the Philippines, Malaysia & Indonesia, with Brazil, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan added in early 2022.

SWH has been under development by Zynga’s Natural Motion studio, more specifically by its Boss Alien studio (which created the original CSR Racing) since 2018. The title’s development must have proved challenging, as Zynga opened up a new studio in Austin, Texas, at the end of 2020 specifically to support Boss Alien’s efforts. By the time SWH ships in 2023, SWH will have undergone 5 years of development.

The delay is ostensibly due to Zynga’s desire to ensure “players will have the best experience in the Arena”; however, with such a vague answer, we have to wonder what the real reasons are behind the decision. Although announced quite a while ago, the game has not even broken 250,000 pre-registrations as shown from the milestone unlocks on the game’s website. In contrast, Diablo Immortal acquired 30 million pre-registrations (in a matter of months) and Apex Legends Mobile hit 10 million.

As SWH is in early access in Australia where I reside, I took the chance to give it a whirl to see if we can find the reason behind its delay. SWH is a third-person FPS set in the Star Wars universe. Players take control of Hunters, each with different special abilities and weapons, and battle each other in 4v4 PVP combat. The majority of the Hunters are original characters for SWH, though we can probably expect well-loved characters to appear in the future. SWH has several game modes lifted right from Overwatch, like Control and Escort and its own version of Lucioball called…Huttball.

Gameplay-wise, Boss Alien has targeted the game at skilled gamers. It definitely felt “twitch”, with small hitboxes that require precise aiming. It felt like it required even more precision than games like COD Mobile and Apex Legends Mobile, not to mention more casual-friendly shooters like T3 Arena and Catalyst Black. Unfortunately, the need for precise aiming was hampered by performance issues when many Hunters gathered in the same spot (the whole premise of Control), and the game would stutter and lag, compromising the experience.

On the positive side, the various Hunters are fun to play with and come equipped with weapons that range from blaster rifles, lightsabers, and even clubs! The abilities are a par for the course and include Star Wars staples like the lightsaber throw. There is also some light strategy when preparing a Hunter’s abilities as you can unlock 2 additional variations of each ability that provide buffs in certain stats balanced by nerfs in others. Overall, while SWH does not raise the bar for the genre, it is a perfectly serviceable mobile shooter.

Where SWH diverges from the norm is that there is nary a loot box in sight. Yes, you read that right. It also does not monetize power. In fact, SWH is one of the rare games that monetizes solely on cosmetics. There are a variety of cosmetics that are sold, ranging from skins, intro animations, victory poses, and weapon wraps. This isn’t a problem in itself, except that SWH’s cosmetics are extremely underwhelming.

This example below shows various skins that can be unlocked for the Wookie Hunter Grozz, with the final one of the right being a purchasable skin from the store. The unlockable ones are merely palette swaps, while the purchasable skin that is sold for 1,300 Crystals (its premium currency, equivalent to $18) includes… a helmet. This drab aesthetic customization is not limited to Hunters, as other categories have similarly dull customizations.

Contrast this to T3 Arena where character skins are not just palette swaps but sometimes even completely different-looking characters. The skins are also cheaper than in SWH, costing $3-$8 depending on rarity.

This is the poisoned chalice that is the Star Wars license. While it brings great brand recognition, Disney is extremely strict on how its IP is portrayed. You can’t just have Luke Skywalker wearing a clown suit because it is not on brand. In Part 2 of our research essay on selling cosmetics, we wrote about the macro factors that influence how much players will value cosmetics. In the essay, we state, “The more playful your game world and the broader the visual palette, the more options you have for cosmetics.” Unfortunately, the Star Wars license likely limited Boss Alien on how far it could take the customizations, leaving them with the current slate of lackluster options. For a game that is monetizing solely on players wanting to stand out from the crowd, this is a death sentence.

