In recent years, when it comes to the medium and heavy tracks of overseas mobile games, we usually pay more attention to SLG and "match-3+". However, recently, a number of new MMORPG titles have been launched and all of them have shown strong revenue growth.
According to Sensor Tower's February mobile game overseas revenue growth list, 4 MMO new games were shortlisted in the TOP10: the purple dragon game "The Legend of Kalitz" airborne list was second, Sanqi Interactive Entertainment's "데블M" (Devil M) ranked fourth, Dewdrop Technology's "이모탈 소울" (Immortal Soul) won the list 6th, and Efun's "데스가르드" (DeathGard) ranked 10th.
Looking forward at the mobile game growth list in January, MMO mobile games such as "Tomb Robbery Notes" on the Youzu Network and "카오스 포털: 저승사자" (Chaos Portal) have also entered the TOP20.
As one of the mainstream heavy categories, MMO has always had considerable market demand, and in the past, we can also see that many MMOs of the Chinese style fairy tale category have achieved good results in overseas markets. However, with the deepening of the overseas process and the increasingly fierce market competition, MMOs with high gameplay education costs and high subject matter and cultural barriers have encountered a "bottleneck period". Now that a number of MMO new tours have broken through, is this category track likely to become this year's "new hot spot for going overseas"?
01
Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Market: Purple Dragon Game "The Legend of Caliz"
The MMO new game "The Legend of Caliz", developed by Zilong Games and published by GameBeans, was launched in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in early February, and topped the iOS game best-selling list in Hong Kong and Taiwan on the first day of its launch, and is currently within the top 10 best-selling iOS games in Taiwan. According to Sensor Tower, the game ranked No. 4 on the mobile best-selling list in February and No. 2 on the growth list in this issue.
The Legend of Calitz is actually a traditional version of Dragon Country Story, which was launched on the mainland market in March last year. Influenced by Japanese pop culture, Japanese-style MMOs born out of JRPGs also have a good audience base in the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan markets.
Purple dragon games that have launched products such as "Fantasy Simulation Battle" and "Wind Continent" can be said to be familiar with the control of Japanese fantasy themes. As a typical Japanese MMO, "The Legend of Kalitz" focuses on the theme of "how to train the dragon", and the story routine is also the most common "dragon quest" in Japanese fantasy themes, but the overall development is more relaxed and lively, giving players a "casual" look.
At the same time, with the theme of "How to Train Your Dragon", the art of "The Legend of Kalitz" has also made some differences. The overall style of the game is bright, and the characters are presented with a cute Q version image, and a texture similar to a figure is made, which is different from the mainstream Q version style in the market and can also bring freshness to players.
In addition to the product itself, the marketing volume of "The Legend of Kalitz" adheres to the route of "holding high and playing high", on the one hand, creating momentum for the game brand with the influence of spokesperson Zhang Huimei, and inviting a number of KOLs to shoot promotional videos before the public beta; On the other hand, with large-scale purchase volume launch, it quickly starts to make a splash in a short period of time and opens up the local market.
According to AppGrowing's international version data monitoring, "The Legend of Caliz" has more than 4,000 sets of advertisements in the past three months, with peak advertising before launch and the first week of launch, and the main investment channels are AdMob and Meta Audience Network.
At the level of material delivery, "The Legend of Kalitz" mainly has two ideas: first, conventional gameplay/character display, and add keywords such as "high welfare" to attract users; The second is to use a large number of live broadcast/oral broadcast materials favored by Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan users, close to user preferences.
For example, the following set of materials compares "other servers" and "Taiwan servers" in the form of dialogue, leads to "limited time login to receive 300 draws" and displays rare character card faces, highlighting the "high benefits" of the Taiwan service "The Legend of Kalitz" and attracting users to download.
Source: AppGrowing International
Combined with the materials of the live performance, one is "gameplay screen display + narration from the player's perspective", and the other is "live anchor playing games". For example, the following set of materials is expanded on a common live broadcast screen, and the bottom right corner is the anchor who is playing "The Legend of Kalitz", and at the same time shows the mounts rewarded by the game reservation event, attracting users in multiple dimensions.
Source: AppGrowing International
In addition, some of the purchase materials use spokesperson content, but they are all displayed in simple image materials without too much creative output.
02
Korean Market: 37 Interactive Entertainment "데블M"
In recent years, 37 Interactive Entertainment's achievements in the overseas market have been very eye-catching, and its "Puzzles & Survival" and "Song of the Cloud City" have entered the top 30 mobile game overseas revenue of Sensor Tower in 2022, of which "Puzzles & Survival" is one of the explosive models in the "match 3 + SLG" track.
