Recently, GameLook has been reported many times, and the merger game has become more and more popular in the European and American mobile game markets, and even many outstanding overseas products have been born. For example, "Top War" with a monthly revenue of 200 million yuan under Beijing Jiangyu Interactive, or "Merge County" with 30 million monthly flow of Microfun Overseas.
At the level of gameplay, such products have also changed from simply focusing on merged gameplay in the past to coupling simulation management, SLG and other elements, which have been favored by most players around the world and regarded by the industry as an innovative field with great potential.
Recently, GameLook once again discovered a casual mobile game based on the theme of goblin miners mining gold, blending placement and merging gameplay - "Gold and Goblins: Idle Merger".
In fact, developer App Quantum has previously launched four mobile games, including hotel management, hell trial, nightclub operation and other themes. On this basis, the company continues to explore the possibility of market segmentation, and two years ago incorporated the merger gameplay into the placement track it is good at, and since then the product has been continuously polished and optimized, and now it has achieved good results.
Third-party data shows that as early as last November, the game broke through the 20 million monthly turnover mark, with a cumulative turnover of nearly 200 million yuan and a cumulative download of 20 million times. And the last 30 days of more than 1 million downloads, March turnover of more than 25 million yuan, of which 60% of the revenue from the US market, is a recent performance in the global market outstanding placement game.
So, what kind of game is Goldand Goblins: Idle Merger?
Craft goblins and place mines for gold
Judging from the game's title alone, the combination of "Gold" and "Goblins" feels familiar at first glance.
Thanks to the spread of Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter, and a series of Japanese-style RPG games, the public is not unfamiliar with the Western fantasy creature called "Goblin". In general, they mainly live in the underground world, although the cultural development is low, but they are particularly good at mining and building underground buildings, and quite fond of gold coins, diamonds and other rare valuables.
That's why Goldand Goblins: Idle Merger is set to allow players to control different types of goblins, explore and dig mysterious underground mines, and discover gold and treasure to restore the glory of the Goblin Empire.
Unlike most works, the game obviously deletes the traditional characteristics of the goblin personality greedy and despicable, evil and cunning personality, but adopts the European and American 3D card ventilation art design, and adds rich and bright colors, similar to the goblin in "Clash Royale", which greatly caters to the aesthetic habits of most leisure users.
In terms of specific gameplay logic, players buy goblin miners and arbitrarily place them in front of the ore to dig in order to obtain income to continue to buy miners. When the road to the top of the straight pass card is finally dug, it is a clear pass, and each level is completed to unlock a new character, as well as a more abundant pit to be excavated.
During this time, players can drag and drop goblins of the same level to merge and upgrade to improve their mining ability. As the merger upgrades, goblins will also get new digging tools, from hand-held hammers to heavy hammers to electric drills and more. At the same time, players can also get higher benefits by upgrading the forge.
In addition to the basic diamond mining to earn money, the game also provides players with a mine that can produce gold, but can only be used if the goblin miners are used to free the mine from the ore encirclement.
It is worth mentioning that players can also obtain function cards during the process of mining ore to help the mine open the automated production of different diamonds such as purple gems and yellow gems. That is to say, easy play through is not the only purpose, but also requires players to carefully explore every corner of the pit, collect various cards or upgrade materials for cultivation, so as to increase income and obtain more powerful goblins, forming a virtuous play cycle.
Of course, although "GoldandGoblins: Idle Merger" has no shortage of limited-time PvP gameplay against other players, the game is still mainly based on the game of breaking through the level, bringing players a short and fast game experience. It also offers different options such as offline revenue and skipping, meeting the needs of the vast majority of merge game users and placement players.
In terms of business model design, like most casual games, the game also adopts a mix of advertising and in-app purchase. Among them, the in-game shop provides diamonds to buy items such as time potions and treasure chests. In contrast, watching rewarded ads can double the profits, helping players make faster progress within the game to increase user stickiness.
The mining theme reaches tens of millions of users, and the placement track incubates more ideas
But in fact, "GoldandGoblins: Idle Merger" is not the first mining mobile game with more than 10 million downloads.
Back in 2019, GameLook had already covered a placement game of the same genre, Idle Miner Tycoon. In the game, the player will play as a mine owner who can hire workers to dig deep into the mine and then sell the gold mine for gold coins, which can be used to continue to hire more miners and supervisors. Among them, the supervisor can make the mine run automatically, improve the efficiency of mine operation, and unlock different types of minerals when specific conditions are met.
At that time, the German developer behind the game, Kolibri Games, revealed that the game's MAU exceeded 10 million. According to third-party data, Idle Miner Tycoon has a maximum monthly turnover of more than 20 million, but it has now fallen to about 12 million.
Judging from the MAU scale of "Idle Miner Tycoon", place mining has long been a subdivision with a large user base. Coupled with the integration of the current popular merge gameplay, it is difficult not to attract the attention of casual players. Judging from the monthly revenue of two similar products, the up-and-coming "Gold & Goblins: Idle Merger" has indeed surpassed "Idle Miner Tycoon".
Further, it is not only the theme of mining, but also the placement of tracks at home and abroad in recent years. More and more domestic manufacturers have also begun to try, and have achieved good results.
For example, in China, from the popular "The Strongest Snail" in 2020 to the "High-skilled Hand Group", and then to the "One Thought Runaway" with a monthly flow of more than 400 million yuan last year, new products continue to emerge. Overseas, there is no shortage of placement games such as "Sword and Expedition", "Placement Girl", and "Endless Showdown" spin-off games "Aksha Battle Record ~ Dawn Apocalypse" to lead the sea track.
Obviously, the "placement + X" mode, which is integrated with other categories of gameplay, has been verified many times. The specific gameplay has gradually evolved from the fixed collocation of "placement + cards" in the early years to more types such as bullet screen shooting and immortal cultivation, and has been recognized by players around the world.
It is not difficult to understand that, on the one hand, due to the relatively moderate difficulty of placing game development, small and medium-sized teams can also afford to invest funds; on the other hand, thanks to the fact that the track has not yet appeared successfully defined, game manufacturers have a huge space to play. As long as the quality upgrade and differentiation in a blue ocean genre are guaranteed, there is a possibility of breakthrough success, and the success of GoldandGoblins: Idle Merger is like this.
After all, according to Vungle's data company GameRefinery, the merger game is expected to become the next match-3 category, becoming a new field with a scale of more than $3 billion.
It is under the premise of the success of the mining theme that GoldandGoblins: Idle Merger integrates the highly potential merger gameplay with the world's hot placement category, accumulating 200 million yuan in global revenue. This time, with the success of small and broad, it has once again proved to the game manufacturers that deeply cultivating creative themes and potential gameplay to achieve overtaking in the corners of the track is likely to become one of the advantageous directions for the new round of going to sea.
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