After our article on why Voodoo was beating indie developers on the app store, we wanted to reach out and uncover how they run such a successful publishing division? Their Publishing Manager Alexander Shea was gracious enough to give us a little more insight into how their processes work.
We’ve been following the trend of Hyper Casual game design and the rise of the core mechanics that are trending on the store. I’ve always been interested in mobile game publishing (having been a mobile game publisher myself for a number of years!) and I still think publishing houses add a lot of value to new and experienced game development studios. I asked some pretty tough questions and Voodoo gave as much insight as they could, but can’t share download or revenue figures with us. Let’s jump into the interview:

1. A lot of your games are clearly inspired by others in the market, how do you take steps to differentiate them from each other?

The studios we work with have a huge amount of independence and autonomy when it comes to the conception of new games. This freedom is very important to them and we wouldn’t want to limit their creativity. As with any other artistic sector (movies, music, painting etc.), it is natural that studios will be inspired by what others do. We try to go beyond that and encourage studios to be innovative and create something new and disruptive. In coaching studios, we regularly push them beyond their comfort zone, particularly when it comes to game ideation. We also provide more specific feedback and guidance at later stages of the prototyping cycle. Just to take an example among many, with “Perfect Hit case study,” a hit we launched in August, we were able to take a game with a 9% D7 retention to a 15% D7 retention by making fundamental changes to the gameplay. But we went further and tipped the scale for both the D7 retention (22%) and CPI ($0.15) with a creative addition to the game, both to the visuals and to the game feeling. By layering each level on top of each other (essentially adding a hole in end-of-level targets), we transformed a good prototype into a major hit. In this case, the idea itself originated in the publishing team and was brilliantly executed by the developer.

2. How much value does differentiation have in the market? How do you decide how much differentiation is good?

Differentiation is important because an innovative gameplay will have more chances of being successful. For example with the hit game Tenkyu the initial prototype’s gameplay was based on the classic game where you navigate a marble through a tilting board. This was too static and not particularly innovative. The main twist we worked on with the developer was to add layered platforms of different shapes, so the marble would fall from one maze to the other. After this big change D1 and D7 retention went through the roof!

3. How many games does Voodoo publish on a monthly basis? How many games are cancelled in soft launch vs globally launched?

We’re on an upward trend at the moment. On average we’re looking at 4 games per month. A studio can expect to publish a first hit game after 5-10 prototypes on average; subsequent hits are typically even more frequent.

4. What % of developers that you discuss with do you end up actually working with?

All of them! We are very tech-focused: we have built a platform that has allowed us to scale our efforts. This dashboard allows developers to access Voodoo’s growing knowledge library, and also to test their prototypes to get data. Voodoo’s dashboard is unique on the market– every studio we work with can launch free test campaigns for their prototypes, from Day 1.

Thanks to this dashboard, our partner studios are informed, in a matter of days, of whether their game is a future Hit, a prototype with high potential, or a prototype to ‘kill’. Whilst we’re very proud of this dashboard, we’re aware it’s far from perfect; we’re constantly bringing improvements to it based on the developers’ feedback.

5. How have the success-criteria KPIs changed for hyper casual games over the last year? (CPI, D1 Retention, Videos/DAU, Adoption, etc.) 

Our historic KPIs have been successful indicators to date, so we’ve used them consistently. We are open to revisiting our KPIs; at the end of the day, it’s about the LTV of users, and there’s only so much a seven-day retention will capture.

6. What metrics do you typically look at when a game is in soft launch? How do you run a campaign in soft launch to ensure these metrics are measurable?

We typically look at retention (D1 over 50% and D7 over 20%), as well as a low CPI.

7. It seems like there has been some blending of Idle mechanics and Hyper casual mechanics over time — do you see this as a lasting trend or just a fad in audience tastes?

Idle is an interesting mechanic that can definitely help with long-term retention. However, integrating it in hyper casual games should be decided on a case-by-case basis. This wouldn’t work well on a game like Helix Jump, or Hole.io for example.

8. Testing & developing UA Creatives seem like an incredibly important part of your process. Any recommendations for other developers on what types of creatives work for hyper casual games?