I believe Boss Alien had the right intentions — to create a skill-based shooter without pay-to-win elements that could potentially become an esport. The customization-based monetization strategy is not new and has been employed successfully by MOBAs like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and League of Legends: Wild Rift. Unfortunately, the IP may have been holding it back in that regard, resulting in a game that is fun but gives players no reason to want to spend. The long delay till 2023 indicates that the game may be going through a pivot, and I suspect we will see the monetization of power in some manner when it surfaces again. Otherwise, the game may well be dead in the water.

#2: China Sings A New Tune On Games

In a stunning reversal of its stance toward what it used to call “spiritual opium”, a July 18 statement from China’s Ministry of Commerce highlighted games, amongst other forms of media such as animation, literature, and music, as one of the key carriers of Chinese culture to the world. As such, a push to expand China’s sphere of cultural influence was proposed.

The release of the policy, titled “Proposal to promote the development of foreign cultural trade by the Ministry of Commerce and 27 departments” (yes, it’s that long even in Chinese), highlighted the importance of promoting Chinese culture abroad and listed several steps towards reaching that goal, including supporting the development of games and to cultivate world-renowned brands in the gaming world. More importantly, the proposals have been vetted by the State Council.

One of the most significant suggestions was to step up efforts to rework the approval system that has been a bane of Chinese (and foreign) game developers in the last couple of years. In our April 14 update, we covered the fact that a previous freeze in game approvals caused many small gaming companies to go out of business. Light may be shining over the horizon though, as one of the proposals in the document is to carry out trial reforms to optimize the approval process and further intensify efforts in improving the policies it has already implemented.

One of the new policies currently on trial is the provincial review system, where game approvals for games created by studios in a province are conducted by the provincial bureaus. Currently, game approvals are under the purview of the National Press and Publication Administration, a central authority. By delegating approvals to the provincial bureaus, the bottleneck of a single review authority is removed and should increase the pace of approvals.

So far, Beijing, Shanghai, Guandong province (where Tencent HQ is located), and Jiangsu Province are part of this policy trial, and it has seen a positive impact already. This report by GameLook noted that amongst the game approvals vetted by the government in June, several had the tag “Domestic Mobile Game (Trial)”, with 16 games getting this tag.

The July batch of approved games lacks these tags, but given the recent focus on accelerating game approvals, it’s unlikely that the program has been suspended. Instead, it’s possible that the program has been fully implemented and is no longer in the testing phase (though this is just conjecture). We expect this program will be expanded, and more cities and provinces will be added soon.

The Chinese gaming industry looks to benefit greatly from this announcement, and shares of mainland gaming businesses surged after it was made. But while this is all well and good for the domestic industry, where does it leave foreign games trying to get approved in China. Unfortunately, the posture is clearly geared towards exporting Chinese digital culture to the world rather than facilitating approvals for foreign games trying to enter. A proposal to increase the importation of “high-quality cultural products” was made, but games were conspicuously left off the list of products, which included movies, television shows, performing arts, and sports. This one-way traffic of approvals may increase the number of foreign firms looking to partner with Chinese gaming studios to develop and publish their IP, much like Activision Blizzard has done with Netease on Diablo Immortal and Tencent on Call of Duty Mobile.

Like a coin, this announcement has two sides. On one, it is a sign of good things to come for Chinese game companies as they can expect quicker approvals and government support to reach a global audience. On the flip side, the chances of foreign games entering China’s enormous gaming market do not look good, unless those companies are ready to enter into co-production agreements with Chinese companies. And that may be exactly what the Chinese government wants.

#3: Diablo Immortal Finally Launches in China

A couple week’s back, our team — led by Harshal Karvande — published a deconstruction of Diablo Immortal. At the time, the largest risk to the game was not launching in China, or, at least the game getting tremendously delayed. However, we have an update! From Harshal:

NetEase has gotten the go-ahead from Beijing regulators to release Diablo Immortal in China on July 26th, a month after the initial release date of June 25th. The game was initially delayed after Diablo Immortal’s official account (run by NetEase) on Chinese social media service Weibo was banned (allegedly for making a post that crossed Beijing’s red line). Diablo Immortal on iOS and Android has received +12M downloads and generated about $40M in revenue in its first month, with 40% of that revenue coming from the US.

