two & a half gamers
00:03:05 路 Felix Braberg, Una, Denise Farley, Jakub Remiar
[00:03:05] S2: Perfect, so today we have a special episode because we're here in person. We're gonna talk about the game design of Hillclimb Racing two, the ad monetization and the UA Hopefully uncover why it's been downloaded so many times. But how many times has it actually been downloaded, you think? [00:03:20] S0: I know that all of the games combined have been downloaded, the Hillclimb Racing one and two, and then other games as well that we've published have been downloaded at least, like, two and a half billion times. Yeah. It's in [00:03:34] S4: the billions. Yeah. [00:03:35] S0: Yeah. It's it's... But it's been a long time already. Like, those games have been out in the stores over ten years. It's crazy. [00:03:44] S2: Yeah. Very crazy. So, Jakub, do you wanna start by maybe talking about the feature sets? I think we have a video as well. [00:03:50] S1: So Yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll support this. Yeah. So let me start what we have here. This is one of those games that are pretty much main pillars of the mobile stores. It's been there. Like, I still remember the comment of Tim Sweeney, Epic CEO, and he said, like, when you search Fortnite first game, you get this this instead of Fortnite. So that... That's that's a real tweet. And, yeah, it's it's been there in its first form of course, Hillclimber Sync one. We are talking about Hillclimber Sync two here, which we could say is pretty much like an arcade driving or arcade [00:04:23] S2: It's the arcade driving.
00:04:23 路 Felix Braberg, Jakub Remiar, Una
[00:04:23] S2: It's the arcade driving. [00:04:25] S1: It's played landscape. You have these two controllers, basically. One is hitting the gas. The other is actually lowering the speed or braking. But what's really important is that you actually need to balance your car around the fact that you shouldn't drop on your head. Otherwise, you are pretty much ending the race there. On top of it, of course, you... Yeah. There we go. Of course, you are collecting coins and fuel. Fuel is still quite important because if you run out of it, of course, you're going nowhere. And then the car has different parameters that are scaled throughout the game on different progression layers, basically. And this is one, I think, one of the things that Hillcar racing two does much better, or you can see the evolution between the two games. It has many power progression layers that the, like, the game kinda expands on. Again, each car is different, and you need to upgrade each car separately, which already offers you a big soft currency sync, but the real gacha or the loot box system comes from the parts because each car can be fitted with different parts that are boosting its performance going all the way from boosts, special abilities, and so on and so forth. Yeah. Here we have the chest opening as the parts were right there. The game has many modes. And, again, it's been... Think... Yep. How how long has been in? Around? [00:05:47] S0: Hill Climb Racing two, I think it was released, if I'm remembering correctly, 2016 end of the year.
00:05:47 路 Una, Jakub Remiar, Denise Farley, Felix Braberg
[00:05:47] S0: Hill Climb Racing two, I think it was released, if I'm remembering correctly, 2016 end of the year. [00:05:53] S1: So I think it's ten years anniversary. Happy anniversary. [00:05:57] S0: So, [00:05:59] S1: yeah, I think there were a lot of changes to these progression layers, I think there were a lot of them were added throughout the years now. [00:06:04] S0: Yeah, there's been lots of visual changes and improvements, I think, game modes. Also the social features have been developed further, I think, during the past years. And I think the competitiveness and the social aspects really increase the motivation. Probably increase your motivation to get cool skins for your car. [00:06:28] S4: Think part of it is that you can play with three other players as well. That's a big distinction. So that brings out its sophistication and I think that really from a competitive progression perspective that really like encourages users like under the hood. Yeah. I think it's a big unique selling point. [00:06:47] S0: Yeah, exactly. And besides the competitiveness, like the team features where you're playing like in cooperation with other players that kind of puts pressure on you as well. [00:06:58] S4: Yes, exactly. [00:06:59] S2: It's hard to master as well. I can avoid that. Like, it's very easy to play, but hard