If you work with us we will take care of all of the creative ad work. We’ve got a really talented and wacky team of artists who will test out a lot of creatives every single day. This means that the developers we work with can really focus on what they do best and what they enjoy the most: building amazing games! This is particularly relevant for smaller studios. When we worked with H8 to develop Helix Jump, their small team was able to focus on developing innovative and crazy prototypes, rather than on developing creatives. This approach was more effective, time-efficient and eventually led to Helix Jump.  Part of the “Voodoo” mindset we encourage studios to adopt is to focus on what they do best and where the value really lies i.e. game development.

9. What role do you think demographics of gamers play in a game’s CPI?

It’s really important to build a game that works well with men and women at the same time. If CPI is low in those two demographics, then you are much more likely to have a big hit! Otherwise, if you have a low CPI with men, but high with women (which is often the case), then you’re cutting yourself from half of the market!
Some features to consider when building gender-balanced games include gameplay (contemplative vs too competitive) and color scheme (pastel vs too vivid). Ultimately, we study each game’s data individually to develop a strategy to achieve this balance.

10. What do you believe are the next opportunities in Hyper Casual? (genre, mechanics, audience)

We’ve seen a recent surge in .io games and multiplayer games, and a shorter ‘incremental game’ trend before that. We don’t claim to consistently call hyper casual trends ahead of the curve, but trends have begun as a result of a conversation between our publishing managers and our partner studios in the past.

11. What do you believe the next threats are in Hyper Casual? What do you think will change as new developers and established companies enter the fray?

The biggest challenge we face is time to market. We know that our partner studios will publish hit games down the line, but our work is to help them get there in record time. Whether it takes 5, 10 or 15 prototypes to get there makes a big difference for our partners, and we are always looking for ways to reduce this lead time.

12. Hyper Casual is becoming more and more competitive, do you see any other promising developers in the space?

There are always promising developers out there! We like to work with developers that have raw talent and that are hungry for success, regardless of location or the size of the team.
The studio OHM Games is extremely promising. They have a great vision, excellent creative talent, and the team is very focused and united. They’ve recently launched two successful games, “Knock Balls” and “Wall Clean,” and we have no doubt they will break the top charts again.

13. Can you tell us about some of the developers you’ve helped succeed?

I think the Flappy Dunk Success Story is a great one. Paul Breton and Clément Germanicus, around 25 to 27 years old, french and cousins.

The gameplay was too difficult and the controls were not intuitive at all but we felt otherwise the game was well executed and the idea was original. We schedule a meeting and we felt immediately the good vibe and strong energy from Paul. We immediately got along and we created almost a friendship relationship. 

So we tested their game Madwad and the results were terrible. High CPI and low retention. At the time, we were doing a hackathon at Voodoo so I suggested to Paul to follow our rhythm and create a game in 48h. He accepted and all we needed was an idea. It was early 2017 and Ketchapp was totally leading the hyper casual market. But we were not fans of how they balanced their games. Theirs were too cold, too minimalistic and, most of all, too hard! I was playing HopHopHop at the time but was really frustrated with a lot of small details in the game.

I asked Paul what he thought about the game and he told me he was playing it as well and had the exact same feeling as me. We knew what to do. Two days later we were playing Flappy Dunk.

The game did millions of downloads and still growing.

14. What is the typical lifespan for a hyper casual game? How long does an average successful game remain in the charts? What typically restricts their lifespan versus a typical free to play mobile game?

Only time will tell! Some of our biggest hits seem to defy gravity and remain very popular. Take Snake vs Block for example: it came out in May 2017 and is still comfortably in the top 100 ranking in the US on iOS. Hyper casual is such a new market, we simply don’t know the limits yet!

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Thanks for a great interview Alex! If you’re interested in working with Voodoo you can get in touch with them over on their main site.