The MMORPG genre has a strong foothold outside of the US, with the top 5 games in genre grossing over $250-480M annually in China / Asia Pacific regions versus the US where they fall steeply in the range of just $9-18M. With the US trending negatively and accounting for 40% of its global revenue, Diablo Immortal needed a release in China to boost its performance and succeed at the level Activision Blizzard is aiming for. As the world’s second largest game company by revenue behind Tencent, NetEase operates primarily in China which accounts for 75% of its net revenue, with 16% coming from Japan and just 3% from the US. Diablo Immortal’s long-term upside — what could take it from a ~$150M annual revenue game to twice that number — is its ability to launch in China, with over 15 million pre-registrations in the country. All in all, this is great news for Blizzard and NetEase, but we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see how the game truly performs in China.

Game Launch Radar

#1: Hyper Front

• Publisher: NetEase
• State: Launch
• Territories: Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Canada, and the Middle East
• Classification: Midcore – Shooter – Tactical Shooter

• Quick thoughts:

  • It’s been called Valorant on mobile, and it’s easy to see why. The game follows the same format of 5v5 battles with heroes that have unique abilities. The main mode follows the bomb/defusal mode from Counter Strike. Rounds begin with purchasing weapons and the attacking side needing to plant the bomb while the defending side prevents that from happening. Players earn money during a round depending on if their team won or lost as well as for any kills they made. They’ll then use the money to purchase armor and better weapons for the next round.
  • Gameplay feels good, with concession to the less precise aiming you get on mobile. I was able to get headshots even with the reticle not placed on an opponents head.
  • The monetization system is a combination of acquiring new heroes and cosmetics. Heroes can be unlocked with either 20,000 Star Coins (soft currency) or 500 Star Quartz (Premium Currency), with the premium option equivalent to around $8. There are several cosmetic categories, with hero and weapon skins plus ornamental cosmetics like avatar frames, backgrounds, sprays, and weapon ornaments.
  • To expand its reach, Netease has launched Hyper Front Lite, a version of the game for low and mid-end phones.

#2: NBA All-World

• Publisher: Niantic
• State: Soft Launch
• Territories: Singapore
• Classification: Casual – AR/Location-Based

• Quick thoughts:

  • Similar to Pokemon Go, NBA All-World is about collecting a team of NBA players and using them to conquer basketball courts. Instead of flinging pokeballs, though, there are a variety of basketball mini-games such as shooting drills and 1-on-1 matches for players to overcome.
  • There are currently 65 players that you can recruit, but we can expect this number to increase with every update.

Other Game Announcements

• League of Legends: Wild Rift crosses the $500 million revenue threshold. Link

• Diablo Immortal is finally released in China. Link
• Zynga’s Star Wars: Hunters is delayed till 2023. Link
• Warframe Mobile will enter community testing soon, with more information to be divulged in the upcoming TennoCon on August 1st. Link
• Ubisoft announce a partnership on mobile for one of their AAA properties. Link
• XD Inc, developer and owner of the TapTap platform announce a mobile version of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator. Link
• Netmarble soft-launches rhythm game BTS Dream: TinyTan House in Canada. Link
• My Talking Angela 2 exceeds 300 million downloads in its first year of launch. Link
• Netease announce a “lite” version of their 5v5 tactical shooter, Hyper Front. Link

