When we put together our extensive list of battle pass and subscription plan implementations at the end of last year, it didn’t leave much room for studios to surprise us with new monetization features – or so we thought. Match3 game Match Masters launched one of the most innovative subscription plans we’ve seen in its February update, replacing its auto-renewing subscription plan pass with a new Premium Pass, activated through in-game purchases. More on that below.
Jumping from monetization to engagement, Playrix continues on its track of beefing up the minigame event experience, with Homescapes adding a new tournament-style event to support a larger exploration event in February. And speaking of in-game events, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang saw huge download and revenue spikes from its collaboration with Attack on Titan, where players could unlock special event currency by watching scenes from the anime and correctly answering quiz questions afterward.
There were plenty of surprises on the new game front in February, too. Notably the Japanese launch of idle RPG Mushroom Legend: The Hero and the Magic Lamp. It’s been a hit with players, so much so that it reached a top-grossing and download position of #2 in the Japanese charts. Its comparisons with Legend of the Slime and a major UA campaign featuring gravure [glamour] Idol Umi Shinonome has some of the answers…
You can find more on the above, as well as deeper dives into the biggest events and updates from the mobile game world in February 2024, below.
February’s casual mobile game updates
The PvP-focussed match3 title, Match Masters, launched an innovative Subscription Plan in its 4.706 update unlike anything we’ve seen before. The game’s auto-renewing subscription plans (Masters Club) were replaced with a new Premium Pass, activated for seven days by making any real money purchase in the game. Other changes included a new Daily Tasks feature and Legendary Booster, ‘Mixy Meow’.
The game had been scaling highly in downloads before the update in January, but February saw the highest daily revenue spikes in the game’s history, with a 95% increase in revenue per download, according to GameRefinery data. This could be caused by the launch of the new subscription plan as it incentivizes frequent real-money IAPs, catering to a larger number of players than the old subscription plan through its more attractive “price point” that might activate especially low-spending players to purchase more.
SimCity BuildIt has a new ad feature that allows players to activate a factory building by watching rewarded ads. Players can activate the factory for 10 minutes at a time, up to six times a day. As factories are an essential part of the core gameplay, players craft the materials needed for their products by crafting them in the factories. This is the first step in building the city in the game.
Homescapes introduced Call of the Wild, its first-ever tournament-type support event to a larger minigame event, which is also the longest tournament in the game to date. Players needed to clear obstacles and collect event points, Shillings, inside the exploration minigame event, adding competition elements to the minigame experience and further incentivizing energy consumption. The tournament is also two-fold, with shorter three-day personal leagues and a global league lasting for the three-week duration of the exploration event.
Additional casual game highlights and other news
- In February, there was a notable surge in certain puzzle games rising up the charts. It is interesting to note that none of these are traditional match3 games.
- Among them, merge2 titles Seaside Escape and Travel Town saw significant boosts, with the latter breaking into the top 20 highest-grossing and top 10 for downloads.
- In the hybrid casual genre, Twisted Tangle and Hexa Short continued their upward trajectory in the top-grossing ranks. On the matching game front, Happy Match Cafe experienced steady growth, reaching the top 50 for grossing.
- Additionally, Match Masters achieved a milestone by entering the top 100 for grossing, fueled by a substantial revenue increase following its latest update.
February’s midcore game updates
The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Attack on Titan collab included a special event gacha, a bunch of tasks events where players could get collab-themed rewards, and the main event where players watched a small part of the anime and answered a question about the series to win the special event currency, Manga.
League of Legends: Wild Rift brought the player-loved 2v2v2v2 Arena limited-time mode permanently to the game with Arena Season 1. This unique mode, originally introduced as a limited-time event mode in November, features fast-paced PvP gameplay where four teams of two face off in a battle royale-esque standoff.
The fights are broken down into several 2v2 rounds in small arenas, with each team having a limited number of lives. Players are restricted to using a limited pool of randomized Champions, adding an element of strategy to the gameplay. The Season 1 of Arena mode is again monetized with Arena Perk Pass offering extra benefits and also introduces a new match-to-match progression layer with Seasonal Augment upgrading. Read full details of the mode in the Live Event tracker.
This is a great example of a good LiveOps strategy by testing a mode as a limited-time event and then reacting to the positive player feedback and sentiment by implementing it as a permanent part of the live event loop with additional features.
Real-time strategy and construction game, Lords Mobile, launched the Pagani Grand Prix invent in collaboration with the Italian supercar brand, Pagani. The collaboration introduced exclusive cosmetic items that could be unlocked using the limited-time event currency Fuels or purchased for real money. The game’s developer and publisher, Chinese studio IGG, also hosted another crossover event with the SNK fighting game Kingdom of Fighters in its 4X title, Doomsday Last Survivor.
Additional midcore gaming highlights
Sea of Conquest, a new 4X Strategy game released in January 2024 by FunPlus, continues to scale, reaching a top-grossing position of #76 in February. In addition to an interesting marine-themed foundation covering the whole gameplay, the game also features a Fallout Shelter-style base-building meta that is quite unique within this space (Last Fortress: Underground is the only successful 4X title in the top-grossing chart so far that utilizes this base-building meta).
- Mushroom Legend: The Hero and the Magic Lamp (キノコ伝説：勇者と魔法のランプ) is a new idle RPG similar to Legend of Slime, where you constantly rub a magic lamp which acts as a gacha to unlock better equipment items. It’s not often that new game launches make the top-ten charts in Japan, but Mushroom Legend reached a top-grossing and download position of #2 in the country, supported by its UA campaigns. These included a retweet campaign in collaboration with gravure [glamour] Idol Umi Shinonome cosplaying as a genie to raffle PS5 and Amazon gift cards, and an outdoor campaign featuring a new theme song. Similarly, the game’s global launch performed well, hitting the top-100 highest-grossing and the top-30 in downloads.
- Our analysts noticed more Cloud versions of games emerging in the Chinese market, allowing players to enjoy the full experience of games without having to download them. At the time of publication, there are four Cloud games in the top-200 downloaded chart and two in the top-200 highest-grossing.
- Top Heroes (from Top War publisher) launched at the end of Jan and has now almost hit the top 100 grossing (managed to pop in and out of the top 100 in JP)
- Top Heroes features a very interesting art style and camera direction, which is reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda and other adventure titles than traditional 4X games. These stylistic hybridization features make it feel more like an adventure RPG rather than a 4X game, especially when combined with its immersive storyline where players can freely move a party of five characters in between levels and battles.