In addition to continuing to cultivate the "match-3+" track, 37 Interactive Entertainment also returned to its familiar MMO category this year, "데블M" (Devil M) was launched in the Korean market on January 11, according to Sensor Tower, as of March 5, 2023, the game's global revenue has exceeded $11 million. Reflected in the app store list, the game has remained within the top 40 best-selling iOS Korean games so far, with the highest score of 19th, while Google Play has performed better, and is currently stable in the top ten best-selling lists.
As far as the product itself is concerned, "데블M" is a very "typical" Korean fantasy MMORPG mobile game. On the outer packaging, the game name has the "M" character, and the icon is designed as "dark background + game name", and the overall look and feel is very close to other local magic MMOs in Korea. The gameplay design of the game is also in line with the habits of Korean users, with on-hook upgrades, automatic battles, high-intensity and deep development strategy systems, etc., emphasizing the "refreshment" of the game.
In terms of promotion and marketing, "데블M" does not take the common "spokesperson + KOL marketing" route and large-scale offline launch, but concentrates on the level of purchase volume, with high welfare activities and rewards to attract users. According to the data monitoring of the international version of AppGrowing, the game currently has more than 2,000 sets of materials, and the main investment channel is AdMob.
As for material creativity, 데블M mainly shows the scene and gameplay of the game, while the display of the battle part highlights elements such as damage values, skill lighting effects, and character upgrade special effects to stimulate users' sense of challenge. For example, the following set of materials shows the character exploring the map, fighting monsters, picking up a large number of rare equipment, and strengthening his strength.
Source: AppGrowing International
03
There are also two new MMO games that break through the Korean market
In addition to 37 Interactive Entertainment's "데블M", Q1's outstanding MMO new games in the Korean market include Dewdrop Technology's "이모탈 소울" (Immortal Soul) and Yi Mirage Network's "데스가르드" (DeathGard), both of which are fantasy mobile games.
According to Sensor Tower, "이모탈 소울" overseas revenue in February reached as much as four times that of January, and revenue continued to rise. We previously published in the article "NetEase <天谕>enters Southeast Asia, Dewdrop new tour South Korea grabs volume, RPG track opens the year strongly!" , analyzed the buying volume idea of Dewdrop Technology's MMO. According to AppGrowing's international version data monitoring, "이모탈 소울" currently has nearly 7,000 sets of materials, and the main investment channel is Meta Audience Network.
In terms of buying materials, "이모탈 소울" follows its distribution routine in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, mainly around download rewards, combat power improvement and gameplay and other content to produce a series of materials, of which live-action materials are one of the key points. For example, this live-action material, embedded in the daily scene, is triggered by 5 million combat power to be free, and the plot is further extended with how to improve the combat power to get the exemption qualification, thereby introducing the benefits, gameplay and character settings in the game.
Source: AppGrowing International
"데스가르드" of Yixian Network has the best score of 30th on the Korean iOS game best-selling list, and still maintains a good revenue growth momentum.
South Korea and MMO categories are all areas that the Internet is good at. On the whole, "데스가르드" is very targeted in the Korean market, and the product gameplay and art are built around the preferences of Korean users; In terms of purchase marketing, as a new game launched in February, "데스가르드" is not very much at present, and in terms of material creativity, it mainly shows game fighting gameplay and art scenes, and it is worth noting that it will be paired with some live materials to attract users.
For example, in the following material, the video begins with the content of the real beauty "dress-up catwalk", and with the dress-up content, the rare equipment of the game is displayed at the bottom of the screen, showing the "appearance change brought about by character upgrades", quickly grabbing the user's attention through the live material in the first few seconds, and then switching to the gameplay scene display of the game.
Source: AppGrowing International
There are also creative ideas for ads that introduce games with live streamers. For example, this material, in the form of a question and answer between two anchors, introduces and endorses the gameplay through the answers of the female anchors, and embeds the gameplay and art display.
Source: AppGrowing International
epilogue
On the whole, these MMO new tours that have achieved good results in Q1 still focus on the market areas of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and South Korea, plus Southeast Asia, these three market areas have always been the main output positions of domestic MMOs, and only the first stop of "Tomb Robbery Notes" chose Europe and the United States. It is not difficult to see that the current MMO overseas thinking is still to tap the mature market and the stock market, and want to stand out in the increasingly volatile market competition, which undoubtedly tests the strength of game manufacturers' product polishing, buying volume, brand marketing and so on, which is a comprehensive "user battle".