Mobile gaming has shifted, again. The hypercasual genre has begun to dominate the free app charts. In 2017 Ketchapp (now owned by Ubisoft) started a revolution of simplicity in game design with mobile titles such as Tower or Ballz. The games focused on clear visuals and simple mechanics and very light progression systems.  They also importantly removed IAP as the core monetization and replaced it with Advertising revenue. The games were so simple and casual that anyone could understand them in under 10 seconds. Since then, there has been a proliferation of publishers, studios, and solo indie developers each working on similar casual titles. Space is highly competitive, but there is a clear king of the app store, Voodoo, recently receiving $200 million from Goldman Sachs.

Reviewing the estimated data on Sensor Tower for June in the Top 100 US Free Game charts, Voodoo accounted for 24.7%* of all the free downloads. Broadening the view to all Hypercasual games, approximately 57% of all free game downloads can be attributed to this space.**  

Number of games in the Top 100 Free Games US Chart - June 2018

Publisher	Number of Games
Voodoo	18***
Playgendry	3
Tastypill	3
Lion Studios	3
Ketchapp	2

*Data taken from Sensor Tower estimated US game downloads from June 2018
**Data taken from Sensor Tower estimated US game download from June 2018 and assessing the apps mechanics and monetization stream
***Rock of Destruction, Stone Skimming, Dune, Twenty48 Solitaire, Fight List, Paper.io, Twisty Road, Splashy, Waves, The Cube – What’s Inside, Flying Arrow, Stack Jump, Rolly Vortex, Baseball Boy, The Fish Master, Snake VS Block, Color Road, Helix Jump, Hole.io

Of all the genres of games released on the app store, no other genre commands the pure number of downloads that Hypercasual games do.  The simplicity of the gameplay, coupled with the speed of gamers learning and mastering the challenge creates a voracious need to download the next new idea, older games are quickly discarded or deleted. This has not escaped the notice of many game developers with hundreds of studios trying to build the next mega hit. However, Voodoo has truly mastered both the sourcing and promotion of their titles making it tough for studios to compete. How has Voodoo dominated the Hypercasual space?

#1 Game Design doesn’t matter

Voodoo doesn’t care about your game’s design. Voodoo cares about your game’s market potential. As a publishing house, the majority of their releases can clearly be seen as “inspired by” reproductions of older games.

• Tiny Wings – Dune
• Donut County – Hole.io
• slither.io – paper.io

In each case, success is not down to the game mechanics or technical quality of the product, but Voodoo’s ability to market games more effectively and reach a larger audience than those original games. Bad game design still won’t make the cut, but innovative game design is not as important as tried and tested successful mechanics. If you want help with your hyper casual game design we wrote a post of the Top 10 Hyper Casual game mechanics present today.

This is very hard for the average game developer to swallow and it’s hard to think that game design is the least important aspect to Voodoo’s success. What set’s voodoo apart is their ability to work with a large number of talented studios each working on simple, tested, game designs, and then apply industry-leading marketing and growth practices to push games to the top of the App Store. Dictating which game design is the most popular is something the market decides, not something Voodoo strives to set.

#2 Voodoo releases games faster than you

Making rough approximations through tracking the releases of the majority of HyperCasual publishers on both Google Play and Apple App Store, Voodoo have released 7 new titles that reached top 300 in the US Free in the last 30 days. Most of the other publishers have released between 0 and 2. This is a phenomenal pace compared with classical studios or even publishers who might schedule 1 or 2 apps per month in order to give it the support needed. This highlights a fundamental shift in business practices.

Most developers’ first start to iterate, test and soft launch titles in cheaper CPI countries such as the Philippines or New Zealand. Based on the feedback they got back from players, designers and developers optimize and iterate the FTUE or monetization balance to slowly improve the LTV and retention.  When a studio is confident in their polished products, they would approach Apple and Google to showcase their app and hope for a feature. At the same time, they might allocate a large marketing budget and test multiple ad variants in order to be confident in having the largest splash possible. This is too slow for hypercasual, this is not the way Voodoo approach app releases.

Voodoo may have 100-200 development studios each working frantically on new game designs.  In each case, the focus is the core gameplay. The meta and even the advertising is left out for the initial soft launch release. Core loops are then tested without fanfare into key territories such as the US or China in order to see if there are good responses to the mechanic. Voodoo released a simple guide for their gameplay style (Snackable, Youtubable, Straight forward, Not punitive, Innovative) which clearly restricts multiple game designs from the table.