Company Announcements

• HoYoverse officially opens its headquarters in Singapore. Link

• InnoGames release its salary bands to promote greater transparency. Link
• Netease Games opens a new studio Jar of Sparks, headed by former Head of Design of Halo Infinite, Jerry Hook. Link
• EA will restructure its technology team as CTO Ken Moss departs for “new challenges outside of Electronic Arts”. Link
• L8 Studios closes pre-seed investment round with participation by WePlay Ventures and Lima Ventures. Link
• Mattel adds ex-Scopley exec, Mike DeLaet, as Global Head of Digital Gaming. Link
• Ubisoft sales were down 9.8% YoY for Q1 2022. Link
• Art-outsourcing firm Room 8 Studio announce a restructure and will begin working on mobile games. Link
• Bigfish Games appoints Gary Rosenfeld as VP of Business Development. Link
• Stillfront Group reports a YoY increase of 31% on Q2 2022 revenue. Link
• Xsolla appoint former Meta executive, Sebastian Totté, as senior country manager for the UK, France, and Benelux. Link

Ecosystem Announcements

• Google’s Play Store opens up to alternative payment methods in the European Economic Area as a result of the Digital Markets Acts. Link
• Netflix continues its hiring spree for its games division, adding James Burns (ex-Microsoft) as Director of Live Services and Jason Mueller (ex-Disney) as Head of Live Service Gaming. Link
• The 19th Asian Games which will be held in September this year will include Esports games as official medal events. Link
• Riot Games collaborates with Amazon Web Services to provide live game statistics during game broadcasts. Link
• EA has filed a patent to generate in-game content based on their player personas. Link
• China’s mobile gaming user base sees its first decline since 2008. Link
• Opera and GameMaker launch a beta of its web-based mobile game publishing platform, GX.games. Link
• Minecraft bans the use of NFTs. Link

Content Worth Consuming

• The Horse Armour conundrum (PocketGamer.biz): “Despite the reactions from many players, Horse Armour remained one of the top selling items for Oblivion long after its release. Ranking below the Shivering Isles expansion but above the Fighter’s Strong Hold DLC, this content was a financial success.” Link

• Garena Free Fire: Secrets to Success and Analyzing The Fall (GameMakers): “Mobile free-to-play game design experts from Naavik – Thomas Baker (former lead game designer at Electronic Arts and lead on Real Racing 3) and Eva Grillova (former game designer from Wooga and SocialPoint) – have written a super in-depth analysis on Garena Free Fire. Find out how Free Fire was able to achieve success to become the world’s most downloaded shooter game of all time! Further, why has Free Fire dropped by over 30% since last year? What are the big risks and opportunities ahead for the game?” Link
• Episode 30: Diablo Immortal or Diablo Immoral? Discussing the monetization controversy behind Blizzard’s latest mobile game (GameRefinery): “In this special episode of the Mobile GameDev Playbook, our host Jon Jordan discusses the popular but controversial game Diablo Immortal with Erno Kiiski and Wilhelm Voutilainen, Chief Game Analysts at GameRefinery, a Liftoff Company.” Link
• State of Mobile 2022: Market Spotlight on Middle East & North Africa Report (Data.ai): “Consumers in MENA alone spent $3.3 billion in the app stores in 2021, $1.0 billion more than 2020, equating to a 44% growth year-over-year and a 103% 2-year-growth. This was driven by strong performance across both apps and games, as they saw a 101% and 106% increase in consumer spend since 2019, respectively.” Link
• FreePlay: Two different approaches to making hyper-casual games (Mobidictum.biz): “The dominating approach to hyper-casual production was always the assembly line type: make as many prototypes as you can in hopes of finding a good one. There is, however, an alternative approach that can produce a better outcome, especially in view of the market situation. At FreePlay, our approach—which helped us to create successful games like Join Clash, Count Masters, and Fidget Toys Trading—is to pick games carefully and polish them well.” Link
• Bayesian Thinking for Startups ft. @SebPark (GameMakers): “For most of us who don’t remember, Bayes’ Theorem “describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event.” Seb Park (Infinite Canvas, BITKRAFT) believes more startups, including game studios, need to apply “Bayesian thinking” to better direct company strategy and improve decision-making.” Link