two & a half gamers
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.
00:09:58 路 Una, Jakub Remiar
[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. [00:10:32] S1: Yeah, but this because the fact that economy is quite deep here. [00:10:36] S0: Yeah. Yeah. [00:10:36] S1: And especially I've seen, like, instance, very smart ones, like, again, rewarded ads are usually done in a way that, again, Fortune ad, we give you some resources, but again, you're giving away your economy. But I've seen again some really, really smart ones, like for instance, you miss your streak of winning races, you can restore the streak on an ad, which again is not giving away any resources. Just gives you the chance. [00:10:56] S0: But you can also restore by using gems. I don't know if it like always offers ads. [00:11:04] S1: I got it offered literally today. [00:11:06] S0: Yeah. And [00:11:07] S1: if you can give a rewarded video for a chance or something that's not giving away direct resources. It's much more harder to design, especially needs to be impactful.
00:11:07 路 Jakub Remiar, Una, Felix Braberg
[00:11:07] S1: if you can give a rewarded video for a chance or something that's not giving away direct resources. It's much more harder to design, especially needs to be impactful. [00:11:17] S0: So actually something that we've noticed is that purchasers are also very engaged rewarded video watchers. So that's also why we don't want to limit the rewarded videos for them either. I know that some games do, and I know that maybe in some cases it can drive up the purchasers. But we've noticed that purchasers usually they do both. They buy and then they watch [00:11:41] S2: reality What if they buy? What's the biggest conversion point? Is it buying gems from offers? Or what do you think, Jakub? Maybe you can answer, but... [00:11:48] S1: I'm I'm guessing the chest system. The chest system. Yeah. Because it's running on, like, a typical shard gacha based system that Flash Royale has, where, again, it's scaling in parts, so each part can be upgraded with its duplicates. And then also there's the time chests that you get through racing, which is again limiting the gameplay to the fact that if you, like, pretty much make your slots full, you can still race and play the game, which is great because, again, you can play it forever, basically, but it's limiting the rewards. Again, you can speed them up with that, do stuff around, like, like, pretty much invest some more resources, but it's nice, I think. I I... Was there a fuel energy before? I don't remember if it was. [00:12:28] S0: In the original. You mean like limiting the session length?