Games are then measured on a brutally tough scale. Each game needs 50%+ D1 retention to even make the cut.  This creates a very competitive environment where stats and data become the key to becoming picked up by these top publishers.  As a developer you want to know that your game can actually reach a large audience, this is where Voodoo has developer a lot of skills.

#3 Voodoo grows games cheaply

In a system where CPIs are low, games can grow fast. If you’re able to spend $1 and make $1.50 back then you should just keep spending more money and grow faster.  This relationship is often quoted as LTV > CPI (check out the bible for more details).

Different genres of free to play mobile games have different monetization profiles and can roughly be categorised by their mechanics or via their audience.  Games with the highest monetization profiles (i.e Casino games) are able to spend $50+ per user because the LTV of their titles is very high. However, their audience is usually quite small.

IAP based monetization models focus on generating the most revenue per user but in doing so their audience becomes harder to find. Hypercasual as a genre works so well because they can lower the CPI to incredibly low levels through clear advertising creative and data-driven programmatic marketing. However, without clear IAPs or items or gacha systems, the model relies on users watching and engaging with advertising. Getting the balance between a very low CPI while maximising the Advertising yield is where the profit is.

#4 Voodoo have better relationships than you

As a developer, you must tread a fine line between showing as many ads as possible (that result in an install) while not breaking the user’s enjoyment of the game. Getting the right ads presented at the right time results in much higher eCPMs.

Because of this, many genres of game perform better than others simply because they create natural breaks in the gameplay where an ad can be shown without disturbing a users playtime.  The better the app is at retaining players through its core loop the more opportunities there are to show ads and therefore the higher the LTV. But this isn’t the only piece of the puzzle. You must show the highest performing ad to the right user in order to efficiently display ads that will result in installs.  

Voodoo is in a better position to maximise this than other studios. Due to their immense size and scale, they have more relationships at better rates than your average development studio.  This means the ads they show are more likely to result in higher paying installs, increasing the LTV further.  The mobile ad networks are ruthless and competitive: everyone wants to work with the largest player. When considering the Hypercasual segment as a business strategy you must take the business development time into account.

#5 Voodoo can scale games into profitable cash cows.

For larger businesses, opportunities must provide enough profit for them to seem interesting. I would say that any game that can drive $10,000 a day in gross revenue is enough to support a smaller gaming studio. Many studios don’t think about making games in terms of gross profit and they often neglect to think about the number of users necessary in order to make that magic $10,000 per day.  

Hypercasual games tend to make lower revenue per DAU. A typical game will be anywhere between $0.01-0.10. Along with their large network of titles Voodoo also has a large volume of data on who their most active players are. Using in-game events to look into player actions, helps you to know clearly which players are playing your games the most. The larger the Voodoo game network becomes the more refined the company can segment or target individual players with effective marketing messages.

As they expand into new genres and different players engage, further refinements in their voice or creative might work better for individual game types. By doing hyper-specific segmentation you can get lower CPIs and more ad views.

What becomes hard for developers is to perform this correctly and at scale. This requires a team of people to analyse, review, create and then execute effective marketing. Voodoo has learnt how to do this very well.

Competing against Voodoo

The biggest mistake most game developers make when attempting to attack the hypercasual gaming market is to think they can innovate through game design. Voodoo has proven that innovation in game mechanics is not as important as cheap and effective marketing. Their pace of release and the scale of their network is growing all the time allowing them to learn and understand their users more and more. To have a viable shot at competing you must be prepared to invest heavily in a strong data warehouse, a talented marketing team and use metrics and data to decide which games have the strongest business case.

Even though this seems like an impossible task, strong-willed and talented studios can carve out their own niche. Find a mechanic that you know well and has strong retention metrics, then work on expanding or perfecting the metagame. Be careful to keep the mechanics pure and simple or you will lose what makes hypercasual special. You must also be ruthless with your game designs and drop anything that doesn’t make the cut, be quick, be bold and follow the low CPIs. Studios like Playgendary, Lion and Super TapX show that it can be done.