00:06:59 路 Felix Braberg, Jakub Remiar, Una
[00:06:59] S2: It's hard to master as well. I can avoid that. Like, it's very easy to play, but hard [00:07:04] S1: to master. Physics plays a really big part in it, and you need to really make sure what you're doing. And even the level design in this one is, I guess, much more advanced because, again, different cars have different attributes that let them, for instance, jump or move or do different pretty much actions there that are required by the environment themselves, which is driving, of course, the collection aspect of you needing to upgrade every single car. Because otherwise, again, if you upgrade just one car and solve all our problems, it's not going anywhere. That's, like, main design mistake there. But as I said, the parts gotcha is the one that's that's been, I guess, driving most of the revenue on IP, Sam, I'm guessing. Like, it's Wait. [00:07:40] S2: Wait. What is the split between IP and ad revenue? Because the first game was completely ad revenue based. Right? [00:07:45] S0: Yeah. Yeah. It still kind of is because of the nature of the game because it doesn't really have that much of social and competitive feature, if at all. [00:07:54] S2: Yeah. [00:07:54] S0: But I I think in Hillcrest racing two, the last time I checked, it was close to, like, 30, 70 majority for IAPs.
00:07:54 路 Una, Jakub Remiar
[00:07:54] S0: But I I think in Hillcrest racing two, the last time I checked, it was close to, like, 30, 70 majority for IAPs. [00:08:01] S1: Yeah. Yeah. That that says what I'm saying because this game is much more power progression based, which, again, is much more easier to monetize because it's permanent progress and so forth. Yeah. And, again, you have not only, again, this layer of cars, but, again, you can fully upgrade the car, then you unlock the mastery. And, again, you go from there, which is, again, another vector. And it's the usual kind of cat and mouse thing where, you know, players go, they play the game, they upgrade everything, and, again, developer needs to add another progression layer because, again, if you upgrade everything, there's nothing to play with churn. That's that's the thing that happened. Yeah. I think it's quite innovative as I was looking at the latest variations these days because, as I said, lots of ad placements are put directly into the upgrade buttons either of the parts or the properties of the car. Mhmm. But for instance, I've... If you're familiar with these chain offers that have been coming from games like Monopoly Go where you have, like, free, free, paid, free free, like which you like steps. You have an iteration on this with ads, no? [00:08:55] S0: Yeah, we have the ad progression bundle which is targeted at new users. That was an experience that we did some time ago. We did it as an AB test. So yeah, basically you get some of the items for free, some of them you have to watch a rewarded video.
00:08:55 路 Una, Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Denise Farley
[00:08:55] S0: Yeah, we have the ad progression bundle which is targeted at new users. That was an experience that we did some time ago. We did it as an AB test. So yeah, basically you get some of the items for free, some of them you have to watch a rewarded video. [00:09:12] S1: Yeah, it's mimicking the chain steps over. [00:09:14] S0: Yeah, it's been a very think it's been very successful in terms of converting new users into rewarded video watchers. I think that the impression uplift for the first day for new users was like above 10%. [00:09:33] S1: On this scale actually. [00:09:34] S2: The scale is huge. [00:09:36] S4: Yeah, it's rewarded video on interstitials mostly, right? From a format perspective. [00:09:41] S0: Yeah, only rewarded on interstitial in this game, in Hero Climbing Bracing one we have banners as well. [00:09:46] S2: Do you hide the rewarded videos or anything like that for payers? Because if you're 30% payers, that's still at this scale because you're getting millions and millions of DAU, that's a lot of money. Do you slow down rewarded ads or do you [00:09:58] S0: just No, hide actually I was looking at a table a few days ago, has all of our rewarded videos listed. There are almost 30 in the entire game, so there's a lot. Some of them don't even have necessarily a daily cap. You can watch basically as much rewarded videos as you like. And our philosophy kind of is that we're not that concerned with cannibalization when it comes to IEPs. So we don't limit this for purchasers either.